Collectibles, page 32
THOMAS PLUCK collected American coins until shifty movers stole his collection, which he never replaced. Now he collects handmade knives, focusing on Master Smith Bowies and recurve folders. Keller and LB have lured him, but Tommy has yet to commit philately. He is the author of the Jay Desmarteaux crime thriller Bad Boy Boogie, which was nominated for an Anthony award, the adventure novel Blade of Dishonor, which MysteryPeople called “The Raiders of the Lost Ark of pulp paperbacks,” and over fifty short stories, published everywhere from Hardboiled to The Utne Reader.
DAVID RACHELS is the author of the poetry collection Verse Noir, and he has edited four volumes of short stories by the classic noir writer Gil Brewer. He collects blues CDs, which are substantially less valuable than blues 78s—but far more antiquated.
S. J. ROZAN is not a collector of anything. She is, however, a lover of and frequent visitor to Mongolia. Possibly this is because she’s from the Bronx, which to many New Yorkers is kind of like Mongolia. Her most recent book is The Art of Violence.
New York Times bestseller KRISTINE KATHRYN RUSCH has won the Ellery Queen Reader’s Choice award twice, been nominated for the Edgar, the Shamus, the Anthony, and many other mystery awards, not to mention what she does in her science fiction and romance careers. An award-winning editor and a recreational runner, she’s not a collector, but she lives with one—writer Dean Wesley Smith, whose collector friends “tell Dean that he’s not allowed to have more than three of anything, because that’ll be a collection. Which is why we now have only two cats.”
ALEX SEGURA is the author of Star Wars Poe Dameron: Free Fall, the Pete Fernandez Mystery series (including the Anthony Award-nominated crime novels Dangerous Ends, Blackout, and Miami Midnight), and the upcoming Secret Identity (Flatiron Books). His comic books include the superhero noir The Black Ghost, the YA music series The Archies, and the “Archie Meets” collection of crossovers, featuring real-life cameos from the Ramones, B-52s, and more. He is also the co-creator/co-writer of the Lethal Lit crime/YA podcast from iHeart Radio, named one of the best podcasts of 2018 by The New York Times. A Miami native, he lives with his wife and children in New York, where he spends his days as co-president of Archie Comics.
LAWRENCE BLOCK, whose response to encroaching senescence has led to a second career as an anthologist, has been described as a man who needs no introduction—and that’s precisely what he’s going to get here.
LAWRENCE BLOCK is a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master. His work over the past half century has earned him multiple Edgar Allan Poe and Shamus awards, the U.K. Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement, and recognition in Germany, France, Taiwan, and Japan. His latest novel is Dead Girl Blues; other recent fiction includes A Time to Scatter Stones, Keller’s Fedora, and The Burglar in Short Order. In addition to novels and short fiction, he has written episodic television (Tilt!) and the Wong Kar-wai film, My Blueberry Nights.
Block contributed a fiction column in Writer’s Digest for fourteen years, and has published several books for writers, including the classic Telling Lies for Fun & Profit and the updated and expanded Writing the Novel from Plot to Print to Pixel. His nonfiction has been collected in The Crime of Our Lives (about mystery fiction) and Hunting Buffalo with Bent Nails (about everything else). Most recently, his collection of columns about stamp collecting, Generally Speaking, has found a substantial audience throughout and far beyond the philatelic community.
Lawrence Block has lately found a new career as an anthologist (At Home in the Dark; From Sea to Stormy Sea) and holds the position of writer-in-residence at South Carolina’s Newberry College. He is a modest and humble fellow, although you would never guess as much from this biographical note.
Email: lawbloc@gmail.com
Twitter: @LawrenceBlock
Facebook: lawrence.block
Website: lawrenceblock.com
Lawrence Block, Collectibles
