KATHERINE NEVILLE’S
Spring (Forward) Newsletter
March 21, 2011
Dr. Dian Fetter: the artist in Santa Fe!
The photo of me here was taken in Santa Fe by my friend, the Egyptologist and art professor, Dr Dian Fetter. Dian (whose birthday is fittingly today – the first day of Spring) was a fascinating and colorful individual who’d taught art in Maryland and led tours of rivers in Egypt, islands in Greece, and mountains in China. When Dian became ill it never kept her down – she continued dashing all over the planet, opening the Great Library at Alexandria, Egypt, and – when forced to give up oil paints – she continued with collage and photography, some of these works inspired by trips to she made to my place in Santa Fe with her Greek daughter Melita. The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore did a memorial tribute to Dian’s life and work in November, 2010. I am now the surprised beneficiary of all Dian’s art supplies and equipment, which she hoped would inspire me (as they have) to start painting again to prepare for my next book, a novel about painters. I also inherited a piece from Dian’s last series of collage constructions (dubbed “The Katherine Neville Series”), that she created from some of the 1100 daffodils that she dried and pressed – gathered many decades ago from my woods at my first house in Virginia. More about Dian’s interesting projects will appear under The Quest when we revamp my web site during 2011-2012.
Left Coast Crime in Santa Fe!
The popular writers’ conference, Left Coast Crime, is held each year in various cities in the western half of the US: this year it is at the historic La Fonda hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico – which was once a rail stop restaurant of the Harvey Girls of Judy Garland fame. (Remember, her song ends: “The Atchison, Topeka and the….Santa Fe”!) I was delighted to be asked by this year’s organizers to interview one of my favorite and most inspiring fellow writers (and former California neighbor), the wonderful Martin Cruz Smith – for his Lifetime Achievement Award.
Click here to learn more about this year’s Left Coast Crime and the amazing Mr Smith.
Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads (Giveaway)
I was thrilled to learn that one of my favorite books has been nominated for this year’s Edgar Allan Poe Award, presented by Mystery Writers of America in New York City on April 28: this is the (first-ever-in-history) compendium of groundbreaking thrillers: Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads, edited by David Morrell and Hank Wagner and published by Oceanview Press. And I was doubly delighted when I first learned that my own book, The Eight, had been selected by the International Thriller Writers to be included in the 100 Must-Reads! And I was triply thrilled when I myself was asked to write the article about one of the world’s all-time great Thrillers: the only actual novel that Edgar Allan Poe ever wrote.
Click here to enter the contest to receive one of twelve free copies of this wonderful compendium: Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads.
Click here to learn more about the 2011 Edgar Awards.
(As chair of the Best Short Story committee this year, I will be in New York hanging out with fun writers and presenting the Best Short Story and Robert L Fish Memorial awards.)
Please visit me on my website www.KatherineNeville.com
Facebook @AuthorKatherineNeville & Twitter @KNeville_Quest
