A Life of Crime: Writing Truth and Fiction

ANDREW MACRAE

Andrew MacRae has two novels published by Mainly Murder Press, Murder Misdirectd and its sequel, Murder Miscalculated.. 

He has a  collection of short stories out through Untreed Reads titles, The Case of the Murderous Mermaid and Other Stories. 

He is also the editor and publisher of  The Anthology of  Cozy-Noire and And All our Yesterdays, a collection of historical crime and mystery fiction.

Up in Kings River Life this week a fun mystery short story by Andrew MacRae​ who will be speaking at our May meeting http://kingsriverlife.com/04/25/the-case-of-the-murderous-mermaid-mystery-short-story/

WILLIAM E. WALLACE

William E. Wallace has been a private eye, house painter, cook, dishwasher, newspaper and magazine writer, journalism professor and award-winning investigative reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Wallace has written three novels and a novella. His short stories have been published in All Due Respect (which nominated The Bust-Out, for a 2014 Pushcart Prize), Shotgun Honey, Out of the Gutter Online, Crime Factory and Dark Corners Pulp. He also has short fiction awaiting publication in Spinetingler, Over my Dead Body and Plan B .

A Dead Heat with the Reaper, a book of his noir novellas, is scheduled for release by All Due Respect books in August. He is currently working on Bottom Street, a novel.

SJ SINC MEETING DETAILS

Yosemite Falls Restaurant On Ashlan, West side of 99 EARLY START at 10:00 am

May 2, 2015. – Please come early by 9:45 am so we can start on time.

Members $15 Visitors $20

**NOTE: We will be served a choice of Turkey Burger, French Dip Sandwich or Cashew Chicken Caesar Salad

RESERVATION PROCEDURE:

RSVP by Wednesday before the meeting
If you can, we highly encourage you email your reservation instead of phoning it in, Thanks.

Please EMAIL TO reservationsforsisters@outlook.com.
NOTE: please put your lunch choice on subject line

Do not log on to the website, simply send email to the above address.

IF YOU CAN NOT EMAIL Please call 559-431-0360
AND LEAVE VOICEMAIL with your name & choice of lunch.
Dial carefully, there is no greeting announcing SJ SinC.

Using a VSS-Vaguely Specific Setting by Andrew MacRae

Using a VSS – Vaguely Specific Setting

Readers of my novels featuring “The Kid”, a mostly-retired professional pickpocket, frequently comment on the setting; a somewhat recognizable San Francisco, except that it’s never named.

This is due to my fear of being caught out for an inaccuracy should I set the stories in a real city. Instead, I can rearrange geography and landmarks as needed, not adhere to a musty old, hoary concept called reality.

Case-in-point: In “Murder Misdirected” The Kid walks along the foundations of an old amusement park near the ocean. I call it Playland by the Beach, and people familiar with that old amusement park know exactly what I’m talking about, while those who aren’t, have no problem figuring it out, based on the name.

But… the first group, those who recognize the name, are wrong. The foundations of the real Playland by the Beach are long paved over by development. The Kid is really walking atop the foundations of the Sutro Baths, an Edwardian age, glass-walled, swimming palace, that burned to the ground in the mid 1960s. It would have interrupted the narrative flow to call it the Sutro Baths, as then I’d be obligated to explain to the reader what they were. Instead, I engage in a little bit of slight-of-hand, and not limited by reality, things work out just fine.

Another Example: In “Murder Miscalculated”, the opening scene takes place at an old army post in San Francisco. Fort Mason was once the embarkation point for two million service men and women as they left for the war in the Pacific in WWII. Now it is a center for non-profit activities.

In my story, Fort Mason has become Fort Williams where a classical-jazz combo plays on the lawn. This bit of fakery was in honor of a favorite musician from my youth. I’ll leave it to classical and jazz aficionados to figure that one out.

Finally: My most recent novel, “The Hour of the Pearl” and yet to find a home, is a historical mystery, set in 1948 in Monterey California. My detective has his office on Cannery Row, on the second floor of the Wing Chong Co. General Store. Well, anyone familiar with the history of Cannery Row, and I consulted quite a few in writing the novel, will tell you that there were only apartments above Wing Chong’s, and certainly no offices.

To which I reply, ‘piffle!’ If any place deserved a second floor PI office, it’s Cannery Row.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Bio: Andrew MacRae is a misplaced Midwesterner who lives and writes mysteries in the San Francisco bay area. He is the author of numerous short stories, two published novels from Mainly Murder Press, and the editor of “The Anthology of Cozy-Noir” and the soon-to-be-released “And All Our Yesterdays”, both published by his imprint, Darkhouse Books.

Murder Misdirected * Murder Miscalculated * The Anthology of Cozy-Noir