All Blog Posts Tagged 'life' (67)

From Hitler History to Mahler Mystery: J. Sydney Jones’s Writing Life

Some authors exude the pleasure of reading and writing (and, surprisingly, when you meet them, many just don’t.) J. Sydney Jones is such a man, with a breadth of writing experience in a range of genres that’s deeply impressive and carries with it an obvious love of his craft. His Viennese Mystery series is a fascinating way to delve into one of Europe’s loveliest, most cultured cities – and damned entertaining, too. He’s also the…

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Added by Matt Rees on February 18, 2010 at 8:10pm — 3 Comments

No more Mister Nice Guy

This is where it gets ugly.

Last week I zapped off the manuscript of my new novel to my agent in New York. My wife told me to get working on the next book. It’s not because she’s worried about me slacking off and failing to pay the rent. No, it’s because she knows what happens when I’m not writing.

Ever read “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”? When I’m writing, I’m Dr Jekyll. All my unloveable urges are intellectualized and subsumed to a pleasure in the creative… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on October 29, 2009 at 4:43pm — No Comments

The Real Iraq War: Michael Anthony’s Writing Life

By now it’s no secret that the Iraq War has been a disillusioning experience for many of the U.S. servicemen sent there. The literature on the war has, so far, been mostly written by journalists. There’s plenty of it, and like most journalism it runs pretty mainstream and inoffensive, no matter how bloody the scenes depicted. But… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on October 28, 2009 at 8:01pm — No Comments

Location, location

Writers live in their heads. What may be travel to you is location-scouting for me. In some ways, I’m never where I am. I’m imagining that place on the page in a future book. It won’t exist until I’ve written about it.

I was standing on a deserted bridge across the Rhine in the Swiss town of Rheinfelden a couple of weeks ago in the evening twilight. The river flowed very fast. The rain was steady. It patterned the field-grey surface of the water in scattered patches, so that it… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on October 15, 2009 at 6:29pm — 1 Comment

Your Life and Your Ride

Your Life and Your Ride

When your ride

Is cold, hard steel

And your day

Is long, hot and hostile,

How do you end

Your night's lonely thoughts?

Are they cold and hard

Like your ride?

Are they long, hot and hostile

Like your day?

Are do you separate

The job from your personal life?

It is a struggle

That leaves many

Swimming in the sauce

Or choking on a… Continue

Added by Roger C. Bull on October 15, 2009 at 2:29am — No Comments

Moore's new Thailand noir

Christopher G. Moore has book 10 in his terrific Vincent Calvino crime series out this week. "Paying Back Jack", which will be out in December in the UK. I love the Calvino series for the way it leads the reader into the underbelly of Bangkok in the company of its Italian-Jewish New Yorker private eye. PBJ gives us that… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on October 7, 2009 at 5:29pm — No Comments

I Have Publishing Surrounded: John Higgs's Writing Life

Thomas Carlyle wrote that “A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.” There may be some debate as to whether Timothy Leary’s life was well-spent. However, his biography by John Higgs is one of the most well-written and compelling books you’ll ever come across. “I Have America Surrounded: The Life of… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on September 30, 2009 at 12:48am — No Comments

Ellroy Queen: Megan Abbott’s Writing Life

Megan Abbott is the female James Ellroy. When I read her Edgar-award-winning “Queenpin,” I immediately was put in mind of everyone’s favorite noirmeister. Dig it. Even more I loved “The Song is You,” in which Abbott took a real-life missing persons case from 1949 and plumbed her Hollywood characters for real… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on August 26, 2009 at 1:53am — No Comments

11 arrondissements to go: Cara Black’s Writing Life

Each of Cara Black’s titles takes her computer-security PI Aimee Leduc on the trail of a murder in a different quartier of Paris -- Montmartre, Clichy, Bastille. Aren't those names alone enough to make you want to read them? The latest is… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on August 23, 2009 at 5:33pm — No Comments

Five smokes and a new novel: Klaus Modick’s Writing Life

When my second novel A GRAVE IN GAZA was being translated into German, I received an email from my translator. He had a number of penetrating questions about certain phrases I'd used in the book. He also happened to be the only translator who asked me a question about any of my books (and my work is translated in… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on August 9, 2009 at 8:30pm — 2 Comments

A great “What if”: Richard Jay Parker’s Writing Life

In his terrific “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft,” Stephen King notes that the best way to start a novel is with a compelling “what if.” Try this one: “Vacation Killer” sends out a chain email declaring that he’s kidnapped a woman and that if you don’t forward the email to 10 friends he’ll “slit the bitch’s throat.” That’s about as good a “what if” as anyone--Big Steve included--could come up with. It’s the premise for Richard Jay Parker’s debut… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on August 8, 2009 at 1:23am — No Comments

Poetry from the ‘driest’ book of the Bible: Yakov Azriel’s Writing Life

A few years ago I was at a literary conference near Tel Aviv. I found an eclectic mix of writers on the panel with me. I’m a crime writer. You wouldn’t expect me to be paired with a writer of poetry who takes his inspiration from the stories of the Bible. But as Yakov Azriel read his poetry, I sat beside him… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on August 5, 2009 at 8:12pm — No Comments

The Snow Queen of Crime: Monica Kristensen’s Writing Life

On a recent trip to Oslo, I lunched with my publisher there Hakan Haket and an astonishingly fascinating local crime writer named Monica Kristensen. Extraordinarily charismatic, she has a trove of stories unlike anything one tends to come across in typical… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on August 3, 2009 at 1:36am — No Comments

The ex-husband’s trenchcoat and Zoe Ferraris’s Writing Life

Fiction—and lately in particular crime fiction—can take us deep into alien cultures, through the emotions of the characters who act as our guides, translators and social commentators. The more alien the culture, the bigger the challenge to a Western author. Zoe Ferraris took on Saudi Arabia, one of the most closed cultures… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 28, 2009 at 10:12pm — No Comments

Elmore Leonard's 11th Rule of Writing

I’ve always enjoyed Elmore Leonard’s novels and seen him as one of the true stylists of popular fiction. In a review, I even described my pal Christopher G. Moore as the “Elmore Leonard of Bangkok” and I meant it as a compliment. But I have a bone to pick with the great Elmore.

I just read a book of Elmore’s short stories from 2004 titled “When the Women Come Out to Dance.” In many ways it’s superb. The… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 15, 2009 at 10:59pm — 13 Comments

“What happened to the third little pig, Daddy?”: Bob Burke on pig detectives and his Writing Life

Anyone who’s perused the crime fiction section of their bookstore knows the joy of finding something original among the tired old shelves of loner detectives who play by their own rules on the mean streets of some dingy inner city. The clichés of the genre were uppermost in my mind when I chose to write about Omar… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 14, 2009 at 8:59pm — 2 Comments

Slacking

There's a scene in Anne Tyler's THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST where the protag, who's gone into safe mode after too much emotional pain, starts doing odd things to accomplish daily tasks. My favorite is that he washes his clothes as he bathes, throwing them on the shower floor and sloshing them around with his feet.

Of course there's Kramer on SEINFELD, who prepares salad in the shower as an efficiency task.

I fear that if I were alone very often or very long, I would become like… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on July 14, 2009 at 12:30am — 1 Comment

Review: New Liss mystery for lovers of Dumas and Perez Reverte

The Devil’s Company

By David Liss

Published: July 7, 2009 Random House isbn: 1400064198

Fans of swashbuckling classics by Alexandre Dumas and more recently Spaniard Arturo Perez-Reverte will love David Liss’s new novel The Devil’s Company. But they’ll also get something those authors don’t provide: a gritty… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 7, 2009 at 7:25pm — No Comments

Poets central to Palestinian culture

My favorite Palestinian poet is Taha Muhammad Ali, a quietly bumbling presence when he reads his poems, but a deceptively intelligent writer. The warmth and intelligence of Taha’s readings drove Adina Hoffman, a Jerusalem-based writer, to plan a biography of the poet (… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 1, 2009 at 5:52pm — 2 Comments

Me and the White Rabbit

It's more and more Alice-like lately, with me running all the time and muttering to myself, "Oh my stars and whiskers, I'm late!" Or something like that.

So the question is, when am I supposed to do all those wonderful things people keep telling me I can't succeed without? A good business system requires learning the computer processes involved. A good marketing plan involves time spent meeting, communicating, schmoozing. A good writing process involves writing, writing, writing. A… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on June 29, 2009 at 11:14pm — No Comments