Author sara paretsky biography of christopher

In this episode, acclaimed modern crime writer Sara Paretsky and political satirist and novelist Christopher Buckley join Fiction/Non/Fiction co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to talk about pushing against the boundaries of genre writing. Buckley discusses how political satire has been redefined in the era of reality-television-star-turned-president Trump, and why his new novel Make Russia Great Again is a faux memoir. Then, Paretsky speaks about making the male-dominated detective fiction genre her own with the best-selling V.I. Warshawski series, and reflects on her recent collection Love & Other Crimes, which also features the iconic character.

To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. And check out video excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel. This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope.

Selected readings for the episode:

Christopher Buckley

Make Russia Great Again·But Enough About You·They Eat Puppies, Don’t They?·Losing Mum and Pup·Supreme Courtship ·Boomsday·No Way to Treat a First Lady·Florence of Arabia·Little Green Men· Wry Martinis

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Sara Paretsky

V.I. Warshawski novels ·Indemnity only· Fallout· Fire Sale· Hardball· Love & Other Crimes: “Acid Test”, “Miss Bianca”, “Flash Point” ·Anatomy of Innocence

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Other Readings

“Christopher Buckley’s ‘Make Russia Great Again’ is the Trump satire we’ve been waiting for” by Ron Charles · “Sarah Cooper Doesn’t Mimic Trump. She Exposes Him.” by ZZ Packer · Julius Caesar by Wi

(Sara N. Paretsky)

PERSONAL:

Born June 8, 1947, in Ames, IA; daughter of David Paretsky (a scientist) and Mary Edwards (a librarian); married Courtenay Wright (a professor), June 19, 1976; children: Kimball, Timothy, Philip. Education: University of Kansas, B.A., 1967; University of Chicago, M.B.A., 1977, Ph.D., 1977. Hobbies and other interests: Baseball (Chicago Cubs), singing.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Chicago, IL. Agent—Dominick Abel, 146 W. 82nd Ave., Ste. 1B, New York, NY 10024.

CAREER:

Writer, 1986—. Urban Research Corp., Chicago, IL, publications manager, 1971-74; freelance business writer, 1974-77; Continental National America (CNA; an insurance company), Chicago, manager of advertising and direct mail marketing programs, 1977-86. Northwestern University, Chicago, writer-in-residence, 1998. Featured in the documentary film Women of Mystery: Three Writers Who Forever Changed Detective Fiction, directed by Pamela Briggs and William McDonald, 1996; appeared in pro-civil liberties advertisements funded by the American Civil Liberties Union.

MEMBER:

Private Eye Writers of America, Authors Guild, Sisters in Crime (founder and president, 1987-88), Crime Writers Association, Chicago Network.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Award from Friends of American Writers, 1985, for Deadlock; named one of Ms. magazine's Women of the Year, 1987; Silver Dagger award from Crime Writers Association, 1988, for Blood Shot; inducted into the University of Kansas Hall of Fame, 1988; Marlowe Award, German Crime Writers Association, 1993, for Guardian Angel; honorary doctor of letters, MacMurray College, 1993; Mark Twain Award for Distinguished Contribution to Midwest Literature, 1996; visiting fellow, Wolfson College, Oxford, 1997; honorary doctor of letters, Columbia College, Chicago, 1999; Cartier Diamond Dagger, British Crime Writers Association, 2002, for lifetime achievement; Gold Dagger, British Crime Writers Association, 2004, for Blacklist; Writ

Pre-interview information had led me to believe that Sara Paretsky lives off cappuccinos, which would fit the image of the beautifully slim and extremely well dressed Chicago author. As Sara recounts a drinking story about Hammett and Faulkner, she says she can’t drink much herself, but can imagine herself in close contact with hot fudge sauce. She mentions something from her early, New York, childhood called the “good humour truck”, which I take to be a cousin of our ice cream vans.

Sara Paretsky is pleased to be back in Val McDermid country, and claims that Mancunians make the best audience. Maybe they do, or maybe Sara thinks of something nice to say about everyone she meets. She’s amusing and confident, and for her talk in Manchester, the night before our interview, Sara is wearing what I call Katharine Hepburn trousers, a beautiful grey knitted top and a long pink scarf. She drinks a smoothie which she dilutes with water as she talks.

It’s the middle of Sara’s week long British tour to publicise her new novel, Bleeding Kansas. This is a departure from her V I Warshawski crime novels, but once you start looking, there are more similarities between the two than you’d expect. On Radio Five earlier in the week the book was introduced as crime, and it does actually fit that label better than you’d think. Though Sara calls it a “kind of thriller, not a crime novel”.

The idea for Bleeding Kansas came after Sara heard about the women who bought her childhood home in rural Kansas, and the problems these two women, practising Wiccans, encountered with the local sheriff’s deputy, who “harassed them in a terrifying way, and began doing really frightening things”. The women had moved, hoping for privacy, but “you’re never private in the country”.

Sara was busy writing Blacklist at the time, but couldn’t let the idea go. It took her a while to decide on the different plots. She had the Wiccans in her old ho

Sara Paretsky returned to the scene of the crime. It was early June and traffic in River North on a Saturday morning was slow and quiet. Pet owners, pooches, strollers and the smell of toast. Paretsky was walking her dog along the north branch of the Chicago River. She was also out of poop bags. She asked a stranger for a spare. The woman, tugging back at the reins of her own dog, warned Paretsky not to come any closer. The woman’s dog punctuated this, straining and choking at its leash.

Paretsky stretched out a cautious arm to accept a fresh bag and the woman hustled away behind her restless Labrador. Then Paretsky turned and could not find the poop that her dog had just left. The poop was there one minute but then gone the next.I couldn’t find it, either. Though I was aware of it. The odor remained. It was a mystery.

“Hmmm,” Paretsky said. “Strange.”

We moved on, covering the waterfront.

Paretsky knows the waterfront.

In “Deadlock,” her second novel, a member of the Chicago Blackhawks is murdered on a local shipping dock, a crime that leads to much uglier, far-reaching offenses, and eventually the mansions of the North Shore. “Overboard,” her new novel, about yet another conspiracy just beneath the veil of everyday Chicago, is her 21st mystery featuring her beloved private detective V.I. Warshawski. Paretsky began publishing V.I.’s adventures 40 years ago, helping to spark a revolution in crime writing that transformed the genre. They also serve, by now, as a kind of ongoing mirror history of Illinois. Read them all and you would have a fairly decent understanding of the social upheavals and political machinations of the past four decades in Chicago. Or just GPS the locations in a V.I. Warshawski novel and tour the city. I doubt there is a block of greater Chicagoland V.I. hasn’t investigated. As I cracked “Overboard” last spring I had that moment no doubt many Chicagoans