MWA NorCal Mystery Month: SETTING!!

October is Mystery Month! Mystery Writers of America NorCal presents a host of special events starting today!

Wednesday, October 13

SETTING: Locked Rooms to Hot Air Balloons – Crafting the Perfect Setting and Making It Real
Via Zoom; advance registration required
5 PM Pacific Time

Setting: 1) the place and conditions in which something happens or exists; (2) the time, place, and conditions in which the action of a book, movie, etc. takes place; and (3) the rooms, painted backgrounds, furniture, etc., that are used for a scene in a movie or a play. Join us, on Zoom, as we dive into the world of backdrop and scene. What’s the context for the action of our characters? With a (literal) world of options how do we pick the best setting for our characters, and how do we assure readers step into the places we create? Setting should encompass more than just place—it is what imbues our stories with mood and ambience.

Moderator: Daisy Bateman is a mystery lover, cheese enthusiast, and world-renowned expert in Why You Should Buy That. Her educational background is in molecular biology from Caltech and UC Berkeley, and in what passes for normal life, she works in biotech.

Panelists:

• John Billheimer holds an engineering Ph.D. from Stanford University and for thirty years was Vice President of a small consulting firm specializing in transportation research. He has investigated such diverse topics as commuter lane performance, mobile phone safety, drunk driving countermeasures, DMV service, video surveillance, and motorcycle safety
• Mark Coggins has earned two degrees and a Phi Beta Kappa Key from Stanford University and has worked for a number of Silicon Valley computer and venture capital firms, including Netscape Communications and Hewlett Packard Company. His books have been nominated for the Shamus and the Barry crime fiction awards and have been selected for best of the year lists compiled by the San Francisco Chronicle, the Detroit Free Press and Amazon.com, among others.
• Margaret Dumas writes books about smart, funny women who are trying to figure things out in the San Francisco Bay Area. Occasionally they fall in love. Occasionally they solve a murder.
  

Murderous Month of May: Keir Graff

Today I welcome Keir Graff, Editor, Booklist Online.

KEIR GRAFF:

Booklist, a publication of the American Library Association, reviews books, audiobooks, videos, and internet databases for public and school librarians. Our 8,000 reviews each year cover everything from literary fiction for adults to gardening books for kids—we try to include everything that a medium-sized public library would need to have on the shelves for its patrons. Each print issue of the magazine includes a themed spotlight, such as our May 1 Mystery Showcase.

We try to do right by every genre, of course, but publisher Bill Ott and I are both huge mystery fans, and so we possibly do a little bit better by crime fiction. And, hey, mysteries are second only to romance in terms of readership, so why not? A few years ago I had the bright idea of declaring May to be Mystery Month, during which we would complement the rich offerings from the print issue with a wealth of Booklist Online–exclusive extras. We’re midway through this year’s Mystery Month and so far it’s the best yet. We kicked things off early with a webinar, The Murderous Month of May, then announced the May 1 print issue with our e-newsletter, REaD ALERT, which included free links to our selection of “The Year’s Best Crime Novels” and a whole lot more. Another e-newsletter, Booklist Online Exclusives, included reviews and features that we couldn’t quite fit in the magazine.

This is sounding kind of list-y, and I apologize. Frankly, we’re publishing so much stuff that the only way I can get my head around it is to just put it all down. But what I really love about Mystery Month is the way I can pursue offbeat things that interest me whether or not we have room for them in print. I’m writing an ongoing series about trends in crime fiction, for example (see “From beyond the Grave: Dead Authors, Living Series”); I got to interview Ariel S. Winter, author of the fantastic debut novel The Twenty-Year Death; and I had a blast with the offbeat list “Read-alikes: Baked Burglars, Hippie Detectives, and Slacker Sleuths.” There is much, much more beyond that . . .

Our many bloggers have been busy, too, publishing everything from hilarious Q&As with Chelsea Cain to the basics of Harry Bosch to profiles of other must-read mystery publications. (If you follow that link, you’re going to end up more or less back where you started!) We’re sharing all of this on our Facebook page and on Twitter (hashtagged #mysterymonth). Finally, if you want a humorous—and completely fictional—look inside the offices of Booklist, here’s a link to a piece I did four years ago, “Reading Is My Business.”

It’s great to be here at Mystery Fanfare, and I hope that you’ll take a look at what we’ve got going on over at Booklist Online. I’d love to hear from you on Twitter, Facebook, in blog comments, or by good, old-fashioned e-mail.

Happy Mystery Month!