THE HARSHEST CRITIC by Robert Lopresti I recently finished judging short stories for an award and that process got me thinking about our ability — or inability — to judge our own work. Stanley Ellin said it best (and if you haven’t read his stuff, get thee to a library; he was one of the […]

MISERY LOVES STRANGE BEDFELLOWS by Robert Lopresti On the night the Derringer Awards were announced I found a familiar character sitting at my kitchen table. He is in his fifties, thinning on top, with bushy eyebrows and his body shape suggests that he is fonder of good food than exercise. He looked at me with […]

DO YOU REALLY HAVE TIME TO READ THIS? by Robert Lopresti Every day the New York Times is delivered free to my doorstep. Well, not really my doorstep. Actually it’s the door of the university library where I work. As I understand it, the dozens of free copies they provide every day is part of […]

CLOSE YOUR EYES AND WATCH THE SHOW by Robert Lopresti As a writer of short stories there are a few pleasures that have passed me by. Peter Jackson hasn’t turned one of my flash stories into a three-picture epic. The New York Times bestseller list hasn’t cleared a space for me. But I can make […]

OSCAR SCHMIDT IS GUILTY! By Robert Lopresti The scene is the signing room at a mystery convention. At the north end sits the author of this year’s big thriller, signing copy after copy like an automaton for a never-ending assembly line of fans. At the south end is the beloved author of fifty cozies, coping […]

SOLOMON’S NIGHT SHIFT by Robert Lopresti They ask me: “Where do you get your ideas?” Well, how do you answer that? I could tell them about my day in court. Around 1970 I was a new driver and I had my first (and only, knock on plywood) serious accident. A simple matter of forgetting to […]

A BLOGGER’S PLEDGE by Robert Lopresti Starters Welcome to my timeshare of this experiment in short mystery blogging. I am the author of thirty-plus short stories, mostly mysteries, and a novel. Tune It Or Die refers to the fact that I am also a singer-songwriter and a struggler with the many-stringed monster called the autoharp. […]