What would make you quit writing? Age? Infirmity? Lack of what you consider success? Boredom? Something else? by Dietrich Death. To put it another way, I’m planning for the long haul, so I tell myself the best is yet to come. And that’s easy to do when I think of the many greats who did their best work late in life — take George Orwell and Nineteen-Eighty-Four. Okay, he was on his deathbed, but he was around long enough to see his masterpiece published and rise to critical acclaim. In spite of a wealth of talent, Cormac McCarthy saw little success from his early writing. In fact he was sixt ..read more

  Terry here, with the answer to the burning question:   What would make you quit writing? Age? Infirmity? Lack of what you consider success? Boredom? Something else?   I’ve often said that doctors will be ready to pull the plug on me, and I’ll yell, “Wait. Let me finish this paragraph.”   I guess that means the short answer is “nothing will make me quit writing.” I wrote before I ever had thoughts of being published. I’d write short stories or descriptions or scenes. It was my way of thinking. And sometimes my way of relaxing. I never was successful at ke ..read more

  Thank you, Josh, for the opportunity to write this. The only thing more surprising to me than Josh liking a contemporary YA fantasy is that I wrote one. And here's the story of how that happened. My latest book almost didn't happen because of the pandemic, and then only happened because of the pandemic. One of my friends and literary heroes is Lawrence Block, who has written books while on cruise ships, so I decided that my next book would be written while I embarked upon a grand circuit of the United States by rail. (You see where this is going, don't you?) I even asked ol' LB for ad ..read more

  I just found out that Publishers Weekly has let go of some its reviewers and is reviewing fewer mysteries. PW is one of the top reviewers. Which reviewers will take their place? Kirkus? Booklist? Library Journal? Or maybe some of the private reviewers. Do reviews matter to you? Do you think they influence readers? Who do you count on for reviews and why?   Reviews matter, and then they don’t.   The question is whether the reason you’re reading reviews is personal or business.   As writers, we all crave some form of validation that our efforts are not for naught. We hope ..read more

 Q: Publishers Weekly has let go of some its reviewers and is reviewing fewer mysteries. PW is one of the top reviewers. Which reviewers will take their place? Kirkus? Booklist? Library Journal? Or maybe some of the private reviewers. Do reviews matter to you? Do you think they influence readers? Who do you count on for reviews and why?   - from Susan   So many professional book review options have disappeared over the past 20 years that this is just another cut into the fabric of traditional book publishing. Whole sections or pages of newspapers dedicated to helping readers fin ..read more

I’m seeing more diversity offered in reading these days and am reading a lot more diverse protagonists and subjects. I feel as if it’s opening up my world. What trends have you noticed in the last year, for better or worse? The world of fiction publishing is a relatively new one for me. I can speak to two other worlds of writing and reading - academia, specifically publishing research papers in academic peer-reviewed journals; and the world of non-fiction writing, of popular science books. While publishing has gone a long long way forward in terms of diversity in both these fields, I can tell ..read more

I’m seeing more diversity offered in reading these days and am reading a lot more diverse protagonists and subjects. I feel as if it’s opening up my world. What trends have you noticed in the last year, for better or worse?  The 1927 World Champion New York Yankees. (I’ve circled all the Black, Latinx, and Asian players in bright red below.) And here are the 1981 World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers. Things had started to look a lot better by the 1980s. The Dodgers, in fact, had thirteen POC players on that roster, and five of the nine starters were e ..read more

I’m seeing more diversity offered in reading these days and am reading a lot more diverse protagonists and subjects. I feel as if it’s opening up my world. What trends have you noticed in the last year, for better or worse? by Dietrich Diverse characters in mysteries and crime fiction are nothing new, but the ones who are complicated and dynamic often feel like fresh air to me when lined against the stereotypical types of the past decades. Don’t get me wrong, I love Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, true originals in their day, and there are many other characters who I like to revisit now and the ..read more

  Hi! Terry here, with our question of the week:  We're seeing more diversity offered in reading these days and am reading a lot more diverse protagonists and subjects.  What trends have you noticed in the last year, for better or worse?   Back in my college years I took a literature course where we read several books by gay authors. You might think that I, a straight, white, middle-class, woman would feel a little timid about taking a peek into a part of life I knew nothing about. But I wasn’t. Having been a reader since the age of four when I begged my dad to teach ..read more

I’m seeing more diversity offered in reading these days and am reading a lot more diverse protagonists and subjects. I feel as if it’s opening up my world. What trends have you noticed in the last year, for better or worse? Brenda here. I remember my good friend creating a gay character some twenty years ago and being told by the publisher that this would greatly limit her book's appeal. She was advised to remove the gender diversity. Happily, this narrow-minded lens has opened, and books, television, movies, even commercials, are more honestly portraying the true make-up of society ..read more