Craig McDonald

Profile Information:

Hometown:
USA
About Me:
Crime novelist, graphic novel writer and author of two nonfiction collections of crime fiction author interviews.
I Am A:
Writer
Website:
http://craigmcdonaldbooks.com
Books And Authors I Like:
Ernest Hemingway, William Lindsay Gresham, Davis Grubb, James Crumley, James Ellroy, James Sallis, Daniel Woodrell, Ken Bruen, Alistair MacLeod, John Prebble, Lester Dent, William Blake, William Butler Yeats, Breece D'J Pancake, Charlie Stella, Tom Russell, Pete Dexter, Craig Holden, Megan Abbott, Laura Lippman, Cormac McCarthy.

Comment Wall:

  • Kim Howell

    Welcome to CrimeSpace Craig. Your site and books look really good and I look forward to reading them through. I'm very new here and already I'd seeing my book collections going to be increasing at an unusual rate. :-)
  • Daniel Hatadi

    And a lurker moves out of the shadows ... glad to have you on board, Craig.
  • Craig McDonald

    Thank you, Daniel, for creating such a great place to lurk, and now, to move around "out of the shadows..."

    And Kim, thank you so much for the warm welcome. Very pleased by the prospect to help make your shelves sag with new titles.
  • Charles Kelly

    Hey, Craig! Welcome to Crimespace. Your novel looks great! Hope to see you back at the Poisoned Pen soon. I had a book signing there Saturday and a ton of people showed up. Great fun!
  • Pat Mullan

    Hello Craig,

    Greetings from Connemara! Just waiting to get my hands on HEAD GAMES !

    Slan, Pat.
  • Northern Light

    'Winter Bone' - check! I have put it on my TBR pile. Thank you for the recommandation
  • Sandra Ruttan

    Hi Craig. Assuming you like darker fiction, skip SC and wait for the next one.

    I'll let you know when the review copy gets here.

    Cheers,
    Sandra
  • Tony Black

    Craig...thanks for the nice post re' Vachss. He's a helluva guy. Parts 2-4 well worth stickin' around for!
    Hey, like your fav authors...we must talk about Papa some time, he da man!!
    Best
    Tone.
  • Sean Doolittle

    Hey Craig--I picked up your book at Bouchercon in Alaska. Looking forward to reading. . . .
  • Shannon Chenoweth

    Thanks for the welcome. This is a great site!
  • Dana King

    Thanks for posting the Spillane/Hunter/Parker video. Great stuff.
  • JackBludis

    Thanks for the videos. Good Stuff.
  • JackBludis

    Craig ... I had to leave the comp last night. What happened to the Block interviews???
  • Craig McDonald

    Hey Jack, I think the Block Interviews were just something that YouTube auto scrolled at the end of the Spillane clip. But I've posted the first of the six-part Block interview you were evidently seeing last night...
  • spyscribbler

    Thanks for the add, Craig! And thanks for posting some really cool interviews over there. I'm going to have a fun Sunday morning. :-)
  • Jochem van der Steen

    Thanks for the nice comments on Sons of Spade. I haven't been on Crimespace for some time but hope you've been enjoying the last couple of posts on SoS as well. By the way, seems we also both like Pulppusher.com!
  • Mitzi Szereto

    You're welcome for the invite!
  • Harding Young

    Cool. Julee has a way of getting into one's soul.

    Best,
    H-
  • Bernd Kochanowski

    Thanks Craig,

    I've seen your face regularly here on crime space, but I never realized that it is the face behind those wonder- and insightful interviews with James Ellroy.

    It seem that you had your last interview (2006 ?) for a while online and removed it when your interview book came out. I hope you don't mind me asking, but do I recall it correctly that he asked you whether you liked "The Cold Six Thousand" ("Did you dig it ?") and you said "yes" and he answered that only 30% of it's readers liked the book.

    In that part of the interview Ellroy seemed demure, almost depressed. I wondered if he will just rewrite the third book or if he will totally dump it. Do you know more ?

    And congrats for the Edgar nomination. As I will review all candidates prior to the announcement of the winners I look forward to read "Head Games"
  • A. N. Smith

    Drink a lot of beer. It'll come soon after.

    Crossing fingers for you for the Edgar (but also for, like, three others in that category. Still, the home team rules!)
  • Luis

    Thanks for adding me. I look forward to reading your work!
  • Alison Bruce

    They used to screen b and w movies late on weekday afternoons, assuming I suppose that old films weren't that sinister. I first saw both Night of the Hunter and To Kill a Mockingbird when I was about 12 and they are still two of my most memorable viewing experiences.
  • Bernd Kochanowski

    Hi Craig,

    just read "Head Games" and was surprised: Under the disguise of a typical US-American crime story in form and setting it is an ambitious literary work (hope, you understand my clumsy description).
  • Craig McDonald

    Bernd, thank you so much for your assessment of "Head Games"...you've truly made my day.
  • carole gill

    thanks so much! I needed that today! and thanks for being my friend.
  • Lisa St. James

    Thanks so much for the welcome :) It was a pleasure meeting and speaking with you today.
  • Craig McDonald

    Hey Keith,
    Thanks so much. As you know from reading Head Games, I didn't exactly start my series in the expected way. Pretty much, quite the contrary; Head Games would more likely be most writers' last book in a series. So, yeah, I think the series format can be kind of deadening. For my part, I went in with a notion of a seven-book series, then intend to get out. It's a number that allows you to maintain quality, and if you know you're going to get out in a limited number of books, well, anything goes, in theory.

    Interesting you mention Ray...I think his plan with Innes is similar to mine: write a really strong, short series that allows you to honestly focus on/portray the cumulative physical and psychological effects of violence and acute trauma on a series character and really carry that toward it's logical outcome. When Ray's guy takes a beating, he doesn't shrug it off like so many series characters seem to do.

    All that said, I'm working on a standalone right now...
  • Kandy Williams

    Yes, Craig, you're right....CODIS is what I was looking for. Thanks for the info.
  • jedidiah ayres

    Thank you sir. I'm brannew to the interweb
  • roger smith

    We do seem to like the same stuff. When are you publishing the Rogues?
  • roger smith

    I'll watch out for it on Amazon
  • Rodney Wiethop

    Craig, I absolutely loved Head Games & just picked up a LE copy of Toros & Torsos, from David at MBTB in Houston. I cant wait to read it. Great stuff. Rod Wiethop