Links to on-line and streaming local theater & book events

Margaret Maron (1938-2021) in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff on the Probabilities radio program on KPFA, recorded June 6, 1994 while she was on tour for the third Deborah Knott mystery, Shooting at Loons.

Margaret Maron died of a stroke on February 23, 2021 at the age of 82. At the time of her death she’d written twenty Judge Deborah Knott mysteries, nine Sigrid Harald mysteries, two other novels, and two collections of short stories. Along with writing about complex women characters, her books also focused on her native North Carolina, its life and its politics.

Following the interview, her next book was in the Sigrid Harald series, Fugitive Colors, published in 1995. She stayed away from that series until 2017, when she wrote Take Out, which turned out to be her last novel. She won an Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1993 and for Best Short Story in 2002 and was named a Grandmaster by the Mystery Writers of America in 2013.

After Shooting at Loons, she wrote seventeen more Deborah Knott novels. Also, over the course of her career, she became a major spokeswoman and advocate for the organization Sisters in Crime, and served as its first Vice President, and later its President.  Despite the success of her novels, to date none of her books or stories have been adapted for film or television, according to IMDb.

This interview was digitized and re-edited in March, 2021 and represents the first time it has been heard in over a quarter century. Extended 40-minute Radio Wolinsky podcast.

Sue Grafton died on December 28, 2017 at the age of seventy-seven. Best known as the author of a series of mysteries featuring the detective Kinsey Millhone, Sue Grafton was at the forefront of the Sisters in Crime movement — women authors who wrote crime fiction – starting with her first mystery, A is for Alibi in 1982, and continuing the alphabet through Y is for Yesterday. The final book in the series, Z is for Zero, was never written.

On April 17, 1989, on a book tour for F is for Fugitive, and again on April 13, 1992, for I Is for Innocent, Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff  spoke with Sue Grafton about the history of her career and her writing process. This program is taken from those two interviews.

Complete 1989 interview

Complete 1992 interview

:The complete 39 minute version of this program can be found as a Radio Wolinsky podcast.

Announcement Links

Bay Area Book Festival May 1-9: Virtual Festival; Kazuo Ishiguro, Sunday May 2, 2 pm.

American Conservatory Theatre Act Out Loud, Virtual Play Reading Series: Trouble in Mind by Alice Childress, March 29 – April 4; Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw, April 12-16, The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder, April 26 – May 2.

National, Misc:

If you’d like to add your bookstore or theater venue to this list, please write [email protected]

The post Bookwaves/Artwaves – March 25, 2021: Margaret Maron – Sue Grafton appeared first on KPFA.