#FridayReads - October 21st, 2011 Edition

For those not familiar, #FridayReads is about discussing what you're currently reading. As the FAQ states, it "promotes literacy and a passion for reading." Here is the entire Twitter feed for the #fridayreads hashtag. Through talking about what I've been reading, I'm hoping to accomplish a few things: make myself think a bit about how exactly I'd describe something I've recently read, let people know about books I've enjoyed, and hear from my readers about what they are reading.

Since my most recent #FridayReads post (two weeks ago) I finished reading the novel Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi. It went in all sorts of directions I wasn't expecting, but maintained its tone throughout and was, on the whole, a lot of fun. There's an introduction to the book which is available online and which tells about the background of him writing the novel. He ended up being a sort of pioneer in the indie publishing eBook world with this novel, making several thousand dollars posting it for free and letting people send him donations if they liked it. Interesting stuff!

Sunday Links : September 4, 2011 Edition

I don't think I've ever explicitly stated my blogging schedule in full. I post new items every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Every other week, the Wednesday post previews the new Dissecting the Short Story entry and Friday is the full dissection. Sundays I post links to new articles from the week that I found interesting and also recap the week on my blog.

Now, to the links!

Six Mystery Writers You Should Be Reading

One of my favorite genres for reading is the mystery genre. I especially like private investigator stories, but read a wide variety of other types of mysteries as well. Most of my writing has been in science fiction, fantasy, and horror but recently I've been adding some mystery stories, too.

Writers almost always benefit from being well-versed in the work created by others in their genres of interest. To that end, I've put together a list of six mystery writers whose fiction I believe is of use to people who are new to writing mysteries. Even beyond that, since many of the attributes of these writers' works I discuss aren't specific to mystery fiction, they could be good examples for writers of all genres.