Texas Mystery Authors at the Book Festival in 2007Texas mystery authors Joe Lansdale, David Liss and Ben Rehder were interviewed in one of the capitol extension rooms on Saturday. The title of the discussion was "Light and Dark Elements of Mystery".
Joe Lansdale has been at the Book Festival many times. He won the Edgar Best Novel award for The Bottoms. His latest book is Lost Echoes. Mr. Lansdale was asked where he gets material for his books. He replied that he gets inspiration from dreams ... bad dreams! He said that he eats popcorn at night to get a bad dream. He joked that when his bank account gets low, his wife will start popping popcorn. David Liss won Edgar and Macavity Awards for Best First Novel for Conspiracy of Paper. He spent several years researching and writing the book ... an 18th century financial murder mystery. Mr. Liss has also written The Coffee Trader and three other novels one of which is to appear in stores next spring. He and the other authors said that publishers really like authors to have sequels ... but authors like the creativity involved in inventing new characters. The third Texas mystery author, Ben Rehder, was one who I was not familiar with. He said he began writing after discovering Carl Hiaasen, the Florida mystery writer. After reading his crazy and somewhat bizarre books ... Mr. Rehder was inspired to do the same with stories in Texas. His first book Buck Fever was nominated for Edgar Award for Best First Novel. (I don't have it and plan to buy it and get it signed at a future Texas Book Festival). He has published a total of five books. One interesting thing that all the authors mentioned is that ... They believe a good first page is very important to the success of the book. After the discussion, we got books signed by the authors.
I had Mr. Lansdale sign The Magic Wagon.
I had Mr. Liss sign my copy of Conspiracy of Paper. Unfortunately, I left my copy of Coffee Trader at home. But since David Liss lives in San Antonio ... he'll likely be back at the Festival in two years. I'll get it signed then. (Sorry about the photo, Mr. Liss, Jim took it).
|
