Hawai`i/California Author Leslie Karst I first met Leslie in March at Left Coast Crime in Honolulu where she and I shared a panel on writing mysteries about Hawai`i. From an early age through conversations with her parents, Leslie learned the value of both careful analysis and the arts—ideal ingredients, she says, for writing mysteries. Ingredients …
Go For Broke Belvedere While the 100th Infantry Battalion was fighting from Anzio to the outskirts of Rome in May 1944, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was sailing to Italy, having completed training in the Unites States. The 442nd and the 100th joined up at Civitavechhia northwest of Rome on the coast. The 442nd was …
Today, I interview Hawai’ian mystery author, Laurie Hanan, author of the Louise Golden mysteries.
The Royal Hawaiian Band When people think of Hawaii, they think of sun, sand, surf, palm trees and ocean breezes. What they discover when they get there is music. Music is the soul of Hawaiian culture and the Royal Hawaiian Band is its heart. Founded in 1836 by Kamehameha III, the band has a 180 …
Revising: Act I In the last post on revising, I summarized each scene on an index card and organized all of the cards into five groups—Act I, Act II-first part, Center point, Act II-second part, Act III. What determines what goes into each act? One consideration is simply page count. The first act should take …
Writing Mojo I first met Joe R. Lansdale in early 1988, not long after we moved to Texas. I had moved with a partially completed novel which I submitted to a writing workshop sponsored by Cepheid Variable, a Texas A&M student organization. The workshop was led by two unknown (to me) writers, Lew Shiner and …
According to the Honolulu Star Advertiser, Rocky, Kaimana’s mom, has weaned her pup. Kaimana is now on her own. http://www.staradvertiser.com/2017/08/11/breaking-news/monk-seal-pup-kaimana-mom-rocky-may-have-parted/
Left Coast Crime 2017, Honolulu Havoc What can I say about Left Coast Crime? This is always one of the best mystery conventions. Smaller than Bouchercon, but attracting top authors and dedicated fans. Lucinda Surber and Stan Ulrich do a tremendous job every year. Kudos also belongs to their local chair. This year the local …
Red Christmas I am stepping away from revising this week because I am working on formatting a story for sale on Kindle. The story is Red Christmas. It is a republication of a story that was published in The Shamus Sampler II, edited by Jochem Vandersteen. The original story was titled, IFHC. I changed the …
Violet McDade and Nevada Alvarado I’m always looking for stories with tough women. Last week I gave you one such woman, Julie Killeen in The Bride Wore Black by Cornell Woolrich (Julie Kohler, in Francois Truffaut’s film adaptation.) Julie was a bad girl. Although we sympathize with her, she took on the role of vigilant …
Hawaiian Noir 