Let’s tell the truth about Creative Artists; we already know the myths: Myths About Creative Types All Creative Artists are right-brain, impractical people, Given a choice, creative people tend to wear shabby clothes and messy hairstyles. Creative people all keep odd hours and disorganized lives. Artists are profligate, spendthrifts who don’t understand the value of money, and; Damn few artists have enough sense to run a suc...
Fact: Ireland is a Modern Country Sad Fact: Few people outside of Ireland realize this. Thanks to the impressions of popular culture, many Americans still tend to think of bombs, booze or leprechauns when they hear the worlds “Irish” or “Ireland”. Those who read, remember Yeats or the Potato Famine. Movie-fans recall Darby O’Gill or The Quiet Man. Few of either group think of murder. Yet, Murder in a ...
I love the way things evolve. (Don’t be scared if you’re feeling fundamentalist; I’m not talking Darwin here). I mean that as standards of civilizations and cultures change, standards of popular arts morph along with the culture. In that way, we can study the values of any era by looking at what was created and celebrated during that time. And, since mysteries have been popular literature since the first R...
For some folks, mysteries are two-sided stories. There’s always the central puzzle to solve: usually who left a corpse (or corpses) laying around. Then there’s the motive behind the misdeed. But what keeps a lot of mystery readers glued to the page is the thrill of the chase. They stay awake for hours, mentally following a Sam Spade or Cormoran Strike from one risky scenario to the next, taking on all comers in a fig...
The child is father of the man, at least that’s what Wordsworth wrote. (Wasn’t he a loquacious so-&-so?) That means the things we love as kids often influence our tastes as adults. I am (unfortunately) old enough to acknowledge the truth in this observation, but I wonder if writers deliberately trade on this idea. After all, how do you create adult readers who’ll love Fantasy/Science Fiction? Wait until the...