Steve Weddle is an American author, best known for his book "Country Hardball," which the New York Times called "downright dazzling. [1] " He is the co-founder (with Jay Stringer) of the crime fiction collective Do Some Damage, the co-creator (with John Hornor Jacobs) of the noir magazine Needle, and a regular instructor at LitReactor.
Weddle received his undergraduate degree from Centenary College of Louisiana, his Master of Arts from Pittsburg State University, and his Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from Louisiana State University. [2]
After graduating from Louisiana State University, Weddle taught college and worked as a journalist. [3] Weddle said that he began writing fiction because he was a "terrible student [4] " and cites Raymond Carver and Ernest Hemingway among his influences. [5] Weddle's first novel was completed in 2008 and he signed with the Donald Maass Literary Agency. [6] His short story "Cyborg Lesbian Vampire Assassins" appeared in the anthology "Both Barrels," published by Shotgun Honey. [7] Weddle's stories have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies and his Roy Alison novel "Country Hardball" was published by Tyrus Books in 2013. Publishers Weekly called the book "gritty. [8] "The follow-up story, "South of Bradley," appeared in Playboy magazine in 2015. [9] Weddle has said that he is working on a new novel with the same family, set in 1933. [10]
Weddle's short stories have appeared in the following collections.
Weddle lives with his family in Virginia. [11]
Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a serious crime, generally a murder. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as historical fiction or science fiction, but the boundaries are indistinct. Crime fiction has multiple sub-genres, including detective fiction, courtroom drama, hard-boiled fiction, and legal thrillers. Most crime drama focuses on crime investigation and does not feature the court room. Suspense and mystery are key elements that are nearly ubiquitous to the genre.
Frank Morrison Spillane, better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American crime novelist, whose stories often feature his signature detective character, Mike Hammer. More than 225 million copies of his books have sold internationally. Spillane was also an occasional actor, once even playing Hammer himself.
Leonard Chang is a Korean American writer of short stories and novels, as well as a screenwriter and television writer who is currently a writer/producer for FX's Snowfall.
Hardboiled fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction. The genre's typical protagonist is a detective who battles the violence of organized crime that flourished during Prohibition (1920–1933) and its aftermath, while dealing with a legal system that has become as corrupt as the organized crime itself. Rendered cynical by this cycle of violence, the detectives of hardboiled fiction are often antiheroes. Notable hardboiled detectives include Philip Marlowe, Mike Hammer, Sam Spade, Lew Archer, Slam Bradley, and The Continental Op.
Otto Penzler is an American editor of mystery fiction, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City.
Jess Walter is an American author of seven novels, a collection of short stories, and a non-fiction book. His books have been published in twenty-six countries and translated into twenty-eight languages. He is the recipient of the Edgar Allan Poe Award, among others, and was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2006.
Daniel Woodrell is an American novelist and short story writer, who has written nine novels, most of them set in the Missouri Ozarks, and one collection of short stories. Woodrell coined the phrase "country noir" to describe his 1996 novel Give Us a Kiss. Reviewers have frequently since used the term to categorize his writing.
Adam Johnson is an American novelist and short story writer. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2012 novel, The Orphan Master's Son, and the National Book Award for his 2015 story collection Fortune Smiles. He is also a professor of English at Stanford University with a focus on creative writing.
Libby Fischer Hellmann is an American crime fiction writer who currently resides in Chicago, Illinois. Most of her novels and stories are set in Chicago; the Chicago Sun-Times notes that she "grew up in Washington, D.C., but she has embraced her adopted home of Chicago with the passion of a convert."
Erik Arneson is a prominent political staffer in Pennsylvania, serving as Chief of Staff for former Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Chip Brightbill and as Communications and Policy Director for current Majority Leader Dominic F. Pileggi.
Bill Cameron is an American author.
Megan Abbott is an American author of crime fiction and of a non-fiction analysis of hardboiled crime fiction. Her novels and short stories have drawn from and re-worked classic subgenres of crime writing, from a female perspective. She is also an American writer and producer of television.
Richard Thomas is an American author. His focus is on neo-noir and speculative fiction, typically including elements of violence, mental instability, breaks in reality, unreliable narrators, and tragedies. His work is rich in setting and sensory details—often called maximalism. His writing has also been called transgressive and grotesque. He was Editor-in-Chief at both Dark House Press (2012-2016) and Gamut Magazine (2017-2019).
Andrew Ervin (1971) is an American writer whose debut 2010 novella collection Extraordinary Renditions was selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the Best Books of 2010. His 2015 debut novel Burning Down George Orwell’s House was listed as an Editor's Choice in the New York Times Book Review. He currently lives in Philadelphia.
Dayne Sherman is an American journalist and fiction writer. He has published two novels set in the Baxter Parish, Louisiana, based on the real-life Tangipahoa Parish. Sherman's work has been characterized as "country noir", a term coined by Daniel Woodrell in his 1996 novel Give Us a Kiss.
Reed Farrel Coleman is an American writer of crime fiction and a poet.
Craig McDonald is a novelist/journalist and the author of the Hector Lassiter series, the Chris Lyon Series, the novel El Gavilan, and two collections of interviews with fiction writers, Art in the Blood (2006) and Rogue Males (2009). He also edited the anthology, Borderland Noir (2015).
Joe Clifford is an American author and editor. His work crosses genres but features mystery and crime fiction. Past struggles with addiction, about which he is candid, have fundamentally influenced his writing.
Matthew P. Mayo is an American author of novels and non-fiction books for children and adults, as well as poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews. He writes about the American West as well as New England, and in the Western, humor, crime, and horror genres.
Nickolas Butler is an American novelist and short story author. He is the author of three novels: Shotgun Lovesongs (2014), The Hearts of Men (2017), and Little Faith (2019). He also authored the short story collection Beneath the Bonfire (2015).