WRITERS BORN TODAY - SUE GRAFTON

It's the birthday of crime writer Sue Grafton, author of the Alphabet series, which featured wise-cracking P. I. Kinsey Millhone. The first novel in this series, A Is For Alibi, was nominated for a Shamus Award for Best Novel, but lost to Lawrence Block's Eight Million Ways To Die.

Sue's writing career started long before her award winning series took off and led to best sellers and critical acclaim. The story starts with her birth in Louisville Kentucky to a mother who was a teacher and a father who was a lawyer (with a two year stint in the army during WWII). It was her father, C.W. Grafton, who planted in her the writing bug. He wrote crime novels at night and published four during his short career. His first novel, The Rat Began To Gnaw The Rope, won the Mary Roberts Reinhart Award in 1943.

Her father taught her vital writing techniques and inspired her to start her first novel at age 18. Sue wrote seven novels in those early years, two of which were published, but these did not bring her commercial success.

Sue Grafton's Alphabet Series got it's inspiration from a bitter divorce and custody battle with her husband. While she fantasized about creative ways to kill him in order to preserve her sanity, she started writing down her thoughts. As she later described it, she wrote out her frustrations because she didn't want to spend the rest of her life in prison wearing a drab outfit.

Over the next 35 years the series extended through the alphabet all the way to Y is For Yesterday, published in 2017. Sue Grafton passed away on December 28, 2017. This left her last planned novel, Z Is For Zero, unfinished.

In  2009, Sue Grafton was awarded the Grand Master Award by the Mystery Writers of America in recognition of her contribution to the crime genre.

"Ideas are easy. It’s the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats." - Sue Grafton

Writers Born Today - Laura Lippman

It's the birthday of journalist and crime writer Laura Lippman, born January 31, 1959. From a very early age she knew she wanted to be a novelist, though she confessed once that she didn't know "how anyone became a novelist".

It didn't stop her. Her first novel was written at age five, and was illustrated by the author. It was about a caveman, written in his native language. Sales were modest. She still has the original. (One wonders what this first edition is worth.)

He writing career began with small newspapers in Texas, She moved form there to Baltimore Sun, where she was hired as a journalist in 1991. Her first novel, Baltimore Blues, was written in her spare time and published in 1998. It was a finalist for the Shamus Award. Several more novels followed, and by 2004, she had published eight more novels, and had won multiple awards, including the Agatha, Anthony, Barry, Edgar, Macavity, Nero, and Shamus Awards (some of them twice). Not everyone was thrilled, however.

Her bosses at the Baltimore Sun resented her "spare time" writing success and demoted her to a small bureau office away from the fast paced downtown Baltimore newspaper office. Lippman left to become a full time novelist, and crime readers have been deeply grateful ever since. After more than two dozen novels and several short story collections, Laura Lippman is still writing crime novels, still winning awards, and still making history.

And those editors who resented her success and told her she couldn't write? No one will remember their names down the road. Kinda makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, doesn't it?

Credit and Thanks to Crime Reads and the Hoover Sun for their assistance in writing this post!

Writers Born Today - Julia Buckley

 This week we celebrate the birthday of crime writer Julia Buckley, born on December 30th. She's the author of over 20 mysteries, including several series. My favorite? Her Undercover Dish books which feature an adorable chocolate lab, delicious recipes, and devious murders. If you're a fan of death by poison, and Murder She Wrote, you'll love this four book series as much as I did. I recommend reading them in order, starting with The Big Chili.

A lifelong reader, her mother (a librarian herself) took here to the library at an early age and encouraged her to read. During this period, Julia was introduced to dozens of writers, including Ngaio Marsh, Agatha Christie, Patricia Wentworth, and Dorothy Sayers. 

Julia later became a teacher, and has taught in Chicago schools for many years. Her first book, Madeline Mann, appeared in 2007, a three part cozy series. Her latest series, the Hungarian Tea-House Mysteries, features a woman who solves crime in her family's tea shop. The first book in the series is Death in a Budapest Butterfly. All the books in this series show the influence of Hungarian folklore and the cozy writing style which has made her books adored by fans.

Julia holds a special place in my heart, as she was the first writer to interview me on her blog after the publication of my cozy mystery, way back in 2008. You can learn more about Julia Buckley through her blog, Mystery Musings.

Considering how productive  and popular Julia has been, shouldn't there be a TV pilot by now? Anybody have Hallmark's phone number?