CASTING CALL

by James Lincoln Warren

One of the indispensable skills of an effective story-teller is creating good characters. As with coming up with plots, this is may be regarded as a matter of mixing invention with convention, a blend of novelty and familiarity. I usually “design” a character to fit the circumstances I wish to explore, but I almost never start from whole cloth—one of the things a reader looks for in a character is a sense of recognition, a feeling that I know this guy, but spiced up with enough personal peculiarities to give him the appearance of being unique.

There are many places to shop for the base model—the custom packaging comes later. You can turn to the typical: archetypical, stereotypical, prototypical, etc. Or you can imitate someone real, either a person of your acquaintance or someone you may have encountered at a distance, as through reading. Or you can buy a hybrid—mix in equal parts soft-boiled phantasmagoria and hard- nosed empiricism. A minor character may be defined exclusively by the rôle he has to play in the tale, but a major character has to be better informed to be three dimensional, and offer a more exciting ride. Whatever the case, if you’ve done your work well, you should be able to close your eyes and picture him.

And then comes the Casting Call. Every writer I know plays this game. If they claim they don’t, rest assured that they are lying and that they play it in secret. The game consists of a single question:

Whom would I cast to play my character if his story were made into a movie?

I very rarely come up with what I consider to be definitive answers. For my 18th century detective Alan Treviscoe, I chose British actor Jack Davenport (the son of the famous film and TV actor Nigel Davenport) some years ago, before he appeared in the Disney Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, because I’d seen him in a few Brit costume dramas and he appeared to have the proper combination of verve, intelligence, and style to pull it off.

For Carmine Ferrari, my former NYPD private eye in Beverly Hills, I sort of like Chris Noth, but I can be talked out of it. Custer Malone, his retired Texas Ranger partner, is a much more difficult call—he has to have a shock of wavy white hair over a keenly intelligent face, a hard lean body, and an orator’s rich baritone voice—and be capable of pulling off a genuine Texas twang, something almost all actors get completely wrong unless they are Texans, like Rip Torn, or at a pinch, an Oakie like Ben Johnson. If Larry Hagman were twenty years younger, I could put him in a wig and he would probably do.

But that’s not what I’m here to write about.

I’ve mentioned that I’m starting a novel project. It is still very much in the planning stages, but let me mention two of the characters I’m going to need. The first is a delusional mobster who for his own twisted reasons wants a certain celebrity assassinated. Him, I have a pretty good handle on. The second, though, is the hitman. He’s more problematic.

I always show my stories to new eyes before I submit them, to gauge reactions and to identify flaws, in short, to give me some indication if the tale is yet mature in its telling. But I also turn to certain friends for help on some stories when they are still in development, and there is no one I trust more or turn to more often than Paul Guyot.

He suggested that the assassin be a frustrated actor, as colorful and bent in his own fashion as the mobster is in his. Paul is primarily a TV writer, so one suspects that he may have made the suggestion out of some deep-seated resentment towards idiot thespians. But I think not. It’s a great idea, even though I’m not sure it will work with what I have in mind. But it did give me an idea for a new short story.

For the story to work, I needed to find out, What actually happens in a Hollywood casting call?

Luckily for me, I live in Los Angeles, and one of my friends is a real live casting director. So I asked him if I could tag along and watch him in action. He agreed, and what I saw was utterly fascinating. I’m not going to say more about the prospective short story, but here’s a short description of the casting call.

My friend Jonathan is young, in his mid to late 20s I’d guess, but obviously very competent at his work. The picture he was casting for is a low budget adolescent slasher pic—you know the drill. A group of young people go camping and there’s something evil in the woods. Jonathan told me that this is a particularly rich time to cast such pictures because with business in Hollywood being so depressed right now, a lot of very fine actors are looking for work, any work, and are available for projects they would normally not deign to look at. And so it proved.

The casting call took place in a small room in a highrise out Century City way. There was a small desk with a widescreen 25″ HD monitor set on it and a small HD videocam on a tripod. Lights shined on the opposite wall, just bright enough for the desk and the chairs crowded behind it to be in relative darkness. Jonathan was there with two young assistants and the young director. (The director left after a few readings, trusting Jonathan to separate the wheat from the chaff.) Each time an actor came in to read, one of the assistants would start to record him, first holding up his head shot in front of the camera like a clapboard. Jonathan didn’t watch the actors. He watched the monitor, because he was less interested in what they looked like live than in how they appeared on screen.

When the actors came into the room, Jonathan would ask them if they had any questions about the script. A few of them did, very general questions, usually framed in such a way that it was obvious to me they were seeking assurance that they were interpreting the part correctly, and some not at all, saying with some certainty that they understood the character. Nevertheless, Jonathan would usually tell them, “You’re a retired big city cop now working as the chief of police in a small resort town. All of your officers are young and inexperienced, and you have a sort of paternal relationship with them.”

He wouldn’t say very much more, although there was a lot to say. This is because he wanted to see how deeply the actors had read into the part—obviously, the actors who had the most insight without being told what the rôle was about were better suited. But that wasn’t all. Even when the actors performing the part gave him exactly what he was looking for, he would ask them to change it up—he was seeing if they could take direction and how they reacted, not as actors, but as people. He told me, “The most important thing in my job is not to hire somebody crazy. These people are going to be on location for weeks, living and working together in a high pressure environment without a lot of amenities —and they have to get along.”

There was one line in the script that I found interesting, relating to a cop at the scene of the crime who had just radioed in to PDHQ:

“If he’s smart, he’ll keep his gun at his side.”

Now remember that this is the seasoned old hand talking to a bunch of neophytes. For me, it was obvious that the veteran lawman was circumspectly telling them, “If you’re smart, you’ll keep your gun at your side.”

I said as much to Jonathan, who nodded. “And the first actor who understands that,” he said, “is going to get the part.”

Well, I certainly got what I came for. I was there looking for background data for a story, but because of that morning, I will never play the Casting Call game the same way again.

SEPARATION of CHURCH and STATE

by Leigh Lundin

Last week, I wrote about the police raid of the private home of the Gizmodo editor who obtained Apple’s lost iPhone and returned it to Apple. Prosecutors acted on the presumption that news blogs don’t enjoy the same First and Fourth Amendment rights as newspapers they are gradually replacing. Who pays attention to that silly old Constitution, anyway!

Following a brief by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (kind of the ACLU of technology), suggestions began to circulate that the DA’s office may have lied to get the search warrant, and likely overreached state and federal laws. The perception of a war against news blogs wasn’t helped when Assistant District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe opposed a hearing for unsealing the search warrant filed by the Associated Press, Bloomberg, the Los Angeles Times, CNET, and other news organizations. We may or may not see whether the warrant was justified.

In researching the article, I was stunned how often public officials abuse their offices in pursuit of critics in blogs and forums. It must be frustrating to be the focus of a one-sided article, particularly if the forum or blog doesn’t allow the other party to respond, but if you’ve chosen to be in the public eye, a modicum of maturity is expected. I respect officials who handle criticism professionally, even when I may not agree with them.

One of the most disturbing stories I came across happened– where else– here in Florida. Police, prosecutors, and two preachers teamed up to learn the identity of and denounce a devout Christian critical of his mega-church’s "abusive fund-raising". ("Abusive" in this sense refers to ethics and finances.) Criticisms included Preacher Mac Brunson negotiating a $300,000 salary, constructing a "lavish" $100,000 office suite for his dogs and himself, putting his wife and son on the church’s payroll without discernible duties, accepting an extravagant $300,000 half acre golf club building site for himself instead of his church– a summary of what the alarmed blogger called "valid concerns". Despite all his perqs, Preacher Brunson managed to claim he’s one of the lowest paid members in the Southern Baptist Conference.

And they say fiction doesn’t pay.

WWJD?

What would Jesus do? First Baptist Church of Jacksonville Pastor Mac Brunson didn’t like reading the criticism in a blog called FBC Jax Watchdog. After railing about it in church, he sought out a church member, Detective Robert Hinson, to uncover the identity of the blogger.

No police reports were filed, but to force Google and the ISP Comcast to reveal the information about the blogger, the Rev. Brunson, the Executive Pastor Rev. John Blount, and Detective Hinson apparently fabricated "an ongoing Internet incident" with "possible criminal overtones" to obtain a State Attorney’s Office subpoena that demanded names, addresses, and personal details.

Comcast handed the information over to the sheriff’s office, then Detective Hinson turned it over to the First Baptist Church. The church held a sort of hearing using wrongfully obtained information and terminated the membership of its critic, Thomas Rich, banishing him and his wife on pain of trespass. Ironic, because the point of blogging anonymously was fear of reprisals if his identity were known.

While he was at it, Detective Hinson investigated two other religious blogs, one of them documenting sexual predation at another church. Surprisingly, Undersheriff Frank Mackesy defended the abuse of his office, implying criticism could be considered a threat against "the city’s large religious institutions." He went on to say, "The detective hasn’t done anything wrong. I’d be disappointed in the detective if (he) didn’t do it."

For a man who doesn’t like criticism, the Rev. Brunson doles it out freely He psychoanalyzed the member of his flock as having "obsessive compulsive" disorder and characterized him as "not very stable. What you’re dealing with is a sociopath."

How Christian of the man.

Thomas Rich has brought suit in federal court. The lawsuit claims the investigation "served no governmental interest," was "fabricated to create the illusion of legitimacy" in "a mere pretext for the discovery and disclosure" of Thomas Rich’s identity to the church. The sheriff’s department, "acting under color of state law, spent taxpayer money and government time prosecuting an errand of the church and in so doing acted as an extension and enforcer for a particular religious entity."

Both the county and the mega-church are seeking to have the suit dismissed. The county argues it did nothing wrong while the mega-church claims immunity for "internal religious matters" and "excessive entanglement in church policies, practices and beliefs."

Let a court decide.

Benny Hinn

It doesn’t have to be this way. I live within jogging distance of Benny Hinn’s World Center of Healing (once known as the World Center of Heroin after revelations of drug use and a couple of drug-related deaths). Security guards and spiked iron fences protect the spirit of the Christ child from, well, the Hinn family, I suppose. Benny has a younger brother, Christopher, an Orange County reserve deputy. Christopher developed a bit of a reputation for roughing up protestors, including other ministers. Among other accusations, Brother Hinn used an Orange County sheriff’s car to chase down Volusia County videographers in Seminole County and demand their video tape.

That June, Christopher Hinn and his fellow deputies arrested the Rev. Ricky L. Johnston and members of his congregation for appearing at Hinn’s church. Although Christopher Hinn represented himself as an Orange County undercover officer and used Orange County cars and equipment, he was actually a reserve volunteer who’d recruited a few other Orange County officers to act as ‘church security’.

Many of the abuses were documented by the local ABC affiliate in the days before blogging became popular. Once the Orange County Sheriff became aware of the situation, he investigated and took action immediately, disciplining officers. Ten of the people Christopher Hinn arrested received approximately $600,000 in recompense.

Two different sheriffs, two different media outlets, two different outcomes.

What Lies Ahead

The behavior of shady evangelists and dubious detectives, I leave to a higher authority, but the attitudes of law enforcement toward blogging gives me pause. News and opinion pieces published in the least of newspapers from the National Enquirer to supermarket throw-aways enjoy legal protection. However, a segment of police and prosecutors (and pastors) are deciding digital reporting doesn’t deserve the same constitutional protections as print, radio, and television.

And that should concern us all.

THINK YOU USED ENOUGH DYNAMITE THERE, BUTCH?

by John M. Floyd

Just a thought: how many times have I read a long novel and wondered why it was so long, or read a short novel and wondered if it should have been a short story instead? Sometimes I even think a long novel should have been a short story instead.

If I have learned one thing as a writer of fiction, I have learned that all of us tend to write too much. And I don’t mean too many projects; I mean too many words. I agreed with Stephen King when he said, “If your first draft runs about 4,000 words, your second should go about 3,000. . . . The object here isn’t to shorten for the sake of shortening but to speed up the pace and make the story fly along.” Some of the published stories I’ve read look as if they could stand another draft or two, and that kind of overpadded fiction can be as dangerous—and dumb—as blowing up the money along with the safe.

A failure to communicate

Why do we tend to overwrite? I think there are several reasons:

(1) We learned, when producing term papers in high school, that more is better. The longer the paper the higher the grade—or so we thought. If, when finished, we could heft the result and it had weight, we felt we must have done a fine job. I’m reminded of the time Ward Cleaver sat at the breakfast table reading over a school composition the Beaver had prepared. He asked, “Do you really need ‘Mr.’ before this name?” Both Wally and Beaver nodded and said, “That counts as a word, Dad.”

(2) Writers, even famous writers, often seem to think readers just won’t get it if something isn’t explained in exhausting detail. All of us fear—and for good reason—writing something that isn’t clear and just doesn’t get the point across. Occasionally, however, the result is not clarity; it’s an information dump. That can be insulting to the reader: I assume you’re not too bright, so I’ll spell it out for you.

(3) A writer might think, since he’s done a huge amount of research on a subject, that he needs to include in the story all or most of what he’s learned. That’s a mistake. I think a writer should try to include only those things he himself found to be the most interesting during the research process; that’s probably the information a reader would find interesting as well.

(4) The last reason is the most unfortunate: writers sometimes just don’t have that much to say, and wind up adding loads of “filler” to inflate the story to the required word-count. The risk here is that that kind of padding is usually obvious. Afterward, I tend to avoid reading other stories and novels by those writers.

If there’s anything I hate when I’m reading, it’s feeling the need to skip over something—words, sentences, paragraphs, even entire pages of text. And don’t be fooled into thinking a reader is less likely to skip things in a short story than a novel. Lazy writing is lazy writing.

DANGER—QUICKSAND AHEAD

As a writer, watch out for the places in your story where things seem to get a little boggy. See if you’re using too much exposition and description. Consider inserting an exchange of dialogue. Try shortening your sentences and paragraphs a bit. Check for the overuse of passive voice. Weed out unnecessary commas and double words and adjectives and adverbs. You know the drill.

I still love the quotes by Alfred Hitchcock (“A short story is life with the dull parts taken out”) and Elmore Leonard (“I leave out the parts people skip”).

Don’t let your project blow up in your face. . . .

YOUR INTREPID TRAVELLER

by Steven Steinbock

Colleen Spall, Doug Greene, Laurie Culligan, Janet Hutchings, Steven Steinbock. Colleen and Laurie are Ed Hoch’s nieces.

I’m back from my adventures at the Edgars and Malice, and I’ll use this brief lull in my wordy discussions1 to tell you of some of my encounters.

I arrived in New York late Tuesday afternoon, just in time to check in to my hotel and to grab a cab to the Village for the launch of the new MWA anthology at The Mysterious Bookshop. No sooner had the cab pulled to a stop that a strange man in cowboy boots yanked me out of the cab. The strange man was none other than my pal Charles Todd, who stepped out to hail a cab for his mother (Caroline) and author Robin Hathaway when he saw me pull up. I greeted Caroline and Robin and bade them good night. Then Charles and I made our way into the bookstore, where Dana Cameron, Toni Kelner, Marty Meyers, Parnell Hall were signing copies of Crimes by Moonlight.

Then who do you think I met in the very middle of the signing line? None other than Criminal Brief friend and regular Terrie Farley Moran! What a treat it was to finally meet her in the flesh.

Before long I was nabbed by Charles Todd, who had joined forces with Angela and Barry Zeman to seek nourishment. The four of us went to a wonderful Italian restaurant – more of a pizza joint with style and class but little pretense. You should all know that if ever you’re in Manhattan and in need of a good restaurant or a good book, Barry Zeman is your go-to guy. He knows all the good eateries. Plus, if he brings Angela along you’re guaranteed good conversation.

Wednesday was the Edgars Symposium, which always has some good sessions. But my day was punctuated by the International Association of Crime Writers board meeting. It’s a good group, and includes my friend artist/novelist Jonathan Santlofer as well as post-punk rock-n-roller Johnny Temple who has rocked the mystery short story market with the regional Noir series of anthologies he publishes through his Akashik Books.

Thursday, late morning, I hauled myself up Fifth Avenue to the mid-60s where I attended the graduation ceremony at my old grad-school/seminary. Wait, did I say attended? I was actually there to receive a diploma for an honorary doctorate. Immediately after the graduation ceremony I tore off my robe and snagged a cab to the Grand Hyatt for the Edgar Awards Banquet.

First thing the next morning, I took the Acela Express train to Washington, DC for the twenty-second annual Malice Domestic convention. Malice is always a blast, and this was the best of the four I’ve attended so far. The emphasis of Malice is on the “traditional” mystery, however defined. Many people define that as mysteries involving poisonings at high tea, ladies with big hats, and feline crime-solvers. None of those are particularly my cut of tea, but it doesn’t stop me from enjoying the event. Parnell Hall was the guest of honor. Ed Hoch was the “Malice Remembers” honoree. And William Link (creator of Mannix, Columbo, and Murder She Wrote) was the “Poirot Award” recipient.

I sat on two panels. The first, devoted to remembering Ed Hoch, included EQMM editor Janet Hutchings, Crippen & Landru publisher Doug Greene, and Ed’s friends Margaret Maron, Mary Higgins Clark, and me. Two of Ed’s nieces came down from Rochester to film the session for Patricia Hoch, and to accept an award. The nieces, Laurie and Colleen, were delightful.

My second panel was “The Game is Afoot” which looked at the lasting influence of Sherlock Holmes on modern detective fiction. I’m not sure we solved anything, but we sure had fun. The panel included me, Daniel Stashower, William Link, Parnell Hall, and John Betancourt.

The entire week and weekend were a blast. But when it was over, I was badly in need of sleep. So now, while I’m still feeling giddy, let me remind you that God willing, giddiness will be one of the topics of next week’s Bandersnatch. Until then, it’s another snicker snack of the vorpal blade and I bid you a frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

1. I’ll be back with more lexicographic fun in the near future. For instance, have you ever considered the religious origins of “giddy”? It’s downright inspiring. [↩]

A FORTUITOUS INTERMESHING OF EVENTS

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

My family and friends have been telling me I need to learn to say no more often. I am overextended, but who isn’t? I do have a tough schedule that has gotten tighter every year for the past decade. “Whose fault is that?” my daughter asks. (She’s the one who holds my feet to the fire whenever I need it.)

Last night was the first time I’ve had a good night’s sleep in quite a while. This morning, I feel refreshed. I think I owe it to the last evening’s events—another function I said yes to at the last minute. Friends of the Library were bringing an author to town and I’d dallied with thoughts of going, and kept thinking I didn’t really have the time, because in honesty, I am swamped with deadlines.

This wasn’t a mystery writer coming to town with whom I could make a contact and might know people I needed to know or swap information with—in fact, I rarely read her genre, but something about the ad in the newspaper intrigued me. I’m going to call it synchronicity, a term I came to embrace a long time ago when I participated in a group workshop studying Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. The word synchronicity itself is credited to C.G. Jung, and means a fortuitous intermeshing of events. Synchronicity has yielded me many a happy outcome in this life.

Although I invited my writer’s group to the function, none accepted, as everyone at this time of year is jumping with too many obligations. And I admit, it was a last minute decision on my part. I decided to go on my own, but my being alone didn’t last long. (My daughter says I can’t go anywhere without talking to a stranger, something I always told her not to do.)

Coming through the door, I met two other ladies who were as unfamiliar with the venue as I. We became fast friends and eventually sat next to each other during the interview and reading. The interviewer was the same woman that interviewed me for the Friends of the Library a couple of years ago, so I knew she’d ask some interesting questions. We were in for a treat.

The author was Erica Bauermeister, whose book The School of Essential Ingredients is a national bestseller. As much as by reading their work, I learn to be a better writer by listening to good writers speak about their experiences. Bauermesiter was humorous during the interview and those in the audience who’d already read her book in their respective book clubs were nodding their agreement when she mentioned her characters’ nuances and changes throughout the novel. But for me, it was when she read a passage from her book that I was left speechless. Her words undulated in perfect rhythmic arcs like a fine orchestral conductor’s baton. There was no way I could leave without purchasing her book, a book I may not have bought had I decided not to go out that evening.

Standing in line to get my copy autographed, two older ladies were talking and soon I was included in the conversation. They asked if I was in a book club and I answered, “Not currently.” They told me about theirs, asked me to join their group and explained where and when they met. When I explained that I didn’t really have much free time until September, they quickly introduced me to their other club members there and I believe I’m “in.”

I learned of a wonderful author making her fiction debut, a new book I knew I would enjoy reading. I met many new acquaintances who shared my love of reading, including the reps from Putnam Publishing traveling with Erica Bauermeister. And I just may join a book club come fall.

Yes, I’m doing too much, but who says we will have more time if we keep saying no? If I hadn’t attended this two-hour meeting where I renewed an appreciation of the love of words, would I have been doing something as worthwhile to my spirit? Maybe. Maybe not. For me, this was a moment in time of serendipity—a fortuitous intermeshing of events, a.k.a. synchronicity.

I wonder how many opportunities most of us miss by not saying yes once in a while on a whim.

LOADED FOR BEAR

by Rob Lopresti

Today’s sermon has nothing to do with mysteries, or short stories. But it is all about literature. In fact, it is about one of my favorite old books and a newish sequel I just got around to reading.

Way back in 1963 Frederick C. Crews was an up-and-coming young scholar at the University of California. And like a lot of such scholars he produced a casebook.

Some of you may remember casebooks from your college days. In English class you would read some classic novel and then you would be told to go through a book of essays about it. This served two purposes: to teach you about the novel, but also to expose you to the many different ways of looking at a piece of literature, the different schools of criticism.

And that’s exactly what Crews did. But two things made his book unusual. First, The Pooh Perplex was about Winnie-The-Pooh, and A.A. Milne’s other children’s books. And second, all of the essays, no matter who the ostensible authors were, were written by Crews himself.

In other words, he was satirizing criticism (which was clear from the start; by the way; the book was not a hoax). And it was hilarious.

My favorite essayist in the book is Simon Lacerous who, in the clearly titled “Another Book To Cross Off Your List,” explains the simple, obvious fact that all great novels are about British coal mines. Clearly Pooh doesn’t qualify. This may make you wonder why so many critics claim to like the book and Lacerous is happy to explain: “every critic, while pretending to praise A.A. Milne, was in reality attacking me!”

Another favorite is C. J. L. Culpepper who sees the Fall of Man in Pooh’s tumble from the honey tree. If this is a religious allegory then there must be a Christ figure, and Culpepper has no trouble finding one. Remember the picture of Eeyore having his tail nailed back on?

If you have read a significant amount of literary criticism you may find yourself nodding in agreement at parts of the book, thinking that’s a very interesting point. Then you wake up with a start and remember that this is satire.

One way to look at The Pooh Perplex is as an epistolary novel with twelve characters: the essayists, one translator, and the editor, who is a rather fussy, falsely avuncular fellow named Frederick C. Crews. (One of my favorite passages is a helpful study question the editor provides after a left-wing essay: “Do you feel that Tempralis was entitled to his 1939 opinions about Pooh? Why not?”)

Revenge of the critics

Crews went on to a very interesting career, becoming most famous, perhaps, for his criticism of psychoanalysis. (He was not a big fan of Dr. Freud.) But, after many years of pleading from fans and colleagues, he finally consented to take another swipe at the honey jar, to bring us up-to-date on the latest thinking in literary criticism.

Postmodern Pooh, published in 2001, takes the form of a symposium at a meeting of the Modern Language Association, which enables each speaker to critique the previous papers. And so, the first author cites deconstructionist critic Paul De Man in support of her arguments, while the next writer gleefully reminds us of De Man’s support for Nazis during World War II.

One of my favorite pieces in this book is by Das Nuffa Dat, the “Classic Coke Professor of Subaltern Studies” at Emory University. Dat sees Pooh’s attempt to steal the bee’s honey (while disguised in black mud, no less) as a typical imperialist theft of natural resources.

There are also essays with feminist, Marxist, and biopoetic viewpoints, plus a techno dude named BigGloria3 who urges people to stop trying to force whatever meaning they want into the text and instead write fan fiction, such as Pooh/Piglet slash stories (and if you don’t know what slash means in this context, I ain’t gonna be the one to tell you).

One of the final speakers loathes the postmodern regime and recites some of the more bizarre titles of other (real) MLA presentations. Of course, he censors the naughty words in the titles because “ladies, or at any rate people shaped like them, are present in the room.” Hilarious.

A word of warning

I recommend The Pooh Perplex wholehearted, but I have to issue a warning about the sequel. The essay written as by Dolores Malatesta parodies the recovered memory movement, which is a fair target for satire, I’m sure. But the Milnes, father and son, were real people and her accusations, even written to mock the accuser, are out of my comfort zone. I didn’t finish that chapter.

Read either book and I’m sure you will agree with editor Crews that, now more than ever, the humanities “have become full of Pooh.”

In honor of last week’s Edgar Banquet, I offer up the following bit of history of an organization I love, even if it can be a cruel mistress. This account was cribbed from the website of Mystery Writers of America, but the website’s navigation makes it a little hard to find. There, it looks kind of like a Power Point slide with bullets, a format I have little admiration for (sorry, John), so I’ve rearranged it. Don’t worry, I’ve included a link to the actual MWA page here in case you’d like to have a look at the source, which also includes quite a bit of more recent history. At the bottom of that page there is the following attribution: “MWA offers special thanks to Barry and Angela Zeman who in 2000 prepared the document from which most of these highlights were gleamed. Their more detailed and fascinating account of the organization’s history is available in the MWA archives.” So I’m giving Barry and Angela, whom we all love to distraction—when, oh, when are you coming back, Angela?—all the credit.

—JLW

MWA-HA-HA!

by Barry and Angela Zeman

Mystery Writers of America, Inc., was established in 1945 by a dozen or so like-minded mystery writers for the purpose of promoting and protecting the interest and welfare of mystery writers and to increase the esteem and literary recognition given to the genre. The who’s who of 54 writers attending an early organizing meeting included: Howard Haycraft, Erle Stanley Gardener, Dorothy B. Hughes, Anthony Boucher, Rex Stout, Stuart Palmer, the Q. Patrick team, Fred Dannay and Manfred Lee (Ellery Queen), Helen Reilly, Octavus Roy Cohen, Leo Zagat. Roger Torrey, Kurt Steele, and the Lockridges. The writers decided that the slogan of the new organization should be “Crime Does Not Pay – Enough.” Clayton Rawson, who had proposed the catchy slogan, suggested that the organization newsletter be called The Third Degree (TTD). He became TTD’s first editor. Faced with the task of coming up with a mailing list of prospective members, MWA turned to Howard Haycraft’s landmark work, Murder for Pleasure.

With the national headquarters established in New York City, MWA chapters were set up in Chicago and California. The New England Chapter was formed in 1971. Other regional chapters followed as interest in the organization grew. Over the years, eleven regional chapters were established: New York, SoCal, NoCal, Midwest, New England, Rocky Mountain, Southeast, Southwest, Northwest, Florida, and the most recently organized chapter, Mid-Atlantic.

One of the first issues taken up by MWA was rental library sales. As Lawrence Treat recalled, in this era before the mass production of paperback books, “a paperback involved a limited print run . . . and our main sales for our two-dollar books were to rental libraries.” Unfortunately, no matter how many times the book was rented out, the author only received royalties on the single copy sold to the library. At the second MWA meeting, the writers discussed getting “a fair share of the subsidiary rights.” As Lawrence Treat put it, “If we didn’t get rich, we at least expected to get justice.” This concern led the members to suggest that the price of a mystery paperback be raised by fifty cents (from $2.00 to $2.50) and the additional profit split between writer and publisher. MWA developed a model contract which one publisher, Ziff-Davis, signed.

To bolster the organization’s treasury, MWA set up an anthology series. The first anthology, Murder Cavalcade, was published in 1946 by Duell, Sloan, and Pierce. The un-credited editor was Ken Crossen. Richard Lockridge wrote the foreword. Currently, MWA averages about one short-story anthology per year. These themed anthologies are edited by best-selling writers and provide a showcase for MWA members.

In 1945, the coveted Edgar® Award was named in honor of Edgar Allan Poe. Reminiscing about how the Edgar® Award came to be Dorothy B. Hughes recalled: “It was yet another step in dignifying the mystery writer, in enhancing his work, and let’s face crass materialism . . . anything that enhances the author and his work means more money in his pocket” .

To highlight the award, Clayton Rawson came up with another terrific idea – an annual banquet at which the Edgar® for the “Best First Novel” of the year would be given to the winner. At that first banquet in 1946, Watchful at Night, by Julian Fast, received Best First Novel. In addition to the award for Best First Novel, awards were given for Best Motion Picture, Best Radio Drama, and Outstanding Mystery Criticism.

In that first year, Edgar® winners received a special leather-bound edition of Poe made for the occasion by Viking Press. In the second year, the award was a special Limited Edition of 12 copies of Howard Haycraft’s Art of the Mystery Story. The small ceramic statuettes of Poe, designed by Peter Williams, appeared in the third year.

In 1950, the Edgar® for the Best Play was awarded for the first time. A year later, in 1951, the Edgar® for the Best Short Story premiered. In 1952, recognizing an important new medium, the first Edgar® for Best Television Episode was awarded. In 1960, the last Edgar® for the Best Radio Drama was awarded. In 1953, after much debate about whether it was appropriate or even possible to choose one book each year to give such a distinction, a “Best Novel” category was added.1 Of the awards MWA bestows at the Edgar® Awards Dinner, none is more prestigious and coveted than the Grand Master, established in 1954 to recognize not only important contributions to the mystery over time, but a significant output of consistently high quality as well.2

Since its inception, the Edgar® Awards Dinner has taken place in various locales in New York City. From the Henry Hudson Hotel, the festivities moved to the Astor, then the Biltmore, had a brief stay at the Stork Club, and then Toots Shor’s Restaurant. Now held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, the Edgar® Awards Dinner remains the occasion when mystery writers can “dress to kill.”

1. Charlotte Jay won the first Edgar® in this category with Beat Not the Bones. [↩]
2. The first recipient was Dame Agatha Christie. [↩]