August 19, 2018
Sunday
Time: 2:00 PM
Guest Authors: Max Allan Collins, Barbara Collins, and A. Brad Schwartz
Max Allan Collins was hailed in 2004 by Publisher's Weekly as “a new breed of writer.” A frequent Mystery Writers of America “Edgar” nominee in both fiction and non-fiction categories, he has earned an unprecedented eighteen Private Eye Writers of America “Shamus” nominations, winning for his Nathan Heller novels, True Detective (1983) and Stolen Away (1991), receiving the PWA life achievement award, the Eye, in 2007. The first Heller in almost a decade, the Marilyn Monroe-oriented Bye Bye, Baby (2011), will be followed in 2012 by Target Lancer, the long-promised JFK Heller novel.
His graphic novel Road to Perdition (1998) is the basis of the Academy Award-winning 2002 film starring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Daniel Craig, directed by Sam Mendes. It was followed by two acclaimed prose sequels, Road to Purgatory (2004) and Road to Paradise (2005), and a graphic novel sequel, Return to Perdition (2011). He has written a number of innovative suspense series, including Nolan (the author’s first series, about a professional thief), Quarry (the first series about a hired killer), and Eliot Ness (four novels about the famous real-life Untouchable’s Cleveland years). He is completing a number of “Mike Hammer” novels begun by the late Mickey Spillane, with whom Collins did many projects; the fourth of these, Lady Go, Die!, was published in 2012.
His many comics credits include the syndicated strip Dick Tracy (1977 - 1993); his own Ms. Tree (longest-running private eye comic book); Batman; and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, based on the hit TV series for which he has also written video games, jigsaw puzzles, and ten novels that have sold millions of copies worldwide. Collins was assisted on his CSI novels by writer Matthew Clemens, with whom he collaborates on short stories and such novels as You Can’t Stop Me (2010), a Thriller Award nominee, and its sequel No One Will Hear You (2011).
He has been termed “the novelization king” by Entertainment Weekly, with tie-in books on the USA Today bestseller list nine times and the New York Times list three times. His movie novels include Saving Private Ryan, Air Force One, and American Gangster, which won the Best Novel “Scribe” Award in 2008 from the International Association of Tie-in Writers.
An independent filmmaker in the midwest, he has written and directed five features and two documentaries, including the Lifetime movie Mommy (1996) and a 1997 sequel, Mommy's Day. He wrote The Expert, a 1995 HBO World Premiere, and The Last Lullaby, starring Tom Sizemore, a 2008 feature film based on Collins’ acclaimed novel, The Last Quarry; the film won numerous awards on the film festival circuit before its theatrical and home-video release.
His one-man show, Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life, was nominated for an Edgar for Best Play of 2004 by the Mystery Writers of America; a film version, written and directed by Collins, was released on DVD in 2008 and appeared on PBS stations in 2009. His documentary, Caveman: V.T. Hamlin & Alley Oop, was also released on DVD after screening on PBS stations. A new edit of his 1999 documentary, Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane, is featured on the Criterion Collection’s DVD and Blu-ray of the classic film noir, Kiss Me Deadly.
His other credits include film criticism, short fiction, songwriting, trading-card sets, and a regular column in Asian Cult Cinema magazine. His non-fiction work has received many honors, with his coffee-table book The History of Mysteryreceiving nominations for every major mystery award and his recent Men’s Adventure Magazines (with George Hagenauer) winning the Anthony Award. With Jim Traylor, he received an Edgar nomination for Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer: One Lonely Knight (1984); recently the two authors teamed for Mickey Spillane on Screen (2012).
The writer is also a musician and has performed and recorded with his band Crusin’ since 1974. Possibly the first ‘60s revival band in the nation, Crusin’ was an outgrowth of the Daybreakers, the mid-1960s combo whose 1967 Dial Records release, “Psychedelic Siren,” written by Collins, is among the most collectible garage band records. He still performs regularly with Crusin’, as lead singer and keyboard player, and is a 2008 Inductee in the Iowa Rock n Roll Hall of Fame.
November 29, 2016 – New York, NY – Max Allan Collins was chosen as the 2017 Grand Masters by Mystery Writers of America (MWA). MWA’s Grand Master Award represents the pinnacle of achievement in mystery writing and was established to acknowledge important contributions to this genre, as well as for a body of work that is both significant and of consistent high quality. Mr. Collins will received his award at the 71st Annual Edgar Awards Banquet, held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City on Thursday, April 27, 2017.
Collins lives in Muscatine, Iowa, with his wife, writer Barbara Collins; they have collaborated on three novels and numerous short stories, and are currently writing the successful “Trash ‘n’ Treasures” mysteries – their Antiques Flee Market (2008) won the Romantic Times Best Humorous Mystery Novel award in 2009. Their son Nathan translates Japanese into English with a number of novels and video games among his credits.
Barbara Collins
Back in the 1950s, when there were only a few TV channels to watch, three shows brought to a screeching halt the mayhem in the kid-infested house I grew up in: Perry Mason (my mother had a mad crush on Raymond Burr), Maverick (my mother had a mad crush on James Garner), and Alfred Hitchcock Presents (my mother did not have a mad crush on the great director, but loved the stories). These programs must have had a profound effect on me, because the key ingredients of each episode—mystery, humor, irony—seem to make up the recipe I follow for my own short stories.
Even though I have worked in the novel format, to me, the perfect way to tell a tale is the short story. It's great for impatient people with short attention spans, one' of which I am. And my husband, who encouraged me to write and has been a great teacher, has always touted, "Write what you'd like to read."
Some of my favorite stories are ones that we've collaborated on; it's a little bit me, a little bit him. Having a male/female perspective is always interesting. And our writing styles are so similar (no surprise) that, come the end result, even we sometimes can't tell who wrote what.
Besides my husband—who is one of the smartest, best writers in the whole wide world—I owe a debt of gratitude to Ed Gorman and Marty Greenberg for publishing my stories in their wonderful anthologies.
Another debt is owed, of course. The stories in this book are sometimes by me, sometimes by my husband, sometimes by the two of us,'working together. But the most important collaborator, in any story, is the reader. We've done our job—the rest is up to you!
Barbara Collins is the wife of New York Times best-selling mystery novelist Max Allan Collins. Barbara and Max also write under the joint pseudonym Barbara Allan.
A. Brad Schwartz
I study 20th century American history, with a special interest in questions of media and journalism, law and policing, and the cultural production of history. My undergraduate thesis at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor explored Orson Welles’s 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast, drawing upon an untapped trove of listener letters to challenge the standard narrative of the so-called “panic broadcast.” This research became the basis for my first book, Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News (Hill and Wang, 2015). In 2013, I co-wrote a documentary about War of the Worlds for the PBS series American Experience, based in part on my thesis research. My next book, Scarface & the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago, co-written with Max Allan Collins, will be published by William Morrow in 2018.
