Smatterings

The Banffshire Journal meets Shona Maclean, newly minted historical crime writer.

Oline Cogdill on perceived gender disparities in mystery awards.

Leon Neyfakh chats with new Faber US head Mitzi Angel, who seems pleased to be getting the hell out of the UK publishing industry landscape.

James Patterson in Entertainment Weekly.

Max Allan Collins on his alter ego Patrick Culhane.

The Murdoch Mysteries, based on the novels by Maureen Jennings, is up for several Gemini Awards.

As others have said, Molly Friedrich's interview in Poets & Writers is a must-read.

Oscar Villalon takes a buyout and Regan McMahon will replace him as books editor of the SF Chronicle.

Japan's publishing industry is running into problems, too.

Just because Salman Rushdie might be right, does that make him any less of a douchebag?

Did the Superman story emerge because of a robbery gone terribly wrong?

I feel sorry for those who flew yesterday.

And yes, I am sick and tired of this phrase as well.

Comments

[I.J.Parker]

Oline Cogdill is warming up the old complaint that women don't get enough awards. In this case, I felt obliged to speak up, but her site would not let me post. I'm a past Shamus winner and served as judge on the 2008 committee she complained about. At no time was there any bias against female authors. Two of three judges in my category were women. We just didn't have submissions from women that were strong enough to be in serious contention. It can happen. Let's hope that we never descend to political correctness in the judging of awards.

[Leonard T. Carruthers]

I don't say this to start an argument but do very many women write private eye novels? I assume that is what this award is about since it's called the Shamus. One of my favorite writers is SJ Rozan and she used to write about a private eye but in recent years she has not. I know Sue Grafteon is still around but I think most of these books are written by men. If there were an award for romance novels I don't think very many men would win it!

[John Dishon]

So why is Salman Rushdie a douchebag?

[JDRhoades]

Oh, for god's sake...are we going to have to have the same discussion every time an award doesn't have a female nominee? Given the past history of the Shamus awards (the year I was nominated, there were two women in my category, both good friends and damn fine writers, and one of them won), I don't see how this issue can even be raised in regards to the PWA.

And I.J,. you did get through eventually.

[Sarah]

Dusty - I wonder if we're getting to the "have you stopped beating your wife" stage of this discussion, where any response has the emotional equivalence to zugzwang.

Related to that, I was reading the most recent SinC newsletter and there was a short progress report on the Review Monitoring Project, which looks for perceived gender disparities by those who review crime fiction. And in light of cutbacks and changes to the review landscape, is this even the right question to ask right now?

[David J. Montgomery]

Regarding the SinC project... What were their conclusions?

[Scott Phillips]

nope--Salman remains a douche....

[Steve Allan]

I just did a spit take all over my computer screen with the douchebag thing. Thanks for the laugh.

[Dave White]

Oh my God, zugzwang is the coolest word ever. I have never heard it before and had to look it up. Now I intend to use it at least 3 times a day.