Writing Advice From 1908, Part 1

A few months ago John Floyd asked if I would be interested in a very old book about creative writing.  Mary Lou Condike had found it and offered it to him.  John didn't want it but thought I might.  I said sure, why not. Mary Lou very kindly mailed it to me and it has been part of my bedtime reading for a while.  

Writing the Short-Story by J. Berg Esenwein was published in 1908.  According to Wikipedia it is one of the first creative writing manuals.  When Esenwein wrote it he was the editor of Lippincott's Magazine.

So clearly the information was going to be a little dated.  But I thought it would be fun to see what, if anything, I could learn from this book.  Don't expect a review, just a summary of things I thought were interesting for one reason or another. Some still make sense. A few will astonish you.

* Let's start with something that appears near the end of the book which I am sure will move the hearts of all the writers out there. In discussing the processing of submitting stories to magazines Esenwein asks:  how long should you wait to hear from an editor? "If you do not get an answer in three weeks, it may be wise to drop a line courteously asking for a decision, but you had better wait the month out."  That sound you just heard was the rueful laughter of thousands of authors.  In today's modern age of mad speed and instant communication, well... I have fourteen stories out waiting for judgment by editors.  The wait is currently an average of 131 days, with the median being 95 days.  Considerably more than four weeks.  

* Esenwein tells us the oldest known story is in The Westcar Papyrus.  I had never heard of it but it turns out to be an Egyptian manuscript from roughly 1600 BCE, although the stories seem to be a millennium older.  The tales are about priests and magicians doing amazing things. If you have ever heard that cutting an animal in half and restoring it to life is "the oldest trick in the book," this papyrus is the book.

* "Men are often interested in fictional characters whom they would not care to know in life."

* Mystery writers "all introduce the detective, amateur or professional, for the purpose of unraveling the mystery before the reader's very eyes and yet concealing the key-thread until the last.  Sometimes the web  of entanglement is woven also in full sight -- with the author's sleeves rolled up as a guarantee of good faith; and the closer you watch the less you see."

Esenwein

* Character "names should be fitting. Phyllis ought not to weigh two hundred, nor ought Tommy to commit suicide. Luther must not be a burglar, Maud a washerwoman, nor John spout tepid romance.  The wrong surname will handicap a character as surely as the wrong pair of hands.  Hardscrabble does not fit the philanthropist any more than Tinker suggests the polished diplomat, or Darnaway the clergyman."

* "A man who has a stirring fact or a thrilling experience has not a story until he has used it in some proper way - has constructed it, has built it." - Walter Page 

* Esenwein gives us a list of things a short story is not: an episode, a scenario or synopsis, a biography, a mere sketch, or a tale.  In a tale "events take a simple course," but in a short-story "this course is interrupted by a complication."

* "Never write back sarcastic letters when your offerings are rejected. You may need that editor some day."

* "In the detective plot, the author seems to match his wits against the detective's, by striving to concoct a mystery which presents an apparently impossible situation. It adds to his problem that he must leave the real clue in full sight, yet so disguised that the reader cannot solve the mystery before some casual happening, or the ingenuity of the detective, shows it to the reader at the proper moment."* "To make a first-class short-story longer would be to spoil it."

* Some themes for stories may just "pop into your mind." "Sir, Madame, I am a Story. Write me up!" I wish that would happen more often.

*The advice on the left will make most modern writers, not to say editors, shudder in horror.

* Sir Arthur Phelps quotes an anonymous friend: "Whenever you write a sentence that particularly pleases you, CUT IT OUT." An early statement of "Kill your darlings."

* "Whatever may be the thing which one wishes to say, there is but one word for expressing it, only one verb to animate it, only one adjective to qualify it.  It is essential to search for this word, for this verb, for this adjective, until they are discovered, and to be satisfied with nothing else." - Flaubert

* "Write at white heat because you can think big thoughts only under stress of emotion; but revise in a cool mood."

* Esenwein criticizes writers who "debase their gifts by presenting distorted views of life, placing false values upon the things of experience, and picturing unclean situations -- all for the sake of gain." Thank heavens that never happens anymore.

This is getting long so I will give you the rest of Esenwein's wisdom next Monday.   See you then!

You Could Look It Up

There are probably as many Rules for Writers as there are writers. Maybe more. The rule I’m thinking of today goes like this: Don’t show your research.

A good author of fiction will often do a lot of digging before they write.  Does that type of pistol have a safety? What symptoms does that poison cause? How much wood would a woodchuck—Never mind.

These details can make a story more believable and more interesting.  But it has to look natural.  If the reader thinks they have stumbled into a college lecture they may fall asleep out of sheer habit.

I try to avoid this trap but I must admit that sometimes, darn it, I want you to notice my research. This is partly because I am a recovering librarian, but mainly because when I write a historical mystery it is important to be clear when I am not just making things up.

Bandon, OR

I have a story coming out in the next issue of Black Cat Mystery Magazine called “The Night Beckham Burned Down.” It was inspired by the actual tragic events that occurred in Bandon, Oregon in 1936.
Editor Michael Bracken was kind enough to let me put an Author’s Note at the end pointing out that many of the bizarre anecdotes in my story really happened.  (For example, some people survived the wildfire by submerging themselves in a cranberry bog.) I simply imposed the true events on a group of fictional characters and, naturally, added a murder.

So that’s one way of handling the see-my-research problem.  I used a different trick in  my story in the November/December issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.  “Christmas Dinner” is part of my series set in Greenwich Village in 1958, and there is an important clue based on something that really happened back then.

I thought it was important to make that clear.  Why? Well, imagine the master detective announcing: “I knew John Fictional was the murderer because his middle name is Tyrone.  That fact was never mentioned in this novel, but I just happened to know it.”  You wouldn’t cheer; you’d probably throw the book away. Vigorously.

So I wanted the reader to know that my clue was based on an obscure fact but a genuine one. My solution was to have my detective, the beat poet Delgardo, announce the clue and then say “This is true. Look it up.” He is supposedly talking to his friends, but in reality I am having him speaking to my audience, hopefully without breaking the fourth wall.

I doubt if any of the readers really will look that fact up but at least they know they could.

Let’s get slightly off topic. Until I started writing this piece I had thought Delgardo said “You could look it up,” so I want to look at that longer phrase.

I easily found a website that credits the phrase to Yogi Berra, the legendary New York Yankees catcher and manager.  He was also known as an amazing phrase-maker so it is not surprising that the term gets attributed to him, considering its baseball connection (What baseball connection?  We will get to that.).

Berra’s talent was coming up with phrases that seemed to be half-incoherent and half-Zen koan.  My favorite: “If the people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them.”  And:  “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Believe me, I could go on.

But “You can look it up” is hardly a phrase worthy of the master.  So it is not surprising that I found another website indignantly insisting that the creator was actually Casey Stengel, a legendary pitcher and manager.

Sorry, folks.  He didn’t say it either.

Eddie Gaedel

James Thurber (also legendary, but as an author not a ballplayer) wrote “You Could Look It Up,” a story which appeared in Saturday Evening Post in 1941. The narrator (who sounded a lot like Stengel, actually) told a wild tale about a baseball manager hiring a little person (Thurber said midget but that term is frowned on now) because “I wanted to sign up a guy they ain’t no pitcher in the league can strike him out.”

And here is where the fact and fiction coalesce again.  In 1951 Bill Veeck, the owner of the famously awful and unlucky St. Louis Browns, hired Eddie Gaedel, a little person, as a pinch hitter for publicity's sake.  He claimed he had forgotten about Thurber’s story until his man came up to bat.

Back to fiction. One more thing about my story “Christmas Dinner.” I suspect that if any readers complain it will not be about the aforementioned clue.  If they do gripe will be about something else that occurs in the tale.  “That’s not how X happens!” they will exclaim.

Ah, but I have a link to a website that proves that the way I describe X is exactly how it happened back in 1958.

And if they don’t believe me, they can look it up.

Breaking into Showbiz 5

 

This is our fifth installment of this game.   The rules are simple.

Below you will find ten characters familiar from popular culture.  Your job is to decide where they originated.  For example: Zorro began life in a short story by Johnston McCulley (1919).

The white box shows the possible answers.  Solutions are at the bottom of the page.

George Bailey.

Don Juan.

MacBeth.

Tweedledee.

 

Tony Manero.

Morgul the Friendly Drelb.

Inspector Clouseau.

Sach Jones.

John McClane.

Boilerplate.

Got your votes in?  Okay, here we go...

George Bailey. Short story.  George Bailey is, of course, the hero of the movie  It's A Wonderful life.  Few people know that he originated in a story by Philip Van Doren Stern called "The Greatest Gift" (1943). Stern couldn't find a publisher for his tale so he had 200 copies printed and sent out as holiday gifts, and a Hollywood producer got his hands on one.  The movie (1946) was nominated for five Oscars and is consistently listed as one of the best American movies.

Don Juan. Play. The man whose name is synonymous with seduction was invented by a priest. Tirso de Molina  lived most of his life in Spain and claimed to have written over 300 plays but he is famous for The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest, which introduced the rogue.  DJ has since appeared in a play by Moilere, an opera by Mozart, a poem by Lord Byron, and a movie starring Errol Flynn. 

Macbeth. Real life.   Macbethad mac Findláech was  king of Scotland from 1040 to 1057. He replaced King Duncan, not by treacherously killing him in his sleep, but by winning a battle in which Duncan died.  Shakespeare made him a villain, at least partly because his enemy Banquo was thought to be an ancestor of the current King James.  Oh, have you ever wondered what Lady Macbeth's name was? In  real life she was Gruoch ingen Boite. No wonder Bill the Bard just called her Lady.

Tweedledee. Poem or Nursery Rhyme?  Mr. Dee and his companion Dum received their familiar shape and other characteristics in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass (and Tenniel's illustrations) but their origin story is older and murkier than that.

John Byrom wrote a poem in 1725:

Some say, compar'd to Bononcini

That Mynheer Handel's but a Ninny

Others aver, that he to Handel

Is scarcely fit to hold a Candle

Strange all this Difference should be

'Twixt Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee!

And that is apparently the oldest written reference to the two T's so some have claimed Byrom originated them.  To which I reply: Pfui.  It makes no sense for the poet to have invented these names and thrown them into his poem at random.  Surely he was assuming that his audience was already familiar with this nursery rhyme, although it didn't appear in print until 1805:

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

    Agreed to have a battle;

For Tweedledum said Tweedledee

    Had spoiled his nice new rattle.

Just then flew down a monstrous crow,

    As black as a tar-barrel;

Which frightened both the heroes so,

    They quite forgot their quarrel

Of course, this is the poem Carroll based his characters on.

Tony Manero. Article or Short Story? Ah,yes. Cool white suits. Disco dance moves. John Travolta.  Some of you may remember that Saturday Night Fever was inspired by an article in New York Magazine by Nik Cohn titled "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night." Twenty years later Cohn admitted that he made the whole thing up.  He did attempt to go to a disco but a drunk threw up on his leg so he gave up on research.  So Tony Manero was a figment of the Brit's imagination.

Morgul the Friendly Drelb. Television. Anyone too young to collect Social Security probably thinks I made this up.  I didn't.  Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In premiered on January 22, 1968 and was one of the defining TV shows of the sixties.  That first episode included a sketch about a pink Bigfoot-like creature named, well, you already guessed. The bit wasn't funny and he never reappeared. But at the beginning of every episode  the golden-throated announcer Gary Owen read off the list of cast members and it ended with "and Morgul the Friendly Drelb!"

Inspector Clouseau. Movies. No surprise here.  The incompetent French cop was played by Peter Sellers in The Pink Panther and four sequels.  But the story is a bit more complicated.  The second flick, A Shot in the Dark, was based on a play which did not include Clouseau.  In later movies he was portrayed by Alan Arkin, Roger Moore (in a cameo), and Steve Martin.

Sach Jones. Movies. Horace DeBussy "Sach" Jones was a character in the almost fifty Bowery Boys movies, played by Huntz Hall. Growing up I watched one on TV almost every Saturday morning.  As the short movies got sillier goofy Sach became a major player.  I looked this up after seeing the movie Dead End (1937), starring Humphrey Bogart.  In that movie and the original play, Hall played a juvenile delinquent and the "Dead End Kids," led by Hall and Leo Gorcey spun off into several movie series before ending up as the way-past-their-sale-date delinquents in the Bowery Boys.  One little oddity: In 1943 Hall starred as "Dilbert," a dangerously incompetent naval pilot in the training film "Don't Kill Your Friends." 

John McClane. Novel.  We all know McClane from the Die Hard movies, but he is based on Detective Joe Leland in Roderick Thorp's novel Nothing Lasts Forever, about terrorists taking over a skyscraper.  Oddly enough this is not Leland's first sojourn to popcorn-land.  Frank Sinatra's The Detective was based on Thorp's first novel about him.  So arguably Sinatra and Bruce Willis played the same guy.

https://tinyurl.com/3td9e635

Boilerplate. Website. Boilerplate was a robot first revealed in 1893, who participated in an Antarctic expedition, the Spanish-American War, and the Boxer Rebellion.  Of course, none of that is true.  It was created by Paul Guinan in 2000 for a website, using remarkably realistic looking historical photos of Boilerplate with Teddy Roosevelt, etc.

But here's where it gets weird. In 2005 actor Chris Elliott wrote a comic historical novel called The Shroud of the Thwacker, using Boilerplate as a character. He gave Guinan no credit. Was this plagiarism? Not intentionally. But surely Elliott didn't think the robot was real?

No, he said.  He thought it was a Victorian hoax. Happily Gaulin and Elliott reached an agreement out of court.

Well, that's enough. Until next time, may all your Drelbs be friendly.

Double Event

I have had an unusual experience recently.  For one thing, I have a story, "Welcome to JFR!", in the November/December issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. That's unusual all by itself since I have only sold them 4 stories in 48 years of trying.  But I also have a story, "Christmas Dinner," in the same issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.  Talk about serendipity.

"Welcome to JFR!"  barely qualifies as a story.  It is the editor's introduction to an issue of a rather unusual journal - my revenge on 35 years of being an academic librarian.

"Christmas Dinner," on the other hand, is a novella, the third about Delgardo, the beat poet detective, and set in 1958. My narrator, Thomas Gray, is experiencing homesickness because it is his first December away from home, so a friend takes him for a traditional Manhattan Christmas dinner - in a Chinese restaurant.  Naturally, murder happens.

Now here is the really weird thing.  Back in 2009 I had a story in the July/August issue of AHMM and another in the August issue of EQMM.  So, this is the second time I have doubled my pleasure, so to speak.

 But there is another coincidence (a double double event).  I recently learned that  Otto Penzler put one of my stories in his Other Distinguished list at the back of The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024. And now I discovered that Steph Cha put one of my tales in the Distinguished list in Best American Mystery and Suspense.   

The coolest part is they were two different stories.

Penzler, who is among other things, a historian of our field, chose "The Accessories Club," (AHMM March/April),  which plays with some of our subgenres.   Steph Cha, when she took on the editorship of her series said we might expect to see more stories by women and people of color.  I am neither but "Memorial" (Black Cat Weekly #95) does feature a strong female protagonist. 

You might say both editors were on-brand.  I'm just happy they liked my tales.

By the way, extra credit to anyone who recognizes the source of the title for today's blog.

  

HVI2, or Heads, You Lose

 

I subscribe to BritBox and I have worked my way through most of the mystery series I enjoyed (Jonathan Creek, No Offense, MacDonald and Dodds, Cadfael, New Tricks, mostly) so I have been giving lit-er-a-choor a try.

Britbox offers the entire canon of Shakespeare as interpreted by the BBC. I am working my way through the plays I have never seen or read (an embarassingly large number) and watching each one until I get bored or too puzzled by the language. (They make the subtitles too damn small.)

The Trout

For example, I tried watching Henry VI, Part 1, and gave it up quickly. Not even a guest appearance by  Joan of Arc could keep me tuned in.

But I made it through Henry VI, Part 2, no trouble.  I noticed that Wikipedia says Part 2 is usually considered the best of the trilogy.  We will see how I feel about Part 3.

Some random thoughts.  There are few Shakespearean characters I have wanted to give a good punch in the kisser as much as Henry VI.  What a boring, pious, pompous little trout.  No wonder his wife wants nothing to do with him.

But speaking of Queen Margaret, I had a really writerly moment during one of her speeches.  She watches hubby walking away with another fella she dislikes, Warwick, and says: "There's two of you; the devil make a third!"  First I thought: Billy the Bard sure knew his way around a curse, didn't he? Then I thought: What a great title! The Devil Make a Third.

privateproertynotrespassblogspot.com

A quick search taught me that one author had already figured it out.  Douglas Fields Bailey wrote a novel by that name in 1948.  As I understand it, the book is about a rural man who makes it to wealth by any means necessary - a not uncommon theme of the time.   The book was reprinted for the Library of Alabama Classics series in 1989.  There is an entire website dedicated to the book, run, as near as I can tell, by Robert Register.  

There are also many novels called Devil Makes Three and some of the authors might have been thinking of Queen Margaret (as I'm sure we all do from time to time).  

The most interesting part of the play for me was the Jack Cade section, based on the largest rebellion in England in the 15th century.  Shakespeare sees it as a highly anti-intellectual event, with simple literacy being a capital offense.  It is here that Dick the Butcher gives us what I think is the play's most famous, much quoted, line:  "The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers."

Jack Cade, against Woke Education

The play also made me wonder whether the Globe Theatre had a propmaster whose specialty was severed heads.  There are four, count 'em, four, hacked-off noggins in  HVI2.  There are others in Macbeth and Titus Andronicus, among other of Billy's little skits.. I found an interesting article by Michael J. Hirrel discussing the chop-chops in Elizabethan plays and he pointed out something that never occurred to me. Shakespeare's audience would have been quite used to seeing severed heads in real life.  So it is reasonable to assume that someone went to a lot of trouble to make the props realistic and each one unique.

Personally, I'd rather be a writer.  So far, no severed heads adorn my work.

Crimes Against Nature: Round Robin

As I said two weeks ago, I edited Crimes Against Nature: New Stories of Environmental Villainy, which Down and Out Books recently published.   I asked some of the contribu5tors to answer a few questions related to the book.  And here you go...

Give me five words about your story.

R.T. Lawton: Clandestine labs poison the environment.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch: Dead Bodies in Lake Mead

Janice Law: pollution, family, development, loss & revenge

Michael Bracken: Water is life. And death.

Mark Stevens: Exploiters of nature; delusional avenger.

Susan Breen: Over-tourism, volcanos, mother/daughter issues, Costa Rica and selfies

David Heska Wanbli Weiden: Wind energy on Native reservations.

Robert Lopresti: Recycling obsessions can be dangerous.

Josh Pachter: “bad neighbor,” revenge, poison, semi-autobiographical

Karen Harrington: Illegal dumping. A fight for life.

Sarah M. Chen: Influencers, beaches, responsibility, privilege, overtourism 

Barb Goffman: Comedy, neighbors, kitty-cat, marijuana, gardening

Gary Phillips: Influenced by the 1970s era, the Bronze Age of Comics. Specifically, the mystically charged Swamp Thing created by Len Wein (writer), and Bernie Wrightson (artist).

Crimes Against Nature uses mystery fiction to look at social (and scientific issues).  What is your favorite (or first-encountered) mystery novel or story that deals with social issues?

Sarah M. Chen: Because I recently read it and Wanda M. Morris is one of my favorite writers, the book that comes to mind is her latest, an atmospheric, taut thriller called What You Leave Behind. It’s set in the Gullah-Geechee community on the Georgia coast and deals with illegal land grabbing and the heirs property system that disproportionally affects Black and brown communities.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch: First? Wow. Probably P.D. James, but which one, I have no idea.

Jon McGoran: Hard to remember what my first was, but when I was young, I went through an intense Carl Hiaasen phase, voraciously reading everything he wrote. I loved how he addressed environmental issues, while at the same time crafting these great crime stories, and never coming across as a scold, instead having great fun doing it.

S.J. Rozan: John Gregory Dunne, True Confessions.

Susan Breen: Walter Moseley’s novel, Devil in a Blue Dress, was the first time I understood racism in a visceral way. I wasn’t watching it from afar, but was there, with Easy Rawlins.

Robert Lopresti:  Some of Rex Stout's novels discussed social issues (A Right to Die, The Doorbell Rang, etc.) but when I first read them I was too young to absorb that.  In college I loved James McClure's The Steam Pig, which was about policing in South Africa under apartheid.

Janice Law: I can only mention some recent books, all of which dealt with child abuse in official custody of one sort or another: Fiona McPhillips's When We Were Silent, Rene Denfeld's Sleeping Giants and James McBride's, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.

David Heska Wanbli Weiden: Even though she likely doesn’t think of it as a mystery novel, The Round House by Louise Erdrich is an amazing book that deals with criminal justice issues on Native lands. It’s a great read that also educates and illuminates. I highly recommend it, although she has so many other tremendous novels, so it’s hard to pick a favorite.

Gary Phillips: One of the first novels I recall dealing with a social issue, an environmental one at that and its implications was Ross Macdonald’s Sleeping Beauty. His fictional take on the real-life Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969 as the backdrop to a Lew Archer, private eye tale.

Mark Stevens: The Wild Inside by Christine Carbo is one of my favorites.  

Name an author who has had the biggest impact on your short stories.

 Barb Goffman: Art Taylor. I learn something that helps my craft every time I read one of his stories.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch:   Stephen King

Jon McGoran:  I’ve always straddled mystery and scifi, but I think Elmore Leonard is the author whose style has most impacted me as a writer.

Susan Breen: My love of Agatha Christie inspired me to write mysteries, but Sue Grafton had a huge effect on how I think about the women who are usually my protagonists. She taught me that they could be bold, flawed and funny.

David Heska Wanbli Weiden: I’ll always return to the stories of Flannery O’Connor, although my own work bears no resemblance to her amazing tales. For dialogue, I was heavily influenced by Raymond Carver, although I once had a well-known writer scream at me when I mentioned that I admired Carver’s stories. I still believe that Carver’s dialogue is some of the best out there—consistently expressive and surprising.

Gary Phillips: No one writer had the biggest impact but certainly short stories by Poe and Rod Serling – those Twilight Zone teleplays turned into short stories. And it’s only fair to note Walter Gibson, the pulp writer who essentially created the Shadow, turned those into prose.

Robert Lopresti: Can't stop at one: Stanley Ellin, John Collier, Jack Ritchie, Avram Davidson.

Sarah M. Chen: Patricia Abbott. One of my favorites of hers is from Betty Fedora, Issue One, a dark little gem called “Ten Things I Hate About My Wife."

Janice Law: This is difficult, because unlike most writers, I began with novels and only began writing and publishing short fiction after I had launched the Anna Peters series and a couple of history books. So, influences were the mystery writers I enjoyed: Dorothy L. Sayers, because she had Harriet Vane who was so much better than the usual female characters of the time; Eric Ambler, who was the god of suspense in my estimation, and Raymond Chandler for his irresistible style and mastery of atmosphere.

Karen Harrington: John Floyd, Stephen King, Barb Goffman and Ray Bradbury.

Mark Stevens: Patricia Highsmith

Which environmental issue is having the most direct effect on you now?

Karen Harrington: I don't know if it's a direct effect, but when I did research on illegal dumping of car oil and other car liquids, I discovered that it is alarmingly prolific. That's disturbing. There are companies that are weighing the cost of getting caught versus the damage to the environment and taking the gamble. This is from large companies to the small auto parts stores we see across the country. (And interestingly, in my research I found the attached photo describing the 1963 Popular Science method of disposing of used engine oil. What?! This practice was commonly accepted and thought to have no impact on the soil. Really shows that science is rarely settled and must continually learn and reevaluate what we think we know.)

Gary Phillips: Given I live in a seemingly now continuous wildfire state, no particular season for them as in the past, global warming is pretty dang real to me.

David Heska Wanbli Weiden: The wildfires in Colorado seem to be getting worse every year, which is really distressing. I’m now living in New York for the first time since 2013, and I still have strong memories of Hurricane Sandy and the misery caused by that storm.

Mark Stevens: Everything climate change -- dwindling water supplies, threat of forest fires, impact on agriculture.

S.J. Rozan: Global warming, which encompasses all others

Susan Breen: Climate change is the environmental issue having the most direct effect on me because it is influencing where and how I live.

August 2023

Robert Lopresti: Most summers now we have days when the air is so full of wildfire smoke that it is considered dangerous to be outside.

Jon McGoran: I think climate change is having the greatest impact on most of us, both the direct effects of it that we’re already feeling, the (inadequate) measures we’re taking to combat it, and the fear and anxiety of what is to come, but I also wonder if nanoplastics and microplastics will end up being even more damaging to us.

Janice Law:  I very much hope to be gone myself before the warbler migration fails. Living in the Northeast, we have escaped some of the most immediate effects of climate change but it is becoming clear that every civilization, including ours, is dependent on the natural world and on favorable climate conditions. We have been slow to learn this as well as careless about our pollution and exploitation of the natural world.

Sarah M. Chen: I live close to the beach so am aware of the alarming rise in sickened and abandoned marine mammals, like whales and sea lion pups. This is due to a number of things like rising ocean temperatures which increases toxin levels and pups being forced to dive deeper and further for food.     

Kristine Kathryn Rusch: The warming of the planet, since I live in Las Vegas.

Themed mystery anthologies seem to be growing in popularity. Any thoughts on that trend?

Gary Phillips: Having edited or co-edited a number of themed anthologies, South Central Noir, The Cocaine Chronicles to name two, I think if you can hook the potential reader on the subject matter, they like diving in and out of a given short story. They’re not getting exhausted if you’ve tried to turn the idea into a novel, maybe having to pad the story.

Sarah M. Chen:  They're fun and I'm all for it!

Kristine Kathryn Rusch:  I think the more mystery stories the better.

Susan Breen: Anthologies force writers to get out of their regular routines. It’s a challenge to try something new and my suspicion is that because of that, the stories will have a jolt of energy to them.

Mark Stevens: I think once the whole idea of building short story collections on rock bands took off, well, there's no shortage of material.  Waiting for the first collection based on  songs by The Velvet Underground.

Karen Harrington: I think readers and writers enjoy seeing how different minds approach the same topic. I know I do.

 S.J. Rozan: Themed anthologies make total sense -- they allow readers to watch a wide variety of writers exploring topics they're interested in.

David Heska Wanbli Weiden: Yes, I love the trend, and I’ll note that I’m editing one of these myself:  Native Noir, due out sometime in 2025 from Akashic Books. In that volume, some of the greatest Indigenous authors currently writing agreed to try their hand at a noir story, broadly defined. I hope to see more of the music-based anthologies, and I’m still salty that I didn’t know about the two Steely Dan books. Their songs are perfect, of course, for crime tales, and I’m hoping someone will put together another one (and please contact me if you do!)

Robert Lopresti: I love the fact that you can give twenty authors the same assignment and get twenty wildly different, but all fascinating responses.

Janice Law: I think it is a sensible attempt to create a new home for short fiction, which has been evicted from the newspapers and magazines that used to pay well for short stories.

 None of the authors in this book chose to write historical stories. Are there any environmental issues/events in history you think are particularly intriguing?

Gary Phillips: Interesting question. I suppose if I were to give it some thought, how the growth of the Industrial Revolution polluting the skies in England, damaging peoples’ lungs irreparably, comes to mind.

Robert Lopresti: The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland was so polluted it caught fire 14 times. Publicity from the 1969 blaze lit a fuse (sorry) that started the modern environmental movement.

Sarah M. Chen: I watched a documentary on the Chernobyl disaster and found it horrifying and fascinating. I knew very little about it despite being a kid when it happened.

Susan Breen: I’m a great fan of Charles Dickens and have always been fascinated and appalled by what living conditions were like in London during Victorian times, even for the wealthy. Joseph Bazalgette’s construction of the sewer system has got to be one of the greatest environmental triumphs ever. Now that I think about it, I can come up with various murderous scenarios. Maybe I should have…

Barb Goffman: All of these historical events could be put to good use in a crime story...
        Oil spills - Exxon-Valdez, BP, etc.
        Toxic chemical dumping - Love Canal
        Water contamination - Woburn, MA, and Flint, MI
        Nuclear plant meltdown - Three Mile Island, though given recent news, Three Mile Island could also factor into a contemporary story.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch:   I've been fascinated for a long time by the Little Ice Age, as well as the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815, causing more than 90,000 people to die, and inspiring one of the coldest (and darkest) summers on record in 1816, which led to lots of literary mayhem (like Frankenstein, Dracula, and some Lord Byron poetry).

S.J. Rozan:  1. The Great Flood of 1927 along the Mississippi.  2. Boston's 1919 Molasses Flood

Mark Stevens: Like, a zillion. My mind goes to all the ways mankind has plumbed nature or depended on nature for resources.  Early days of mining.  Or drilling for oil.  I'm fascinated by the idea that gigantic supertankers are ferrying oil around the globe. When was the first? Who dreamed that up? Seventy-seven million barrels of oil are moving around the globe every day.  At what cost? At what risk?  

Janice Law: We have a couple of big ones just in our own national history: the near extermination of the buffalo, the loss of the passenger pigeons, and what is proving to be the very foolish attempt to create "fur deserts" in the west. The loss of the beaver had impacted water storage in these dry areas just as the huge reduction in buffalo has had an impact on soil conservation etc on the prairies.

The trouble with these events, and with many environmental issues, is that they don't necessarily fit well with the demands of short mystery fiction, which are surprising like the old classical unities: one time, one place, one action, and that additional requirement that also goes back to the ancient Greeks: a beginning  in the middle of the action.

Crimes Against Nature: The Anthology

I don't know if you noticed that the world changed on Monday, October 7, but I did. Down and Out Books published Crimes Against Nature: New Stories of Environmental Villainy. It is the first anthology I have edited.  

As I hope the title makes clear, each story relates crime to some ecological issue: climate change, wildfire, environmental justice, invasive species, recycling, overtourism, etc.  The types of stories cover the (polluted) waterfront: noir, police, caper, comic, psychological, even one inspired by comic books!

This book  has been a long time coming.  I remember telling my buddy S.J. Rozan about the idea at the Bouchercon in Raleigh and that was, heaven help us, 2015.  

Why did it take ten years? Because I'm not the most efficient go-getter in the writing trade and because it took a while to find the right publisher.  

Once Down and Out said yes my first move was to go back to S.J. and remind her of her enthusiasm for the project a decade ago.

She replied approximately that she had no time and couldn't possibly do it,so of course she would.  As I have said before, S.J. is a mensch.  She even provided what I had hoped for but did not dare to request: a story about Chin Yong-Yun, the wonderful mother of Lydia Chin, who stars in many of Rozan's novels.  Like all the shorts about Mrs. Chin, this one is a treat.

As for the other authors, some will be very familiar to the SleuthSayers readers: Michael Bracken, Barb Goffman, R.T. Lawton, Janice Law, and (ahem) Robert Lopresti.

Then there is a category of some of the best names in the short mystery field: Josh Pachter, Gary Phillips, and  Kristine Kathryn Rusch,

Some authors I consider newcomers, although that may only be because I suspect I was first published before they were born: Sosan Breen, Sarah M.Chen, Karen Harrington, and David Heska Hanbli Weiden.

Finally we have Jon McGoran and Mark Stevens, whom I chose because their excellent writing has centered on the environment.

It's a stellar cast and I can't wait for you to discover what dirt they have dug up.

Popcorn Proverbs 6

I have done this five times before and, what do you know? I'm doing it again.  All quotes are in alphabetical order by the title of the flick.  All crime movies, all ones I have never used before.  Answers at the end.  Enjoy.

1. “What does your father do?”
“He's the janitor in Browning's bank in Clearwater Street.”
“Browning's doesn't have a bank in Clearwater Street.”
“Poor papa! I wonder if he knows.”

2. “You rob to support a drug habit, I do drugs to support a robbery habit.” 

3. “Daddy has to talk to the murderer.”

4. “He'd kill us if he got the chance.”  

5. “I don't know about Ray, but not everyone in Garrison is a murderer.”
“No, they just keep their eyes closed and their mouths shut, just like me.”

6. "'The world breaks everyone, and afterwards, some are strong at the broken places'-Ernest Hemingway.”
“Wasn't he the one who shot himself?”

7. “If you're thinking of smoking that in here... don't.”
“I find that confusing. Do you mean don't smoke or don't think?”

8. “Where's Jackson?”
“He didn't make it. Neither did you.”

 9. “But Paul, I can't make my boys vote the reform ticket!”
 “Why not? Most of them come from the reform school.”

10.“You would lie for a lie, but you won't lie for the truth.”

11. “Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in.” 

12.  “You plan a good enough getaway, you could steal Ebbets Field.”
 “Ebbets Field's gone.”
 “What did I tell you?”

13. “I AM Harm’s way.”

14. “Why am I always the cripple?  It’s someone else’s turn now.”

15. “My father always taught me, never desert a lady in trouble. He even carried that as far as marrying Mother.”

16. “In my case, self-absorption is completely justified. I have never discovered any other subject quite so worthy of my attention.”

17. “I was a ghost. I didn't see anyone. No one saw me. I was the barber.”

18. “Mr. Leyden, can I use your paper?”
“Why not? You've used everything else!”

19. “Well, perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist on your stove. Were these magic grits? I mean, did you buy them from the same guy who sold Jack his beanstalk beans?”

20. “I’m not a tailor.  I’m a cutter.”

21. "That's the ski he took in the face and I'm afraid it was all downhill from there."

22. “I'm so tired!”
 “Not surprising. It's tiring to kill a man”

23. “It's my funeral. You're just along for the ride.”

24. “Tony, I have a job for you.”
“Is it a dead girl or under age?”

25. “I always said he should burn in hell. But Chicago will do." 
 

ANSWERS

 1. “What does your father do?”
“He's the janitor in Browning's bank in Clearwater Street.”
“Browning's doesn't have a bank in Clearwater Street.”
“Poor papa! I wonder if he knows.”  -Sigerson Holmes (Gene Wilder) /  Jenny Hill (Madeline Kahn) The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother

2. “You rob to support a drug habit, I do drugs to support a robbery habit.” – Bats (Jamie Foxx) Baby Driver

 3. “Daddy has to talk to the murderer.” – Inspector Monroe (Roy Wood, Jr.) Confess Fletch

4. “He'd kill us if he got the chance.”  - Mark (Frederic Forrest) The Conversation

5. “I don't know about Ray, but not everyone in Garrison is a murderer.”
“No, they just keep their eyes closed and their mouths shut, just like me.”
-Bill Geisler (Noah Emmerich)/ Freddy Heflin (Sylvester Stallone)  Cop Land

6. "The world breaks everyone, and afterwards, some are strong at the broken places"-Ernest Hemingway.”
“Wasn't he the one who shot himself?”
-    Jack / Matt (Clive Owen / Paul Reynolds) The Croupier

7. “If you're thinking of smoking that in here... don't.”
“I find that confusing. Do you mean don't smoke or don't think?”
Ray (Charlie Hunnam) / Fletcher (Hugh Grant) The Gentlemen

8. “Where's Jackson?”
“He didn't make it. Neither did you.”
-Doc McCoy (Steve McQueen) / Rudy Butler (Al Lettieri) The Getaway

 9. “But Paul, I can't make my boys vote the reform ticket!”
 “Why not? Most of them come from the reform school.”
-Politician (Brooks Benedict) / Paul Madvig (Brian Donlevy) The Glass Key

10.“You would lie for a lie, but you won't lie for the truth.”
– Andi Brand (Janelle Monáe) Glass Onion

11. “Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in.” – Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) The Godfather Part III

12.  “You plan a good enough getaway, you could steal Ebbets Field.”
 “Ebbets Field's gone.”
 “What did I tell you?”
-Joe Moore (Gene Hackman) / Mickey Bergman  (Danny DeVito) Heist

13. “I AM Harm’s way.”
– Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson) The Hitman’s Bodyguard.

14. “Why am I always the cripple?  It’s someone else’s turn now.”
– Zolika (Zoltán Fenyvesi) Kills on Wheels  

 

15. “My father always taught me, never desert a lady in trouble. He even carried that as far as marrying Mother.”
– Gilbert Redman (Michael Redgrave) The Lady Vanishes

16. “In my case, self-absorption is completely justified. I have never discovered any other subject quite so worthy of my attention.”
– Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) Laura

17. “I was a ghost. I didn't see anyone. No one saw me. I was the barber.”
-Ed Crane ( Billy Bob Thornton) The Man Who Wasn’t There

18. “Mr. Leyden, can I use your paper?”
“Why not? You've used everything else!”
- Mr. Peters (Sidney Greenstreet) / Cornelius Leyden (Peter Lorre) The Mask of Dimitrios

19. “Well, perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist on your stove. Were these magic grits? I mean, did you buy them from the same guy who sold Jack his beanstalk beans?”
-    Vinny Gambini (Joe Pesci) My Cousin Vinny

20. “I’m not a tailor.  I’m a cutter.”
– Leonard (Mark Rylance) The Outfit

21. "That's the ski he took in the face and I'm afraid it was all downhill from there."
-Constable Stalker ( Saiorise Ronan) See How They Run

22. “I'm so tired!”
 “Not surprising. It's tiring to kill a man”
-Julie/ Sarah (Ludivine Sagnier/Charlotte Rampling) .Swimmiing Pool

23. “It's my funeral. You're just along for the ride.”
– Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen) The Thomas Crown Affair

24. “Tony, I have a job for you.”
“Is it a dead girl or under age?”
(Ralph Turpin (Robert J. Wilke) / Tony Rome (Frank Sinatra) Tony Rome

25. “I always said he should burn in hell. But Chicago will do." 
– Fuller (Michael Harney) Widows

Fooling the Professors; Schooling the Professors

 

I recently came across the strange story of an unusual brand of criminal - a literary forger.  He committed his crimes almost two centuries ago and yet, oddly enough, you may be familiar with some of his work.

John Payne Collier* (1789-1883) was an English  journalist and drama critic, with a somewhat erratic career.  His incorrect report on a speech by a member of Parliament had him chastised by the House of Commons.  It took him eighteen years to be called to the bar because of a book he wrote criticizing lawyers.  

With that promising start he dove into scholarship on Shakespeare.  His critics found much to complain about in his work but generally found it valuable.  In 1847 he became secretary to the Royal Commission on the British Museum.

Five years later he claimed to have discovered a copy of the Second Folio, the 1632 collection of Shakespeare's plays.  His copy was called the Perkins Folio because of a name inscribed on the title page.  Any copy of that book would be considered important but this one was full of handwritten annotations and corrections, apparently in a seventeenth century hand. A remarkable find!

Collier published a book of the annotations and later put out a new edition of Shakespeare with the Perkins version of the text.   

You've probably guessed that this didn't end well.  A scholar/friend of Collier's described the changes in the Perkins Folio as "ignorant, tasteless and wanton." By 1859 scientists had proved that the annotations were modern scribblings in the old volume. No one could prove that Collier had done the deed and he was, remarkably, allowed to continue to publish scholarship. No cancel cuture then!

His other works included dubious lecture notes  by Coleridge, forged additions to old letters, spurious annotations supposedly written by Milton, and so on.  Nonetheless he also produced scholarship the professors found useful, when he could find sources to work from.  It appears that, like not a few modern scientists, when he couldn't find the results he wanted he made them up.

I have taken most of this information from the Wikipedia article and the anonymous authors/editors there said: "No statement of his can be accepted without verification, nor any manuscript handled by him, without careful examination, but he did much useful work."

But remember  I said  that you might be familiar with some of his work.  Here's the deal:  In 1828 he published The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Punch and Judy. While the  Punch and Judy show traces its origins to the 16th century Italian comedia dell'arte, Collier's is the earliest existing script for it.  To some extent every modern "professor" (the traditional name for the P&J puppeteer) is improvising from Collier's text. 

He claimed to have  copied it down from a performance by an Italian puppet master, and maybe he did.  But he was as untrustworthy as Mr. Punch himself, so how can we know? 

 

* Not to be confused with the great and more recent John Collier.

Old English Words, New Scottish Quotes

Two weeks ago I wrote about my family's visit to Scotland for the World Science Fiction Conference. I promised that this time I would include some of my favorite quotes from that massive event.  And I will, but first I wanted to tell you about a book.

I am not a fan of graphic novels - with one notable exception - but my daughter told me I needed to read one of the volumes nominated for the Hugo Award in that category and when she recited the first few lines I knew she was right.

Bea Wolf by Zach Weinersmith and Boulet is a retelling - no, that's not right.  It is a new story, inspired by and borrowing its form from, the oldest tale we have in what could be called English.  

If you have never encountered Beowulf it is a tale from approximately 1000 years ago about Scandanavian  warriors whose mead hall is constantly attacked by a monster named Grendel.  The creature is vanquished by a hero named, you guessed it, Beowulf.  Here are the opening lines from a translation by  JNO Lessie Hall:

Lo! the Spear-Danes’ glory through splendid achievements 
The folk-kings’ former fame we have heard of,
How princes displayed then their prowess-in-battle.
Oft Scyld the Scefing from scathers in numbers
From many a people their mead-benches tore.

Notice the rhythm and alliteration. This text was never meant to be read.  It was intended to be heard. Declaimed. Chanted even!

Now consider the first lines of Weinersmith's new text:

Hey, wait!
Listen to the lives of the long-ago kids, the world-fighters,
The unbowed bully-crushers,
The bedtime-breakers, the raspberry blowers,
Fighters of fun-killers, fearing nothing, fated for fame.

This is a tale of young children whose treehouse is attacked by their neighbor Mr. Grindle, who loathed fun and the touch of whose finger could turn a child into a teenager or (shudder) an adult, "begeezering that gathering!"

As you can  guess, a young female warrior named Bea Wolf comes to the rescue. If this book doesn't delight you then I can only say you must have already been touched by the man whose "soul was a snowbank, unsledded, a snowcone unsweetened, a snowman, unscarfed."

And now, on to my favorite quotations from the Worldcon.

"In Sunday School I asked the priest why there was a special school for Christian myths but not for Norse myths." - Ada Palmer

"Sometimes it's the wrong books that make all the difference." - Jo Walton

 'Ancient' in India is anytime before you guys came to colonize us." - Gourav Mohanty 

"Miss Piggy is the ultimate drag queen." - Robert Berg

""The story of Cinderella travelled the silk road just like silk or tea or the Bubonic Plague." - Kate Forsyth

"Even when there is only one religion there is more than one religion." - Ian R. MacLeod

"For Japan to win the U.S. high command would have had to lose their entire minds." - Liz Bourke

"I have very strong feelings about some books about King Arthur, which we won't go into. But damn you, Marian Zimmer Bradley, damn you." - Kari Sperring

"It is important to see the present in the future." - Allen Stroud

"I love history because it's always changing." - Alan  Smale

"To be punk today is to be cooperative." - Francesco Verso

"Is quantum mechanics the next deus ex machina?" - Bethany Jacobs

"You have to be able to look your characters' grandchildren in the face." - Liz Bourke

"Horror never scares me. It's real life that scares me."  - Ellen Datlow

"Academics define things so that artists can wreck them." -Nadav Almog 

 "I will defend to the death any adult's right to reread trash as often as they want, as long as they enjoy it." - Jo Walton