When you read a book, you are letting another person distract your thoughts and work your emotions. If they are adept, there's nothing better than turning off and getting lost.
Crafting a piece of gripping, narrative true crime that engages the world is not that different from crafting a piece of crime fiction.
Women who write thrillers are called 'dark.' Male writers are called 'powerful.'
When you grow up starving, you cannot point with pride to a book you've just spent six hours reading. Picking cotton, sewing flour bags into clothes - those were the skills my father grew up appreciating.
Women who write thrillers are called 'dark.' Male writers are called 'powerful.'
With 'Pretty Girls,' I saw the opportunity to talk not just about crime but what crime leaves behind.
Oh, I'm completely OCD about neatness.
I can clearly trace my passion for reading back to the Jonesboro, Georgia, library, where for the first time in my life I had access to what seemed like an unlimited supply of books. This was where I discovered 'Encyclopedia Brown' and 'Nancy Drew,' 'Gone With the Wind' and 'Rebecca.' This was where I became inspired to be a writer.
I read about violent things. I think what I get out of that is entertainment by learning about different things, and reading the genre and getting an understanding of motivations. But at the end of the day, it's still a book, and I can walk away.
I'm just not a crazy, stay-out-all-night sort of person. I love writing.
I always wanted to be a writer. In the beginning, I thought I had to rewrite 'Gone with the Wind,' but eventually, I found my way and realized that wasn't me.
There's a tendency among some male writers to make the women in their stories weak and needing of rescue so that their hero looks like a manly man.
When I was little, my grandmother would take me to church with her, and she would introduce me to people.
I am hard-pressed to find a successful writer who doesn't have a similar story to mine - transformation through the public library.
I love puns. I've been known to turn the car around just to take advantage of a good pun situation. It really is the highest form of humor.
Books are not like albums, where you can simply download and enjoy your favorite chapter and ignore the rest.
I read about violent things. I think what I get out of that is entertainment by learning about different things, and reading the genre and getting an understanding of motivations. But at the end of the day, it's still a book, and I can walk away.
It was always my dream to write for a living.
Denise Mina is probably one of the most gifted writers out there, whether it's mystery or literary or whatever label you want to give it.
The most enduring stories in literature generally have some kind of crime at their center, whether it's the bloody butchery of 'Hamlet,' the lecherous misanthropes of Dickens or the lone gunman from 'The Great Gatsby.'