The previous blog post was about Sara Paretsky, a guiding light for female mystery writers. I love to hear stories about how people began their creative journeys, and hers has a particular resonance with me.
Sara attended a writing course in 1979 at Northwestern University taught by Stuart Kaminsky (above), a prolific mystery writer. The course was entitled Writing Detective Fiction for Publication, and she dedicated her first book to him. He certainly had a great success with Sara!
Kaminsky wrote his first mystery novel, Bullet for a Star, in two weeks. Later, during the course of his writing career, he penned more than seventy novels, receiving the honor of becoming a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America (as did Paretsky). For many years, Kaminsky lived in Florida and I had the privilege of taking a course on mysteries from him myself. Not a college credit-bearing one, but an adult education class in which he organized mysteries into a typology and revealed the secrets of each. I remember taking copious notes at the time, but they have since vanished into the mists of history, along with the specific tidbits of knowledge he imparted.
I don’t think my learning from Kaminsky will have the same effect on my literary output as he had on Paretsky’s, but I’m pleased I had the opportunity to hang out with the best, even for a short while.