BANDERSNATCHES by Steve Steinbock Thanksgiving Stuffing I’ve just come home from Thanksgiving dinner. I was very well disciplined. My sister-in-law always goes the whole nine yards when she does her Thanksgiving spread, so I had to show a lot of restraint. So I’m not feeling guiltily bloated. But I do have a stain on my […]

TRADITIONS by Deborah Elliott-Upton “When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them.” – G.B. Shaw, “Heartbreak House”, 1929 “Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct […]

THE RETREAT FROM MYSTERY by Robert Lopresti I want to raise a delicate subject today. Has anyone noticed that some of our best mystery writers have stopped writing mysteries? I could name half a dozen of my favorites who have abandoned their series characters for one-off “novels of suspense.” Generalizing wildly, let me say that […]

PARK THAT BROKEN DOWN METAPHOR by Melodie Johnson Howe It’s Monday. The day I set aside to write the Criminal Brief blog, which JLW masterfully puts up for me by Tuesday. I’m sitting in bed, sipping my first morning cup of coffee, flipping through the Los Angeles Times. My mind is not on the paper. […]

I’m taking the week off from The Scribbler this week to present this short edifying essay, a Criminal Brief exclusive, by Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine‘s editor, Linda Landrigan — especially since it supports the point I was trying to make last week. Enjoy! –JLW THE MYTH OF THE ORIGINAL IDEA by Linda Landrigan Good ideas […]

BLURB! (‘scuse me) by Leigh Lundin Whereas writers ideally welcome critique, they are considerably more trepidatious about reviews. Private critiques help guide the writer. Public reviews come after a work is published and are out there for the world to see. Reviews are in magazines, in newspapers, on the radio, and they’re all over the […]

THE CORNERSTONES OF CRIME (Part 2) by Barry T. and Angela Zeman Before continuing the Haycraft-Queen discussion, we would be remiss by not taking a few moments to mark the untimely passing of Ira Levin, a great writer, multiple Edgar winner and MWA Grandmaster. He was also an unpretentious guy with a constantly fresh sense […]