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JUNE-JULY 2010 NEWS
NOTHING SHAKING
ON THE MEAN STREETS
Or,
to put it another way, Don is doing miscellaneous summer stuff the next two
months — he gets that way every time
a new edition of his Hammett tour book comes out. No guilt that folk
rolling into town can’t find the Hammett locales without him personally
leading the way. You could even arrive in
San Francisco one morning, call up
a version of the tour book on your Kindle, do the walk, and fly out
before dinner, that’s the world we’re living in. But there will be more
walks in the fall, never fear, when Don will slip out of his sandals and
back into his gumshoes.
PULPFEST
Meanwhile, Don was surprised to find himself
in the herd of
nominees for the Munsey
Award presented annually during
PulpFest at the end of July in
Columbus,
Ohio. For at least twenty
years he has thought about going to one of the
Ohio
pulp conventions, but with one thing and another never has made the trip.
Until now. Between being up for the award and the chance to tie in with some
longtime pals — plus sharpening knives with some crime writers in advance of
the Bouchercon in San Francisco later this year — plus seeing the Guest of
Honor, Hammett biographer William F. Nolan, again — anyway, if you show up,
too, Don will see you at PulpFest. He’s agreed to sit in on a panel about
the pulp The Black Mask,
and will be around ready to talk pulp writers such as Hammett, Robert E.
Howard, E. Hoffmann Price, Don Wandrei, H. Warner Munn and company until the
beer runs out. And while Don doesn’t believe he’ll nab the Munsey out of
that crowded field of contenders, he appreciates
the guys over on The Rap Sheet for name-checking him as one of three
people up for the honor — if it were only three, not sixteen, the odds might
be better.
TWO-GUN RACONTEUR
Our
pal Damon Sasser also did a
blog story about Don and the Munsey Award over on his
Two-Gun Raconteur website.
While Don did not make it to the annual Robert E. Howard Days in
Cross Plains, Texas
this year, he did contribute one of his signature reviews to
the latest issue of the
print magazine
Two-Gun Raconteur
— which Damon premiered on June 11 for Howard Days. The thrust of the review
is that Don noticed that the academic-oriented Howard fanzine
The Dark Man has
reached its twentieth anniversary — but that none of the current editors,
past editors, web blogs or general passersby was aware of the milestone. So,
Don stepped in and said a few words on this momentous occasion. Trust us, an
instant classic. . . .
OLD NEWS ARCHIVE
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