Authors Electric

Partners in crime at CrimeFest, on a panel chaired by the fabulous Zoe Sharp, far left In the same month that I joined the Romantic Novelists' Association , I also pitched up on a panel at CrimeFest . An unlikely duo, you might think, but my cosy mystery series has a foot in both camps, with a strong romantic subplot  underpinning the murder in each novel. In some respects it's a similar situation to visiting Greenwich and being able to stand on the Meridian line with one foot in the east, the other in the west . Further variety is added by a generous helping of comedy running throughout my books. But I'm by no means the only one to tread such a complex path, genre-wise. Fellow CrimeFest panellist Alison Morton adds alternative history to her crime/romance split. Deemed by The Guardian to be the best crime writing festival in the world A Multiplicity of Murderers Just because two authors write in the same genre, doesn't mean their books need have much ...

I've blogged in the past about conferences and conventions. I've done a fair few over the years - from the early days of the Southampton (later Winchester ) Writers' Conference to the many years of attending and/or running British Fantasy Society conventions. I've been as a 'guest' to Sci-Fi Weekender , and I even once went to a Star Trek convention - purely for research , you understand? A couple of weeks ago, I went to CrimeFest - one of the annual crime festivals around the country. Harrogate is the other biggie and I'm sure there are more. When I first booked for CrimeFest, I was a little miffed to see that they really don't recognise indie writers at all; there's one small panel featuring indie writers and to be considered for this, you have to satisfy a long string of criteria. But conferences and conventions are not all the same. Winchester for example is very much about learning . There are talks and workshops about how to do stuff ...

After a few years out, I'm back on the conference/convention scene again - starting with the British Fantasy Society 's FantasyCon later this month. I haven't been to a FantasyCon for a long time - I used to run them back in the day, which was a huge amount of fun, but also a huge amount of work co-ordinating a weekend for 300+ people. But since I went to the dark side and started writing crime, I've been out of the fantasy loop - that and a lack of funds - but I thought I'd venture back to sunny Nottingham this time. At least it's cheaper than London!  Back in the day - way,  way back - I'd do conventions on about three hours sleep. Over the entire weekend. I have fond memories of a London Con, still drinking while the cleaners were hoovering around us; an hour's sleep and then we'd be down to breakfast at eight ... The Cons I was involved in running - I'd meet with the conference manager and the conversation would go something like this: ...

Photographs of John AA Logan don't exactly litter the internet I'm surprised to find myself having a go at this 'blog hop' challenge – but I was even more surprised (and rather delighted) when John AA Logan invited me to try. John's a fellow Authors Electric member but I've never met him and I don't feel that I really 'know' him in the social media world. There are some AE members (and Facebook friends) who I forget that I haven't physically met. They're so much part of my on-line life that I assume that we would instantly get chatting about 1001 things if we should discover ourselves sharing a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. But not John.  That's merely a recording of my impression: it's not a criticism or a judgement. Agatha Christie once said about Margery Allingham "If I say I don't at all know what she was like that is the truth and that makes her interesting to me." My impression is that (in the hackne...

Margery Allingham Albert Campion Margery Allingham (1904 – 1966) was one of the Golden Age “Queens of Crime” along with Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and Ngaio Marsh. Her series detective, Albert Campion, sometimes merges in people's minds with Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey – those languid, upper-class, vaguely Woosterian / Sir Percy Blakeney-ish types.  As far as I'm concerned this perception does Campion and his creator a disservice. I was lucky enough to write Allingham's biography ( The Adventures of Margery Allingham ) and remain constantly impressed by the way she used her detective to dramatise her personal preoccupations and record her observations of social change over four decades.  Bibliography of MA's short stories Allingham was always a developing and experimental writer. She stayed within the 'box' of the crime novel but never wrote the same book twice. Campion appears in nineteen full-length novels from The Crime at Blac...

Chris Longmuir and Nev Fountain on Panel at Crimefest I’m shattered, worn out, and just want to crawl into a corner and sleep! Why? Because I’m just back from Crimefest, Bristol ’s own convention for crime writers. Why do I do it? Why did I trot off to Crimefest again this year? Well, it’s simple really, because as well as being a shattering experience, it’s also a stimulating one. There’s a buzz at this crime conference that you don’t get anywhere else. The place hotches with readers, writers, editors, publishers and agents. Some writers attend hoping to attract the eye of the latter three, but I’m afraid my interest is mainly the readers and writers. Since going my own way I’m no longer interested in a publishing deal or agent representation. I’m happy to be independent. The panel I was on, aptly named ‘A Suitable Job? Diverse Characters in Crime’, was moderated by Adrian Magson, and he did a brilliant job. The other panel members were Mary Andrea Clarke, Roz Southe...