Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 144

Well this is depressing...

By Abir
Here’s our topic for this week: Discuss diversity in the sense of the market. What do you want to see on bookshelves from black authors in 2020?

Sigh.
Where to start? I suppose with honesty.
My first reaction to seeing this week’s topic was to roll my eyes. It seems every so often there’s a burst of handwringing in the publishing industry and the wider media about the lack of diversity, and good white people ask ‘What can we do? How do we fix this?’ and we get a bunch of well-meaning and...

What Does America Look Like? by James W. Ziskin

Here’s our topic for this week: Discuss diversity in the sense of the market. What do you want to see on bookshelves from black authors in 2020?

From Jim

I don’t believe this should be about what I, a white man of a certain age, want to see on bookshelves. Yes, I’m interested in other cultures and people who are different from me. How sad and dull the world would be if we were all the same. But the way I’d like to frame this issue in my head is in the form of a question:

What does America look...

Guess who dropped in?

This time around on Criminal Minds, I asked my friend and CM alumnus, author and publisher at Bronzeville Books, Danny Gardner to tackle this week’s question. And having already had a look at his post, I’m sure glad that I did. — Dietrich by Danny 
My dear friend, the author Susan Shea, drew the February questions for the group, and she reached me on the Bat phone (blackphone? haha.) As my blackness is preinstalled, she asked for access to the Danny Gardner Woke-API. Susan is my gurl, and...

Show Me Your Face

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Diversity on the Written Page by Brenda Chapman

Discuss diversity in the sense of the market. What do you want to see on bookshelves from black authors in 2020?

Every author brings their own experiences, including culture and heritage, to their stories. This diversity enriches and can be thought-provoking. Stories from different experiences can also help people not of the same race, country, socio-economic level or background to understand what others are feeling and, in the best of outcomes, to gain knowledge and to feel empathy.

I believe...

Around the World in a Day

The crime and mystery fiction we tend to read can be very US and Europe centric. Where else in the world would you like to see a crime fiction novel set and why?

by Paul D. Marks

There’s mysteries and thrillers set pretty much everywhere, though maybe some places get more attention than others. But here’s some places I’d like to see more of:



There’s a movie with Jack Nicholson called The Passenger that, if I remember correctly, opens in Chad. We see the haunting desert environment. And there’s...

Close to Home

The crime and mystery fiction we tend to read can be very US and Europe centric. Where else in the world would you like to see a crime fiction novel set and why?
By Catriona
It's true of my reading, certainly. I hoovered up Mma Ramotswe's early cases, set in Botswana, but I was always aware that this Setswana woman was being written by a British man, from afar. With knowledge and affection, but still from afar. I'd love to read African crime fiction by African voices.  (Ugh, a quick Google...

Close to Home by Catriona McPherson

The crime and mystery fiction we tend to read can be very US and Europe centric. Where else in the world would you like to see a crime fiction novel set and why?
By Catriona
It's true of my reading, certainly. I hoovered up Mma Ramotswe's early cases, set in Botswana, but I was always aware that this Setswana woman was being written by a British man, from afar. With knowledge and affection, but still from afar. I'd love to read African crime fiction by African voices.  (Ugh, a quick Google...

Excuse me...Canada calling! by Cathy Ace

The crime and mystery fiction we tend to read can be very US and Europe centric. Where else in the world would you like to see a crime fiction novel set and why?


Good question…but, rather than saying where I’d like to see crime fiction set, I’m going to focus on some places that aren’t the USA or Europe where it’s alreadyset – and hope you find my choices appealing.


Let’s start with me noting that I’m the only Canadian blogger here at 7CM who gets to answer this question (our two other Canadian...

Where Else?

The crime and mystery fiction we tend to read can be very US and Europe centric. Where else in the world would you like to see a crime fiction novel set and why?

-from Frank

This is an interesting question, and a fair one when it comes to pointing out the tendency of mysteries to be US and Euro-centric. As a 50-something year old white man from the US, it's certainly in my comfort zone. I mean, for a while, I thought I was getting edgy by reading a some Irish or Scottish crime fiction. In the...