Deaccession
July 2, 2012
Deaccession
This is a year of deaccession for me. Libraries and museums use the word deaccession to mean gleaning from their collections. I’ve been sorting through clutter; two weeks ago I sent the Newberry Library 22 cartons of letters, manuscripts and miscellaneous papers. I’ve been going through books, and discarding clothes I never wear. I just […]
READ MOREJune 13, 2012
That Was Then, This is Now
My mother’s father died when she was sixteen; I never met him. He was a doctor in Roodhouse, the small town in downstate Illinois where he grew up. During World War I, he was sent to the Rockefeller Institute in New York to do war work–what, exactly, I’ve never known. After the war, he returned […]
READ MOREJune 7, 2012
Harold Washington Literary Award
Near South Planning Board gives Sara Paretsky 2012 Harold Washington Literary Award. Previous recipients include Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood and Saul Bellow.
READ MOREJune 6, 2012
Indemnity Only
Near South Planning Board gives Sara Paretsky 2012 Harold Washington Literary Award. Previous recipients include Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood and Saul Bellow.
READ MOREApril 23, 2012
Darraugh Graham Rebrands Himself
The Board of the company formerly known as “Continental United” spent a great deal of money on an image and branding consulting firm in order to come up with a new name. At the recent shareholders’ meeting, a number of shareholders were appalled at the high seven-figure fee paid to come up with the name […]
READ MOREMarch 29, 2012
On Weapons
Shortly after publishing my third book, I met a private detective who came to a reading at Kate’s Mystery Books outside Boston. The detective told me her practice is a lot like V I’s: she did homicide investigations for clients who were being railroaded by a judicial process that liked to pick on the first […]
READ MOREMarch 15, 2012
Sara Paretsky Day at the Chicago Public Library
The Chicago Public Library declared March 14 “Sara Paretsky Day.” They made a wonderful event of it, putting up posters in all the branches, and getting Mayor Rahm Emmanuel to issue a formal proclamation, which declared that V I Warshawski and I had made a major contribution to the city of Chicago and the world. […]
READ MOREMarch 11, 2012
Name That Corporation!
Did the first Breakdown contest frustrate you because you had to be a U.S. resident with a Facebook page? Here’s your chance to enter and win no matter where you are on the planet. V I’s most important client is a man named Darraugh Graham. He played a central role in the novel Blacklist, and a […]
READ MOREFebruary 21, 2012
What is Too Political for Fun?
Every time I publish a book, I know I’ll get some angry letters, and readers response to Breakdown proved no exception. “I just threw away my hardcover copy,” one reader wrote. “Keep your politics to yourself. I read for fun,” wrote another. I will say that the positive mail outnumbered the negative by over 10 […]
READ MOREFebruary 12, 2012
A Farewell to Arms, or at least to Touring
I was on the road with my new novel, Breakdown, from the first of January until February 2, so I substituted little snippets on Facebook for my blog. Being on tour is a privilege and in many ways a pleasure because of the different bookstores and readers you encounter, but the downside is you are […]
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