Author: Lawrence C. Connolly
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First Impressions:
Discovering FrankensteinA recent episode of Prime Stage Mystery Theatre features responses to the question “Where did you first encounter Frankenstein?” The responses are varied, with listeners referencing Mel Brooks, Boris Karloff, and (appropriately) Mary Shelley. But a response closest to my own experience is from a Facebook friend who reports that she had been aware of…
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Today at Confluence:
Where To Next? Trends in Science FictionWriting horror in the days of covid is a bit like living in a science fiction novel. Not the Michael Crichton variety, where things pretty much go back to normal after humankind deals with the inciting incident, but the Richard Matheson kind (think I am Legend) where things change and those of us who get…
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This Friday at Confluence:
The Pandemic’s Impact on Horror FictionI’ve been doing my best to learn from the examples set by writers who lived through past epidemics – Sherwood Anderson, Beatrix Potter, and W.E.B. Du Bois (all of whom wrote during the 1918 flu outbreak); and Francesco Petrarca, Thomas Nash, and William Shakespeare (who penned some of their greatest works during Europe’s deadliest plagues).…
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Writing Mysteries:
Round-Robin StorytellingIn 1995, crime writers Edna Buchanan, Vicki Hendricks, Elmore Leonard, Paul Levine, and Les Standiford and eight of their writing colleagues penned the round-robin mystery novel Naked Came the Manatee. Conceives as a parody of the thriller genre and a response to an earlier multi-author novel titled Naked Came the Stranger (which has 24 writers!),…
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This Week on Mystery Theatre:
Flipping, Turning, and Rotating CluesThe person in the picture is not standing by a lake. In fact, he isn’t standing at all—a realization that becomes obvious once the photo is rotated 90 degrees to the left, at which point we see that the boy is lying with his back to a fallen tree and a foot propped against its…
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This Week on Mystery Theatre:
Strange Paintings and Stranger NamesIs the woman in the portrait turning toward or away from the viewer? Is she young or is she old? And what if anything might she reveal about the name Ms. Ambertin? It’s enough to confound even a master sleuth, and yet–according to August LaFleur–everything you need to answer the questions and more may be…