Stone Pony, Asbury Park 7/23/10

One of the great things about summer at the Shore.

Ellroy, Hammett

Two more vintage pieces, newly corrected, adjusted and illustrated. Reviews of James Ellroy's MY DARK PLACES and SELECTED LETTERS OF DASHIELL HAMMETT: 1921-1960.

Block, Nevins, Woolrich

Another vintage interview, tweaked, corrected and illustrated: Lawrence Block and Francis M. Nevins discuss the 1987 completion of suspense writer Cornell Woolrich's novel INTO THE NIGHT. The piece can be found here.

More on Woolrich here.

Writers on writing

I've been updating and sprucing up some of the existing features on my web site, and this weekend I've made corrections and added artwork to the three "Writers on Writing" features, namely interviews with Stephen King, Clive Barker and James Lee Burke. These extensive, in-depth Q&As – focusing on the mechanics of writing and story telling – were originally conducted for Writer's Digest and the Asbury Park Press back in the early '90s, but appear here in a more complete form. King would later expand on some of his comments in his invaluable ON WRITING book a few years later, but this interview - the cover story in the March 1992 WD - was the first time he spoke at length about his writing methods.

Coming soon (I promise), the second part of the James Lee Burke interview. All I need to do now is locate the transcript.

Happy Fourth!