2021-08-22 12:50
In my academic mystery series, I exiled professors to basement offices well before The Chair became a series starring Sandra Oh. I’ve seen much worse behavior and it’s ins… Read More
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Writing Across Genres | The Lev Raphael Blog
levraphael.com/blog
A blog about publishing and writing by the prize-winning author of 24 books in 15 genres, who also teaches as a guest author at Michigan State University.
2021-07-07 11:11
King Richard by Michael Dobbs charts the calamitous fall of Richard Nixon from his landslide election victory in 1972 to the collapse of all attempts to keep Watergate from plunging his en… Read More
2021-07-04 10:57
The first time someone wondered if I was Norwegian I was on a beach in Israel. A new Dutch friend I’d made at a conference came over to me and pointed back to this guy further up the… Read More
2021-07-04 10:57
The first time someone wondered if I was Norwegian I was on a beach in Israel. A new Dutch friend I’d made at a conference came over to me and pointed back to this guy further up the… Read More
2021-07-02 10:16
Celebrity Irish writer Marian Keyes made headlines when she said she doesn’t read male writers because their lives aren’t as interesting as women’s lives–they were &l&hell…Read More
2021-06-13 15:25
Fans often ask me if I go to writers’ retreats. I never have and I’ve never really wanted to, because I live in one.The mid-century house I bought over 30 years ago in a heavil… Read More
2021-06-05 11:22
I never set out to write mysteries, queer or otherwise. When I launched my career as an author, it was with short stories which were ultimately collected in a book that won a Lambda Literar… Read More
2021-05-31 11:35
I grew up with adversity. My parents emigrated to the U.S. from Europe with very little money and weren’t helped nearly enough by relatives. Their early years in the U.S… Read More
2021-05-31 11:35
I grew up with adversity. My parents emigrated here from Europe with very little money and weren’t helped nearly enough by relatives. Their early years in the U.S. were v… Read More
2021-05-28 15:15
Every year since 2004, the Library of Michigan has publicized as many as 20 Notable Michigan books “reflective of Michigan’s diverse ethnic, historical, literary, and cultural… Read More
2021-05-28 15:15
Every year since 2004, the Library of Michigan has publicized as many as 20 Notable Michigan books “reflective of Michigan’s diverse ethnic, historical, literary, and cultural… Read More
2021-05-26 15:11
Marjorie Taylor Greene is at it again, comparing mask mandates in the pandemic to being a Jew in Germany headed off to the gas chambers. I wonder if her dismal understanding of the Ho… Read More
2021-05-12 12:05
“Writers should not attack their peers.”
That’s what a famous author I deeply admired told me near the start of my career, and what he meant was personal attacks. … Read More
2021-04-28 08:49
After years of reviewing crime fiction for the Detroit Free Press and other news outlets, I’m used to genre misery. Mare of Easttown is no exception. So far in two episodes set… Read More
2021-04-28 08:49
After years of reviewing crime fiction for the Detroit Free Press and other news outlets, I’m used to genre misery. Mare of Easttown is no exception. It’s set in a grimy m… Read More
2021-04-28 08:49
After years of reviewing crime fiction for the Detroit Free Press and other news outlets, I’m used to genre misery. Mare of Easttown is no exception. It’s set in a grimy middle… Read More
2021-04-21 19:02
When I do readings from my mystery series, people ask, “Are universities as loony and vicious as all that?”Yes. Absolutely. And how do I know? Because I didn’… Read More
2021-04-21 19:02
Yes: Academia is a nest of vipers. That’s been my answer on book tours when people have asked me “Are universities as loony and vicious as all that?”How do I know? Becaus… Read More
2021-04-15 18:47
Greetings!We’re thrilled that you can be teaching for us on such short notice. Speaking as chair of the creative writing program, we’re all so very proud to have you, especia… Read More
2021-03-21 16:31
Critics lavished Bridgerton with praise for supposedly making the Regency relevant to a modern audience–as if that had never been done before.
But without gross anachronisms or improb… Read More
2020-12-16 02:06
Lately I’ve been feeling like writing is a bloody battlefield — not for me, but for tens of thousands of writers across the Internet.I’m talking about writers who seem… Read More
2020-12-02 09:11
Because it was boring and obvious. The murderer had to be Hugh Grant. But I kept up with the story since my spouse watched it religiously for the New York wealth porn (clothes! inter… Read More
2020-12-02 09:11
Because it was boring and obvious. The murderer had to be Hugh Grant. But I kept up with the story since my spouse watched it religiously for the New York wealth porn (clothes! inter… Read More
2020-12-02 09:11
Because it was boring and obvious. The murderer had to be Hugh Grant. But I kept up with the story since my spouse watched it religiously for the New York wealth porn (clothes! inter… Read More
2020-09-07 00:20
In my breakout mystery The Edith Wharton Murders, two rival Wharton societies are brought together in one conference and murder results. I got the idea at a Wharton conference.Nobody was kil… Read More
2020-08-23 14:32
The New York Times ruled in my family when I was growing up in Manhattan. My mother especially loved the Sunday Magazine articles, my brother relished the daily puzzles, and I enjoye… Read More
2020-07-26 14:55
I published Dancing on Tisha B’Av almost thirty years ago and the book capped ten years of publishing groundbreaking stories about gay Jews and children of Holocaust survivors. More th… Read More
2020-07-06 11:22
Get ready for a rough and extremely raunchy ride: Terrill Lankford’s Shooters is a propulsive, hypnotic, sexually explicit, blistering exposé of the American hunger for more, m… Read More
2020-06-16 11:56
I never set out to write mysteries, gay or otherwise. When I launched my career as an author, it was with short stories which were ultimately collected in a book that won a Lambda Literary… Read More
2020-06-15 01:26
I’ve always liked to cook, but since the Michigan lockdown in March, I’ve been spending more time than usual perusing my cookbooks and the online food sections of the New York Ti… Read More
2020-06-06 20:04
Senator Tom Cotton–who recently argued on Twitter for giving protestors “no quarter”–is unhappy with Wichita State University. This school decided to uninvite t… Read More
2020-05-30 13:09
Back in the Obama administration, official Washington was having second thoughts about its giant giveaway of military grade equipment to local police forces. But it was already too late to r… Read More
2020-05-10 15:24
It’s not supposed to, though. Kidd’s novel is a super-serious novel about female empowerment told in the voice of Ana, who Kidd imagines was married to Jesus.Yes, Ana, not Anna o… Read More
2020-04-20 12:14
Back when I was still teaching creative writing at Michigan State University, a senior colleague at Michigan State University’s English Department asked if I wanted to join him to star… Read More
2020-04-14 11:52
“Look me up whenever you come to Paris.”
That’s what famed author Edmund White said to me when we met at an awards banquet in D.C. in the late 80s. I was frazz… Read More
2020-04-07 22:11
You’ve probably never heard of one of Germany’s most important post World War II authors, Walter Kempowski, but he’s a must read. History doesn’t get much more… Read More
2020-03-31 14:26
The Guardian recently reported that novels about epidemics were selling like crazy in Europe, including books by Stephen King, Dean Koontz–and of course Camus’ 1947 classic The P… Read More
2020-03-28 11:49
Over the years and on many book tours for my mysteries, people have asked me “Is academia as vicious as all that?”
The answer is Absolutely. How do I know? Because I not only es… Read More
2020-03-23 12:42
The Internet is awash in bogus quotations and Mark Twain is a favorite “source.”
Here’s one that’s all over Facebook, and the first time I read it was early in the mo… Read More
2020-03-18 13:28
Huffington Post once reported that a British literary agent got sentenced to prison for cheating gullible, fame-seeking clients out of their money. His clients thought movie deals were in th… Read More
2020-03-16 13:24
The Stranger by Albert Camus was my least favorite book in eight years of French classes. It wasn’t the language, since I was a solid French student, thanks in part to a French-speaki… Read More
2020-03-01 22:13
Like other school kids, I was steeped in reading about the Father of Our Country from elementary school onward, but my fascination with George Washington had a personal backdrop. I li… Read More
2020-02-28 11:24
In 2011 I returned from a successful book tour in Germany where some of my audiences had been college students and I found myself missing the classroom intensely. Three days later, I receive… Read More
2020-02-25 18:50
Despite congratulations like Henry Olson’s in the Washington Post, Amy Klobuchar didn’t abandon “Minnesota Nice” at the Nevada Democratic Presidential Debate. What ha… Read More
2020-02-25 17:44
Celebrity Irish writer Marian Keyes made headlines recently when she said she doesn’t read male writers because their lives aren’t as interesting as women’s lives–th… Read More
2020-02-23 10:17
Guest author: Betty Webb
Writers are an argumentative bunch, especially when it comes to the subject of critique groups.
Some writers advise newbies – but only newbies – to join… Read More
2020-02-18 12:38
Russia has been in the news for the last few years but mostly through the lens of election interference, the war in Ukraine, or climate change. Information about what the country is r… Read More
2020-02-12 15:02
That’s what The Daily Mail quotes superstar Irish novelist Marian Keyes as having recently said:
“I only read women. I know that men write books. But their lives are so limited… Read More
2020-02-08 00:03
Given the national uproar swirling around the new novel about Mexican immigrants, American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins, you’d think Congress might have launched an investigation. Or that… Read More
2020-02-05 01:11
So best-selling author Jennifer Weiner watched the Super Bowl halftime extravaganza and the perfect looks and body of Jennifer Lopez made her feel inferior.
Talking about her Facebook friend… Read More
2020-02-02 09:02
In case you wondered, Michael Dirda at The Washington Post has your life in books all figured out. He’s just explained that whether you read fiction or re-read fiction depends on… Read More
2020-01-20 02:06
My Holocaust survivor parents arrived in the U.S. in 1950 and followed the Civil Rights movement in the 50s and 60s with hope and horror. When they saw TV footage of demonstrators being drag… Read More
2020-01-18 15:19
I’ve done hundreds of invited talks and readings on three different continents and I love being out there with my writing—it’s a dream come true. But even though I’m… Read More
2020-01-14 01:00
Garth Greenwell has a new book out and when he published his debut a few years ago, the response from critics reminded me of my years reviewing for the Detroit Free Press, the Washington Pos… Read More
2020-01-13 02:38
The best historical novels create a world so immersive that you don’t just live inside of it while read the book, you carry that world with you for days or weeks afterward, and see ev… Read More
2020-01-08 15:28
Back in the eighties, I landed a major New York agent and felt I was truly launched as an author. Up to that point, I had only one fiction publication: a short story in Redbook which had won… Read More
2019-12-23 16:24
Over at Wirecutter, there’s advice about what you should and shouldn’t do when you’re a holiday dinner guest. Don’t bring flowers, do bring ice, and if you arrive wit… Read More
2019-12-23 01:32
It’s easy to find anti-Semitism in A Christmas Carol if that’s your goal, which seems to be the case in a cranky article recently appearing in Forward online.
Let’s examine… Read More
2019-12-17 13:22
I’ve been a Simon Winder fan ever since he published his hilarious cultural exposé James Bond: The Man Who Saved Britain. I read it while traveling and laughed so hard and… Read More
2019-12-11 09:48
Once American intelligence agencies verified that Russian interfered in the 2016 election, it behooved all thinking Americans to inform themselves about our long term enemy, an enemy many o… Read More
2019-11-04 13:50
Lots of authors worry about the number of words they write per day. Some even post the tally on Facebook or Twitter as if they’re in some kind of competition.
And if they’re not… Read More
2019-10-29 23:57
His publisher says that Joseph Kanon writes for adults, and that’s not hyperbole. Kanon’s intense and thrilling spy novels are subtle, sophisticated, and beautifully writt… Read More
2019-10-20 14:20
Is there any writer who knows the workings of intelligence agencies better than John le Carré? The famed novelist served in MI5 and MI6 and every book of his opens up those wor… Read More
2019-10-09 14:31
That’s right. Your role in contributing to climate chaos isn’t just based on the SUV you drive that gets crappy gas mileage, or the plastic bottles you keep buying, or the… Read More
2019-10-04 12:21
The superlative blogger who writes Suzie Speaks recently discussed being an “extroverted introvert” and how that plays out in her life. The question of those polarities is… Read More
2019-09-29 09:33
Growing up in New York, I read and revered The New York Times, which was one of a handful of papers in our house, but held the place of highest esteem. And I remember classroom instruc… Read More
2019-09-24 12:11
If you’re thinking of watching The Bookshop starring Emily Mortimer and Bill Nighy on Amazon Prime, wait. Read the short novel it’s based on first. The movie adds touches o… Read More
2019-09-18 08:00
Women crime writers have reacted in outrage to the Staunch Book Prize, a UK award for “a novel in the thriller genre in which no woman is beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped or… Read More
2019-09-09 10:55
I fell in love with Agatha Christie and crime fiction back in junior high and read every one of her books available at our local public library. I was captivated by her mastery of plot… Read More
2019-09-02 15:03
Memoirs can be difficult to write, and in Sir Oswald Newbold’s case in 1910 Singapore, writing a memoir turns deadly. As befits a classic mystery, he’s found dead in the fi… Read More
2019-08-28 11:40
I never met Morrison but she helped me cope with one of the most vexing aspects of being a writer.
It happened in Chicago. I was on a short Midwestern book tour with another author.&nb&hell…Read More
2019-08-20 10:17
I come from a family of teachers and one of the great joys of my life has been teaching creative writing, which I’ve done at various universities. I was mentored by a brilliant c… Read More
2019-08-06 20:22
Has the de-cluttering craze made you long for more order and space in your home? Do you dream of perfectly folding everything within reach and having closets that radiate so much seren… Read More
2019-07-31 08:51
I’m a highly visual person and I think I got my training early, growing up in New York, a paradise of museums. From elementary school onward, my parents took me on repeated trips… Read More
2019-07-21 10:44
SPOILERS AHEAD
Picture yourself after being hit by a car. You wake up in a hospital bruised and battered, with big gaps in your memory. Your foot is damaged and you can’t walk wi… Read More
2019-07-17 09:10
Has a new friend ever seemed a bit too friendly, too helpful, too willing to please? This friends gets close to you very fast, sharing intimate life details while doing everything possible t… Read More
2019-07-02 09:40
On my first trip to France, I spent a week in the Loire Valley based data a chateau hotel whose restaurant had a Michelin star. Everything was impeccable and delicious and the first night, w… Read More
2019-06-25 09:48
I thought that staying near the Brussels airport after close to a week in Flanders was a smart move. I was going to do serious sight-seeing in Ghent and Antwerp and had been to Brussels seve… Read More
2019-06-23 02:04
When I published my first short story in Redbook after winning a prize, I thought my career was set. I was my MFA program’s star; I’d made a lot of money (for a graduate student)… Read More
2019-06-17 09:50
That’s a question I get asked a lot when I’m on a book tour and when I teach a creative writing workshop or master class like I just did at Oakland University, sponsored by Roche… Read More
2019-06-15 12:58
Father’s Day is about six months off from Hannukah, but it always makes me think of my father’s potato pancakes.
Made in a large, battered cast iron pan, these latkes were always… Read More
2019-06-09 11:00
I never set out to write mysteries, gay or otherwise. When I launched my career as an author, it was with short stories which were ultimately collected in a book that won a Lambda Literary A… Read More
2019-05-31 10:19
I started reading mysteries in junior high school. My local library was well stocked and I worked my way through every Agatha Christie book on its shelves and branched out in many direction… Read More
2019-05-29 11:05
I’m not one of those authors who grew up dreaming of becoming a novelist. The urge to write came upon me much later in life during a time of great personal stress. We all deal with str… Read More
2019-05-26 08:57
The New York Times today tells the chilling story of a woman doctoral candidate who left her doctoral program in the late 1960s because she was sexually harassed and assaulted. As she… Read More
2019-05-24 12:06
The word is that beautiful Grand Rapids is fast becoming a destination city for its museums, restaurants, music, as well as the yearly international ArtPrize competition. I was there again l… Read More
2019-05-19 11:27
Chris Bohjalian’s most recent novel of suspense tells a gripping story about an alcoholic flight attendant, Cassie Bowden, who wakes up in a luxury hotel bed in Dubai next to a murder… Read More
2019-05-08 12:00
One thing we writers must do is regularly seek feedback on our work. It’s the only way we can expect to improve.
The problem is, most of us go about it all wrong.
Let’s say Sandy… Read More
2019-05-06 10:32
People often ask me at readings, “Where do you get your ideas?” In another context, the writer Lawrence Kushner once wrote, “Entrances are everywhere and all the time… Read More
2019-05-05 09:56
I started a mystery series in the 1990s thanks to my absurdly well-read, multi-lingual mother. When I was publishing literary fiction in the 1980s, she had surprisingly urged me more than on… Read More
2019-05-04 16:48
I think about my literate, multi-lingual mother all the time, even though she died twenty years ago.
Well-read and well-educated, she inspired me with a love of learning for its own sake. Sh… Read More
2019-04-29 13:21
SPOILERS AHEAD
I’ve been watching GOT for years and have enjoyed the battle scenes, but yesterday’s over-long episode was a dud, and stole too much from World War Z and The Lord… Read More
2019-04-24 13:49
I’ve lost track of how many mysteries and thrillers I’ve read, and not just because I’ve been reading crime fiction since junior high. I also spent a good decade reviewing… Read More
2019-04-24 12:41
Essays, stories, and books of mine have been taught at colleges and universities around the country, so I’ve been invited to speak at many different institutions over the years, from I… Read More
2019-04-15 14:31
I had an amazing senior year of college reading and reveling in George Eliot, Edith Wharton, D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, Lawrence Durrell, Fitzgerald, and Henry James. While all of them i… Read More
2019-04-14 13:14
In my years reviewing books on line, on air, and in print, one of the greatest joys has always been discovering a book by an author I was unfamiliar with, or better still, a debut novel that… Read More
2019-04-10 18:59
Difficult, demanding mothers and abusive fathers are a staple of contemporary fiction, but The Winter Sister by Megan Collins gives both of those tropes an exciting new spin.
Her heroine Syl… Read More
2019-04-08 17:49
I was in Grand Rapids last week to do an interview on WGVU about my newest mystery State University of Murder. The host Shelley Irwin is a terrific interviewer because she’s so well-pr… Read More
2019-04-03 13:18
Noted journalist Andrea King Collier recently interviewed me ahead of A Rally of Writers where I’ll do a workshop on “Finding Your Sleuth.”
AKC: How much time do you spend… Read More
2019-03-20 15:02
Two of my favorite authors were involved in a scandalous incident that made Pulitzer Prize history. Edith Wharton’s loving but barbed evocation of Old New York, The Age of Innocence, w… Read More
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