As The Passing Tramp approaches its tenth anniversary as a blog, I thought I'd both look back at 2020 and look ahead to this new year, 2021. So here goes! With all the single sentence paragraphs below this will look like a Catherine Aird mystery.
Last year I wrote another four columns for Crimereads and this year I will be doing a monthly column for them.
For my old friend Coachwhip, I only did just one book project last year, a twofer of Ruth Burr Sanborn's Murder by Jury and Murder on the Aphrodite, but I expect to do some more with them this year.
With Moonstone I worked on their reissue of Alan Clutton-Brock's Murder at Liberty Hall and I will be doing more with them this year, including another long out-of-print British woman author from the Thirties.
With Dean Street Press I worked on the continuing reissues of Christopher Bush and Moray Dalton and I will again be doing that this year, along with a debut set of Anne Morice reissues, about which I wrote last month.
With Stark House I worked on twofer reissues of books by Americans Ruth Fenisong (Deadlock/Dead Weight) and Ruth Sawtell Wallis (Too Many Bones/Blood from a Stone) and I have another one with them coming out this year on Dolores Hitchens, about whom I have some interesting new biographical information, which I relate to her writing.
Finally, over a year ago I wrote an introduction to (and made the initial selection of stories for) a new collection of Q. Patrick short fiction by Crippen & Landru, Hunt in the Dark and other Fatal Pursuits, but this book did not make it out in 2020 as expected. All I know now is that it will be out sometime in 2021, sooner I hope rather than later.
Speaking of which, I have completed nearly 120,000 words of my joint Hugh Wheeler-Richard Webb bio and I think 30,000 words will complete it. So I'm expecting to be done with it by March. I have been working on it for two and a half years now, after having gestated it for several years; but with luck maybe it will be in print by 2022, along with some additional HughRick material. This has been my biggest book project since Masters of the Humdrum Mystery (2012) and my original award-winning book The Conquest of Labor (2001, based on my history PhD). There's no murder in that one, though it would have made a great setting for it.
Perhaps I have a major book in me every decade or so.
Wow you have certainly been a busy bee and it looks like you are going to be very busy in 2021. Glad to hear you'll be doing monthly pieces for Crime Reads. Very intrigued by who the woman writer might be for the forthcoming Moonstone reprint. I very much enjoyed the Sawtell Wallis book - Too Many Bones was one of my favourite reads from last year. It is certainly one of the most memorable too!
ReplyDeleteRemembered to add there's a Dolores Hitchens book with Stark House coming soon too. And thanks. You are rather industrious yourself and I'm pleased you liked the RSW reissue. I was especially happy with that book and the way the intro worked out.
DeleteGreat to read all the updates. I am especially looking forward to the Dolores Hitchens volume (coincidentally, I ordered several of her books last week), the Q. Patrick volume, and the biography.
ReplyDeleteThere are a couple of Japanese books I wanted to mention as well, but I thought I would put that in another post.
DeleteNice! Any word on the Alan W. Thomas project?
ReplyDeleteIt's on the hopper! Anne Morice came up and took priority.
DeleteI continue to enjoy your blog. I have learned much from you about Wheeler/Webb, who have become favourite GAD authors writing as Quentin, Patrick, Stagge, etc. As such, I look forward to the biography you're writing as well as the Crippen & Landru collection when available.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much. I look forward to finally being finished with it! I've been intrigued by Webb and Wheeler for yards and wrote an essay about them and The Grindle Nightmare back in 2014 I think, but I've only been actively working on a joint bio since 2018. Things seem to be coming together. I hope it will be of interest to mystery fans but also people interested in American literary and LGTBQ history more generally. It touches a lot of bases!
Deleteand I have another one with them coming out this year on Dolores Hitchens
ReplyDeleteI recently read one of the railway mysteries she wrote with her husband - End of the Line. A very nifty mystery but I'm biased because I love railway mysteries.
She is pretty terrific, very versatile crime writer.
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