I’m honored that for more than 15 years, I have called Neil Gaiman my friend. Not only is Neil probably the greatest living author of dark fantasy, in my modest opinion, he is one of the most generous and supportive and warm and loyal people on earth. Practically since the day his amazing novel American…

I began work on Project X on Saturday, the annotation of a major fantasy novel. I can’t reveal the title yet because the contract is not yet signed. For the last month or so, I’ve been twitchy without a project to work on, so I first spent a few hours, kludging together an electronic text…

I turned in the manuscript for my next big annotated volume, Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920’s, to Pegasus Books back in early January, as promised, and settled back to be bored between books. Then came a shock: At the last minute, the owners of the rights to the Hardy Boys mysteries decided that…

OK, 2017 was a cataclysmic year for disasters and politics, capped by a massive tax bill that required me to study the law like any first-year associate. My personal approach to these cataclysms was to dive into my writing and related activities, and the result was–well, the year is over! In mid-March, I forced myself…

It was that kind of day today. On the “bad news” front, I’m sad to announce that Liveright Publishing/W. W. Norton has delayed publication of my New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft: Beyond the Mythos to Summer 2019. This is partly due to other books in their pipeline and partly because my New Annotated Frankenstein (that…

July has been a lovely book-month so far. I just received my author’s copies of the truly gorgeous New Annotated Frankenstein (the official pub date is August 8)–thank you, Liveright/Norton for another amazingly beautiful design! I’m very proud to be doing my first-ever signing at San Diego Comic-Con, from 5 to 6 pm on Friday,…

I’m pleased to announce that Anatomy of Innocence: Testimonies of the Wrongfully Convicted will be released March 28 and is now available for preorder. http://amzn.to/2mqogxE Anatomy, which I co-edited with Laura Caldwell, tells the incredible true stories of 15 exonerees — innocent men and women — who were convicted of serious crimes and cast into…

Well, In the Shadow of Agatha Christie: Classic Tales by Women Crime Writers, 1850-1917 is done and on its way to Pegasus Books. I thought I’d share the table of contents: “The Advocate’s Wedding Day” by Catherine Crowe “The Squire’s Story” by Elizabeth Gaskell “Traces of Crime” by Mary Fortune “Mr. Furbush” by Harriet Prescott…

Sara Paretsky was our Distinguished Speaker this year for the Baker Street Irregulars at the Sherlock Holmes Birthday Weekend. She gave a powerful and moving talk about women crime writers who have been forgotten today, despite their achievements and popularity in the 19th and early 20th century. I was inspired by her talk to decide…

I swore to myself when I started this website that I wouldn’t post about personal things, because, well, it didn’t seem right. But my wife and I have lost two good friends in the last three weeks, our beloved cat Xander (age at least twenty) and the imp of the perverse, our youngest cat Spike,…