Square Pegs

We’d like to congratulate Sarah Weinman on her new position as mystery critic for the Baltimore Sun (that is to say, Sarah’s identity will be known, but she’ll be reviewing mystery novels). We think the Sun made an excellent choice, and we’re thrilled they’re dedicating resources to genre fiction. We frequently link to items on Sarah’s blog, but found ourselves finger-tied this week. And last week. While she’s been off gallivanting, she’s had great guest bloggers. So rather than linking to each and every posting on her site in the recent past, we’re going to suggest people visit her and […]

Looking for a reason to lose yourself in the wilderness? Or are you looking for a reason to sit in a comfy lodge while wilderness rages around you? Yes, that’s the option we prefer. Not that camping and such isn’t appealing, but we’re all about creature comforts. For those seeking a writers’ conference in the middle of majestic Yosemite, have we got an event for you the weekend of August 27 – 29, 2004:

Someone once told us that writing comedy is easy — a bit like falling off a log. Sure, if the log is 1,000 feet up, and when you look down, you realize you’re falling onto a bunch of sharp knives. Okay, maybe writing funny isn’t that hard, but it’s not easy. Especially when the only person you amuse is yourself. It probably should go without saying that happens to us. A lot. That being said, there’s an intrinsic part to writing funny, as Jonathan Ames points out: Comedy is often asked about, and there are courses on it, but sometimes

We didn’t need to our belief in truth, justice, and all that reinforced, but it’s always nice to know it’s still out there. Particularly the part about lawsuits. Just as one can gauge the distance of storms by the sound of lightning, one can predict the timing of lawsuits based on media exposure. Yes, Norma Khouri is considering a lawsuit (look, we’re giving the Pamela Anderson wrote a book story a pass; we need some entertainment). Proof presented by Khouri to her publisher regarding the authenticity of her book remains under scrutiny, but lawsuits are forever. Or something like that.

We have so many items of interest today — and an impending meeting*. Sometimes life simply isn’t fair. As we are not so good at brevity, we will get to a few things, and leave your appetite whetted for the rest. Well, it sounded good before we typed it out. For those of you who thought all reality television was sponataneous, we salute you. You have achieved the Budhha mind sought by television executives. For those who felt “nobody can be that dumb,” well, yes, they can. You need to get out of the house more. After all, do you

Sarah’s holding a discussion about literary authors looking over at the crime genre and thinking “I’m gonna get me some of that.” Sort of like all those people who say to romance authors, “I can do that. You just plug Tab A into Tab B” (for some reason, non-authors think romance is the easy way into publishing, though we suspect mystery authors get the same types of comments: “All you need is a body, huh?”). We think about this a lot — why do we write what we write? Our answer (of course we have one) is that we just