Mystery Writing

Otto Penzler just can’t help himself. He’ll use any excuse at all to attack "cozies." He even found a way to use the launch of the International Thriller Writers organization, of which I am a proud member,  as a way to take yet another swipe at the genre and its authors in a New York Sun article:

We all have our prejudices (yes, you too). I admit that if I were on the Best
Novel committee, books with cutesy pun titles would be eliminated before I read
the first page. They may be fun, they may have their charm, but they are not
serious literature and don’t deserve an Edgar. Which is why someone had the
bright idea to create Malice Domestic, a conference devoted to fiction so
lightweight that an anvil on top of it is the only way to prevent it from
floating off to the great library in the sky. Other readers might eliminate
espionage novels, feeling they are not "mysteries," or books with dirty words
and nasty sex scenes because they think these things have no place in a nice
mystery.

A new organization has just started up as a counterweight to the literarily
negligible works honored at Malice Domestic. David Morrell and Gayle Lynds, two
stars of the thriller world, have helped create International Thriller Writers
Inc.

The formation of the ITW had nothing to do with the existence of Malice Domestic, or displeasure with cozies, or a lack of respect for their authors, many of whom I count as close friends. The ITW was created to:

…celebrate the thriller, to enhance the prestige and raise the profile of thrillers, to award prizes to outstanding  thriller novels and authors, and to create opportunities for collegiality within  the thriller community.

Where does it say anything about cozies or Malice Domestic? No where. This is a case of Otto Penzler making up inflammatory bullshit to serve his own prejudices. Otto has his prejudices, that much is clear. Fine. But to smear ITW and its members with them is another matter. The ITW currently has Otto’s column posted on their website, which implies that we endorse his idiotic views that cozies, and those who write them, aren’t worthy of recognition or respect. I hope the ITW leadership will remove his column from the website.

(Thanks to Toni Kelner for the heads-up)

UPDATE 5-17-05 –  I want to applaud my colleagues in the ITW for doing the right thing:  The leadership has left Otto’s column up on their website, but they’ve deleted the inflamatory paragraphs.

The comments were not necessary for the purpose of sharing
information about us that has appeared in the press, so they were
edited out. The posting of the column on the site in the rather obscure press
clippings section was in no way intended to endorse Penzler’s views.

Chair, ITW Web Committee

Tony Fennelly, one of the Edgar judges in the Best Paperback Original committee, has gone on DorothyL, a discussion group of mystery fans and writers, to air her displeasure about the committee’s choice for the Edgar. She also talks about some of the deliberations (without naming the specific judges she disagreed with). This is the second year in a row that a judge has violated the confidentiality rules that govern Edgar judging and gone public with details about committee deliberations (Hal Glatzer did it last year in far more detail).  This outrageously unprofessional behavior infuriates me. Judges go into the Edgar process knowing from the outset what the rules are and agree to them. Fennelly and Glatzer’s wrong-headed conduct reflects badly on the MWA, the Edgars, their fellow judges, and the award winners. I think it’s time that the MWA consider adopting disciplinary actions against members who violate the confidentiality of Edgar judging. What’s your view?

Apparently, Harlan Coben isn’t the only one who uses a coffee shop as his office. Novelist William Kent Krueger calls the St. Clair Boiler his office and wrote a loving tribute to it in the Washington Examiner (which I discovered on David J. Montgomery’s blog).

It’s 6:30 in the morning. I’m sitting in my car, eyeing the dark
windows of the St. Clair Broiler across the street. There’s almost no
traffic. The sidewalks are empty. A peach glow in the east suggests
that the sun will rise within the hour.

Deep in the Broiler, a
light comes on. It’s located in the kitchen where Juan is firing up the
griddle. A minute later, the red neon flame over the front door
flickers to life. Inside the cafe, there’s movement. Karen – or Lis,
or Sydney, or Carol, depending on the day – flips the main light switch
and unlocks the door. I grab my notebook and pen and head to my office
– booth No. 4.

It’s been this way for twenty years. I write
mysteries for a living, and I write them at the St. Clair Broiler in
St. Paul, Minn.

If he’s on the road, he still finds a coffee shop booth to write in.

I don’t make it to booth No. 4 every day anymore. I’m frequently on
tour or attending conferences. But I don’t desert the process. Wherever
I am – Los Angeles, New York City or Omaha – every morning, I find
myself a little coffee shop, take out my wire-bound notebook and pen,
and bend to the magic.

What he doesn’t say is what kind of deal he’s worked out with the coffee shop owner (or, I should say, what kind of deal he worked out before he was a published novelist). Don’t these coffee shop owners ever get ticked off that authors are occupying a booth all day… a booth that could be turned over perhaps a dozen times for pay customers?

One of these days, I’ll have to share the story of what happened when I was brought in by a movie studio to adapt his terrific novel IRON LAKE as M.O.W/back-door pilot. It’s a true Hollywood story…or, I guess he might consider it more of a Hollywood nightmare. At least this was one nightmare that, so far anyway, hasn’t come true.

The winners of this year’s Agatha Awards were announced today:

Best Novel – Jacqueline Winspear, BIRDS OF A FEATHER
Best First Novel – 
Harley Jane Kozak, DATING DEAD MEN
Best Short Story – Elaine Viets, "The
Wedding Knife" (from CHESAPEAKE  CRIMES)
Best Nonfiction – Jack French,
PRIVATE EYELASHES
Best  Children’s/Young Adult – Blue Balliette, CHASING
VERMEER

Congratulations to all the winners, but most of all my friends Harley, Elaine and Jacqueline!

CBS has posted an interesting interview with my friend Harlan Coben, culled from his appearance on The Early Show. Here’s an excerpt on how he writes:

"I usually go to, like, a local coffee shop or the library. I like a
little white noise when I write, but not as much white noise as my
kids. So I usually go someplace. It makes me concentrate harder. You
look like you’re being a jerk writing in a coffee shop, but that’s
where I work best."

Coben candidly admits he’s not as big on research as many other
fiction writers. "I’m more from the, ‘Hum a few bars and fake it’
genre," he says to Smith. "Tell you the truth, I do research, but I’m
really more concerned with making sure that I am holding you hostage
and gripping you. The research has to come secondary. Sometimes a
writer uses research as an excuse not to write, not to grip, to tell
you cute factoids. I don’t want to do that. I want it do it with the
story."

I have no problem making things up — it’s ficton, after all, so I agree with Harlan on that score. But I couldn’t write in a coffee shop or a Starbucks, I’d feel horribly self-conscious (especially in L.A.).  You walk into any Starbucks in L.A., and people are sitting there writing scripts, almost as if they are striking a pose: "Hey, look at me, I’m a screenwriter. Are you impressed? Would you like to fuck me? Or, better yet, hire me?" It feel so fake to me.  I’m sure some of them really are screenwriters, and they just like a good cup of coffee while they write, but I still hate it.  So I try to avoid doing any writing at all in restaurants or hotel lobbies,  especially in L.A., Vancouver or Toronto.

That said,  I write a lot on airplanes, usually because I am on some kind of pressing deadline and can’t afford not to use the five or six hours. Writing on a plane isn’t so bad if I’m with my family or traveling Bill Rabkin, my TV writing/producing partner. But when i’m traveling alone, with a stranger sitting beside me, it’s extremely awkward. It’s not easy writing when my wife is looking over my shoulder, much less a complete stranger…especially if you’re describing a homicide or somebody having sex.  I don’t blame the stranger for intruding on my privacy– we’re crammed so close together it would be damn hard not to look at the screen.   So what I do is put on a pair of headphones, crank up the music, and pretend I am all alone.  In a sense, I have to forget I am on an airplane at all — I have to lose myself completely in my fictional world.  It usually works.

How do you feel about writing in public?

Otto Penzler trashes writers of so-called "cozies" in an interview with Book Standard.  This time, he says cozies aren’t worthy of Edgar consideration.

Are female mystery-writers—most often the authors of
the more non-threatening, proper cozies—even worthy of the award? Otto
Penzler, dean of mystery-writing in America, says no.
 

“The women who write [cozies] stop the action to go shopping, create a
recipe, or take care of cats,” he says. “Cozies are not serious
literature. They don’t deserve to win. Men take [writing] more
seriously as art. Men labor over a book to make it literature. There
are wonderful exceptions, of course—P.D. James, Ruth Rendell.”
 

Margaret Maron, president of Mystery Writers of America, which doles out the Edgars, and winner of one herself (for Bootlegger’s Daughter
in 1993), sniffs at this bias, as she considers it, saying that good
writers have been overlooked by the MWA as a result of unfair favoring
of male authors and their bloodier plots. “Wit, humor, and domesticity
haven’t been considered as significant as blood and violence.

He says this stuff, casually dismissing some of the genre’s best-loved writers and their books,  and yet whenever he shows up at mystery conventions, people bow at his feet like he’s some kind of royalty.  I don’t get it. 

Best Novel: California Girl by T. Jefferson Parker (William Morrow)

Best First Novel: Country of Origin by Don Lee (W.W. Norton & Co)

Best Paperback Original: The Confession by Domenic Stansberry (Hard Case Crime)

Best Short Story:  "Something About a Scar" – Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You by Laurie Lynn Drummond (HarperCollins)

Best Fact Crime: Conviction:  Solving the Moxley Murder: A Reporter and a Detective’s Twenty-Year Search for Justice by Leonard Levitt (Regan Books)

Best Critical/Biographical: The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories edited by Leslie S. Klinger (W.W. Norton)

Best Young Adult: In Darkness, Death by Dorothy & Thomas Hoobler (Philomel Books)

Best Juvenile: Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett (Scholastic Press)

Best Play: Spatter Pattern (Or, How I Got Away With It) by Neal Bell (Playwrights Horizons)

Best Television Episode Teleplay: Law & Order:  Criminal Intent – "Want", Teleplay by Elizabeth Benjamin.
Story by René Balcer & Elizabeth Benjamin

Best Television Feature or Miniseries Teleplay: State of Play by Paul Abbott (BBC America)

Best Motion Picture Screenplay: A Very Long Engagement – Screenplay by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, based on the Novel by Sébastien Japrisot (2003 Productions)

(Thanks to Sarah Weinman, from whom I stole this post)

There’s been some talk here, specifically in the comments to my "Hot Button Comments" post a few days ago, about what the MWA should be.  It’s a discussion that’s certainly on the minds of many mystery writers I know…and seems timely, given that the Edgar Awards are occuring tonight.

Here are some excerpts from several of Michael Bracken’s comments:

My concern throughout the discussion is to ensure that work that
doesn’t clearly fit either end of the spectrum (bestselling novel
published by major NY house at one end, perhaps, and never-appeared in
print in any form at the other end) is given fair and appropriate
consideration and that the line between "professional" and
"unprofessional" isn’t drawn arbitrarily because someone or some group
is unwilling to carefully examine that gray area between the extremes.

More importantly though, why does one need to have a book published to
be a mystery writer? Why is it that mystery novelists (and I’m
generalizing here, not picking on David specificially) who want to
reform the MWA seem to constantly ignore those writers who write short
mystery fiction?

What we can hope to happen, David, is a reasonably level playing field
where short fiction writers are treated in a manner similar to
novelists and that they have an equal voice in any organization of
professional writers.

One of David Montgomery’s replies was:

Letting everyone in makes about as much sense as the WGA
opening up their rolls to people who like to watch movies. It’s a
professional writers group, and should remain such.

With all due respect to Michael, I agree with David.  The MWA began as an organization for professional
mystery writers and should remain so. I remember how I felt when I got
my WGA card… I knew then that I’d become a professional TV writer and
I was thrilled. I felt the same way when I qualified to join the MWA. I
think the more flexible MWA becomes in their admission requirements the
less meaning membership will actually have. Is that elitist? Yes, it
is…and it should be. What is the point of having a professional
organization if you let in anybody who can pay the dues?

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