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| Collection of Mary Fortune stories published by Verse Chorus Press and coedited by Lucy Sussex and Megan Brown |
Monday, April 20, 2026
The pioneering Mary Fortune.
Monday, April 13, 2026
Poe, other content at upcoming Amer Literature Assn mtg.
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| Edgar Allan Poe, 1848. Library of Congress, Prints & Photos Div. |
The American Literature Assn conference will take place at Chicago's Palmer House on May 20–23, 2026. Mystery fans may be interested in the following papers:
The Novel: Formal and Ethical Considerations (May 21)
• “Spectacular Violence, Speculative Truth: JFK, Conspiracy Culture, and Birth of the True Crime
Novel,” Pinar Tasdemir, Univ of Wisconsin–Madison
Religion in Contemporary American Fiction (May 21)
• “Late Thomas Pynchon: Detective Fiction and the Inner Life,” Luke Ferretter, Baylor Univ
Reassessments, Secrets, and Revelations (May 21)
• “Revealing the Secrets of Rawson’s Magical Mysteries,” Neil Tobin, Independent Scholar
An American Tragedy: A New Musical based on Theodore Dreiser’s Novel (May 21)
Pairing Poe in the Classroom (May 22)
Chair: Philip Edward Phillips, Middle Tennessee State Univ
• “Seeing and Seaing Wrong: Poe, Melville, and Interpretive Failure at Sea,” Sam Gleason, Pellissippi State Community College
• “Teaching the Abyss of Justification: Poe, Ngũgĩ, and the Collapse of Oppressive Rationalizations," Juliet Tawiah, Northern Illinois Univ
• “Poe and Poe AI: Calculating Fictions and the Philosophy of Artificial Composition," Craig Carey, Univ of Southern Mississippi
Postwar Consumerism and Consumption (May 22)
• “The Rise of the Working-Class Cop in the Novels of Ed McBain,” Joseph George, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State Univ
The Gothic's Successor Genres (May 22)
• "'Deep Red Bells': Shallow Graves and Uneven Development in True Crime's South," Jennie Lightweis-Goff
• "Gritty Gothic Noir: The Evolution of the Southern Gothic in Michael Farris Smith," Peter Ingrao
(Univ of Texas at Dallas)
Literary Movements after Poe (May 22)
Chair: Margarida Vale de Gato, Universidade de Lisboa
• “The Fall of the House of Nowak: Esmé Weijun Wang's Revision of Edgar Allan Poe," Andy Harper, St. Louis Univ
• “Rosa Arciniega's Descent into Poe's Maelstrom," Micah K. Donohue, Eastern New Mexico Univ
• “Cannibalizing Poe: The 'Pure Potential' of White Monstrosity in Edgar Allan Poe and Mónica Ojeda," Noah Reed Miranda, Smittcamp Family Honors College at California State Univ (Fresno)
Don DeLillo and the Canon of Literature (May 22)
Chair: Jesse Kavadlo, Maryville Univ
• "Doubling Dostoevsky: DeLillo's 'Midnight in Dostoevsky,’" Mark Osteen, Loyola Univ Maryland
• "‘Two Days Wrong!:' DeLillo's Textures of Time," Crystal Alberts, Univ of North Dakota
• “Owning Narrative in DeLillo and Eco,” Michael Streit, Independent Scholar
• “He Writes in Your Voice, American: DeLillo and Some Paradoxes of the Great American Novel”
Policed Bodies and Minds in American Literature (May 23)
• “An Irresistible and Uncontrollable Impulse’: The Legal Context for Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Imp of the Perverse,’” Rene H. Treviño, California State Univ
Monday, April 06, 2026
Clues 44.1: Indian crime fiction, French, Haycraft, James, Nancy Drew, Palahniuk, Penny, Rawson, and more.
Introduction: Allusions and Illusions
CAROLINE REITZ (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY/CUNY Graduate School)
Caroline Reitz, the executive editor of Clues, discusses the contents of the issue, including articles on crime fiction from India, Howard Haycraft's World War II writings, and queer aspects of Nancy Drew, as well as authors John Franklin Bardin, Tana French, P.D. James, Chuck Palahniuk, Louise Penny, Clayton Rawson, and Robert Egerton Swartwout.
Spotlight on... Indian Crime Fiction
TARUN K. SAINT
This essay traces the genre's evolution in India from its inception in the colonial era to recent times. Discussed are regional contexts of crime writing in Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, and Tamil to establish the historical framework and the recent efflorescence of crime writing in English that has feminist and postcolonial aspects.
Rethinking Democracy and Detective Fiction: The Legacies of Haycraft's Wartime Writings
BARBARA PEZZOTTI (Monash Univ) AND FABRICIO TOCCO (Australian National Univ)
Howard Haycraft's "Dictators, Democrats, and Detectives" (1939); "The Future of the Detective Story"; and "The Rules of the Game" (1941) argued that detective fiction could only flourish in democracies. The authors demonstrate that crime fiction has proven versatile under dictatorships, functioning as a propaganda tool and an instrument of resistance.
"Magical Red Herrings": Personalized Experience and Specialized Knowledge in Clayton Rawson's The Footprints on the Ceiling
NEIL TOBIN
Clayton Rawson, like other magician-authors, was known to employ transferable magical skills while writing his popular mysteries. What may be unique in the genre was his use of a particular magical technique to create extra-deceptive red herrings that target subsets of his readership—and turn their specialized knowledge against them.
Discovering John Franklin Bardin
ROBERT LANCE SNYDER
John Franklin Bardin's The Deadly Percheron (1946), The Last of Philip Banter (1947), and Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly (1948) explore dissociative identity disorder. His works, as well as novels by Patricia Highsmith, Helen Eustis, Shirley Jackson, and Margaret Millar, substantiate the syndrome's topical frequency after World War II.
Metafiction as Misdirection in R.E. Swartwout's The Boat Race Murder (1933)
COLIN CAVENDISH-JONES (Xiamen Univ, Malaysia)
The Boat Race Murder, Robert Egerton Swartwout's only mystery novel, presents the reader with a plethora of literary references to the previous century of detective stories and locked-room mysteries. Through these references, Swartwout misdirects the reader to expect an intricate solution and an obscure motive for a murder, which is, in fact, simple and committed for sordid financial gain.
Lost Allusions: The Changing Codes of P.D. James
MARJORIE GARBER (Harvard Univ)
Like Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, and Josephine Tey, P.D. James sometimes used literary allusions in her book titles and plots. Over time, however, the signifying codes in her work began to change, first to hidden "Easter egg" messages and "true crime" references, and finally to modern scientific markers like DNA.
The Gothic and the Girl Detective: Unpacking the Queered) Signification of Nancy Drew
DOROTHY CALABRO (Auburn Univ)
This essay connects the gothic and the queer in the original Nancy Drew mysteries with modern, queer(ed) adaptations to the Nancy Drew universe, including Mabel Maney's Nancy Clue series and Kelly Thompson's Nancy Drew comics. The rift between the represented ideology of the original Nancy Drew mysteries and the gothic truths they hide are embodied in the interpretations and adaptations of queer audiences.
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