Mysteries

I recently attended Murder in the Magic City and was interested to see that it was a majority of women in the audience. Not interested in the sense that my girlfriend might beat me up, but interested from a writing point of view.

I have often heard that women read more mysteries than men. Certainly, that conference seemed to provide some measurable proof.

I wonder though, why that is. Certainly, certain types of mysteries may appeal more to women than men, and vice versa. But there are plenty of male characters and plenty of action-oriented mysteries., both of which would seem to appeal more to guys, if we are thinking in terms of traditional gender roles.

Author CJ Box at the conference commented that he gets a lot of fan mail from men. His main character? A game warden.

Not sure what it all means. Certainly, gender roles are merging, changing and evolving. I'm certain the same can be said of traditional gender reading interests.

Dick Francis

Sadly, mystery great Dick Francis has died. You can read more here:

Dick Francis

Murder in the Magic City

I attended this great event in Birmingham Alabama Saturday and must say it was extremely enjoyable.

I will write more about it this weekend, however, I offer a few initial notes.

First, the panelists were excellent. I also liked the guests of honors. Across the board a good event.

I got two books signed, one by CJ Box and one by Hank Phillippi Ryan. Both were a pleasure to meet, very giving of their time (thanks to us all having journalism backgrounds, there was plenty to talk about) and I'm looking forward to reading their books.

I will be discussing specific topics this week.