This week includes two virtual events—one recorded on Zoom for Malice Domestic and the other live on Zoom for students at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
On Tuesday evening, I’ll be chatting short stories as part of a recorded panel for More Than Malice—and I’ve so enjoyed reading recent collections by each of the panelists: Lawrence Block, Dana Cameron, Nikki Dolson, Gale Massey, and Sara Paretsky. Needless to say that subject matter is of interest, both because of my own recent story collection but also because I taught a course on collections this past spring at George Mason University. Lots of discussions on this topic over the past few months, and now drawing on some of that as I prep questions for Tuesday!
Then on Thursday, I’m giving a lunchtime talk on one of my favorite crime novels—Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest—for the “Literary Potpourri” series at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Mason. Here’s the write-up for that event.
Red Harvest and the Hard-Boiled Hero.
Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 novel The Maltese Falcon has long been considered his best—as well as one of the greatest detective novels of all time—but Hammett’s first novel, Red Harvest, may well have broken ground the year before in more profound ways. This presentation will consider Red Harvest’s iconic detective, the unnamed Continental Op; discuss the book’s milestone importance in the development of the hard-boiled detective novel; and explore how Hammett drew on his own life for his fiction—or was the life he drew on some brand of fiction as well?
Registration is ultimately required for both events—either as an attendee at More Than Malice (register here!) or as a member of OLLI. But glad to share what I’m up to!