There are few updates on this page because I am terrible at updating things and have never been very good at brand identity or refining my image. We all know people who are so absolutely focussed on looking like [thing they are], or appearing ‘impactful’ (horrible word), that they don’t actually do anything but Google themselves and make their social media accounts shiny. And many times, I suspect their actual work and more importantly their interests suffer.
Is this an attempt to take the moral highground for being lazy about updating my internet home? Absolutely.
There are quite a few events, publications, and podcast appearances I should have told you about. Some projects that may or may not go ahead.
In particular, I’d like to highlight one wonderful week in September where we hosted the seventh international Agatha Christie conference at the University of Exeter and Exeter City Library in the first half, then in the second half mooched over to Torquay for the International Agatha Christie Festival, where I gave a talk on vicars in Cockington Church and accidentally said ‘fornication’ to the actual vicar.
There are some forthcoming events too and I’d especially like to highlight one being organised by the lovely team at the University of Essex to mark the centenary of Margery Allingham’s first novel. It’s an IRL event and absolutely free to attend – but you must book ahead. I’ll be speaking on Allingham and the other crime queens (controversial!) and there are some really spectacular luminaries speaking, including Barry Pike and Ruth Dugdall.
I would like to add a podcast page here, and will do it at some point.
Recent podcasts I’ve guested on include Re. Dracula, talking about queer theory and nineteenth century periodicals and All About Agatha — a couple of times. In one panel episode, I disagreed with everyone (except Agatha Christie’s grandson!!!) about which is Christie’s best short story. In the most recent instalment, uploaded today, the phenomenal Kemper Donovan, whose forthcoming crime novel The Busy Body is superb, bravely outed himself as a fan of my Jessica Brick stories. It turns out forcing a paperback into a glamorous hand in the pub can lead to very nice things.
JC Bernthal 