Christie radio plays.

The Artists' Ensemble Theater (IL) performed a radio-play version of Agatha Christie's "The Curse of the Western Star," which can be heard here. The theater also offers a podcast of short radio plays, Mysterious Journey, that includes episodes featuring Christie's "The Man in the Brown Suit."

In other radio-play news, the Greenbelt (MD) Arts Center will hold auditions via Zoom on June 30 and July 1 for a virtual production of the Christie radio play "The ABC Murders" (audition sign-ups close today).

Sisters in Crime grants for academic research.

Sisters in Crime is offering grants of $500 to those working on research projects that contribute to understanding of the role of women or underrepresented groups in crime fiction. The funds may be used to purchase books. The application deadline is July 15, 2021.

Anna Katharine Green: NYS Writers Hall of Fame inductee.

On June 8, mystery pioneer Anna Katharine Green was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame. Watch the video of the virtual festivities below; the Green portion begins approximately at 1 hour 2 seconds, with a presentation by my co-nominator Clare Meldrum on Green's life and work, followed by an appearance by Rebecca Crozier, Green's great-great granddaughter. Crozier tells an interesting anecdote about Green's reputed response to being barred from a courtroom. 

Want to read works by Green?

• Reprint of That Affair Next Door and Lost Man's Lane
  
  
• Works in the Villanova Digital Library such as The Doctor, His Wife and the Clock and Three Women and a Mystery
  

Another award nomination for the Ian Rankin Companion.

Ian Rankin: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction by Erin E. MacDonald and edited by me has been nominated for a Macavity Award in the Best Mystery Critical/Biographical category. This follows MacDonald's Edgar Award nomination for the same book and marks the sixth award nomination for the McFarland Companions to Mystery Fiction series.

Literature & Film in Lockdown: Rear Window.

 

Thelma Ritter, James Stewart, and Grace Kelly in Rear Window (1954).

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Notre Dame's Kylemore Book Club conducted the virtual series "Literature & Film in Lockdown," with one episode on Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window as "a film about being in lockdown."