You Have the Right to Six Words - Part IV

Well, it's that time of the week again. So glad you came back - or that you're visiting for the first time. We have some great memoirs again today. Monday I took a little road trip north to Ann Arbor, Michigan, so I could attend Michael Stanley's author event at Aunt Agatha's Bookstore. I'll be sharing details from that on Saturday. But in honor of that trip, I'm going to use the writing duo of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip as my two recap memoirs.

Both Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip are natives of Johannesburg, South Africa. For a time Michael lived in Australia, but eventually returned to South Africa. Stanley lived in Johannesburg until he came to the United States to pursue his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois. He now splits time between Minnesota and South Africa. Michael and Stanley have enjoyed many adventures in the wilds of Africa, which they use as the backdrop to their Detective Kubu novels. Neither man had aspirations of writing fiction but after retiring from their positions as professors, they decided to tell a story for fun. That story turned into an amazingly popular debut novel entitled A CARRION DEATH in 2008. As a follow-up to the success of their first novel, THE SECOND DEATH OF GOODLUCK TINUBU was released earlier this month. Now, while I think some talent has to be involved in all of this success, Stanley Trollip says:

I have been lucky, lucky, lucky.

On the other hand, Michael Sears is a little more literal. His memoir:

What have we here? Carrion Death...

So, we'll travel back to the United States to see our first new memoirist for this week. Chester Campbell served in the Air National Guard before starting his extensive writing career. After his military service he worked for a newspaper, which led to freelance writing, which led to speech writing, and then to magazine editing. But that wasn't the end. Chester also wrote for an advertising company. It wasn't until after retiring, like the Michael Stanley duo, that Chester began the novel-writing leg of his career. In 2002 Chester wrote the first of his Greg McKenzie novels, SECRET OF THE SCROLL. Three books followed in this series: DESIGNED TO KILL, DEADLY ILLUSIONS and THE MARATHON MURDERS. This year, Chester published THE SUREST POISON, which introduces his new protagonist, private investigator Sid Chance. Chester Campbell's memoir almost goes without saying:

Took the plunge; never looked back.

And last, but far from least this week I have the great honor to share Laura Lippman's memoir with you. Laura is, of course, the author of the Tess Monaghan series. Laura has also written several stand alone novels, many short stories, even a serial published in the New York Times. There aren't very many awards that Laura hasn't won with her fiction writing. She is the recipient of the Edgar, Shamus, Agatha, Anthony, and Barry awards, among others. Laura also started out in journalism. She studied journalism at Northwestern University and worked for several newspapers, including the Waco Tribune Herald, the San Antonio Light and the Baltimore Sun. Laura made a bit of a circle in life. She grew up in Baltimore, graduated high school in Columbia, Maryland, then college in Chicago, worked in Texas, and finally made her way back to Baltimore. So, it would make perfect sense for her memoir to be:

Baltimore, away.
Now back to stay.

You don't truly realize how many amazing writers are members of the crime fiction community until you start a project like this. Four weeks and we've had an incredible array of writers already. And yet, I've barely begun to scratch the surface. I hope you'll be back again next week to see who turns up to share their memoirs!

Happy Reading!