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NEW on The Baker Street Babes: Live & Local 7: Michael Sims
Our Live & Local series are our sit down with a fascinating Sherlockian one-on-one in person chats. This go round Lyndsay sits with Edgar Award nominated Michael Sims about his work, Arthur and Sherlock, as well as some other fascinating Sherlockian tidbits and anecdotes. Editing by Matthew...
Read more at http://bakerstreetbabes.com/podcast/live-local-7-michael-sims/
NEW on The Baker Street Babes: Baker Street: The First Sherlockian Musical
With Lyndsay Faye’s Dust and Shadow being adapted for the singing stage in the coming months, what better time to take a look at Sherlock Holmes’ history in musical theater? Setting aside the many non-musical or “straight play” adaptations that have amassed since William Gillette first sought per...
Read more at http://bakerstreetbabes.com/reviews/baker-street-first-sherlockian-musical/
NEW on The Baker Street Babes: Book Release: Femme Friday
We are incredibly happy and proud to be able to announce the publication of our essay collection: What started as an act of resistance – a weekly post on Fridays on our tumblr to celebrate – rather than mock and put down – women became something we greatly enjoyed doing, and...
Read more at http://bakerstreetbabes.com/book-release-femme-friday/
NEW on The Baker Street Babes: Book Release: Femme Friday
We are incredibly happy and proud to be able to announce the publication of our essay collection!
What started as an act of resistance – a weekly post on Fridays on our tumblr to celebrate – rather than mock and put down – women became something we greatly enjoyed doing, and so it grew into a series. This volume is a collection of these essays on the women in the Sherlock Holmes stories as well as in adaptations and pastiches. We tried to include as many ladies as possible, though we are aware that we missed the likes of Mrs. Cushing from “The Cardboard Box,” Nancy Barclay from “The Crooked Man,” Emilia Lucca from “The Red Circle” as well as the ladies from “The Greek Interpreter” and “The Retired Colourman”, and a few others. However, we have assembled quite the collection of essays on awesome ladies, so we beg forgiveness from the fantastic ladies we did not manage to include.
Once the idea to publish the essays in a book started to form, we opened a call for further essays on our social media sites – which resulted in the 33 essays in this collection.
Trying to figure out how to best navigate formatting and figuring out the quirks of self-publishing was a steep learning curve – and it continues – as we are working on an epub version of the content. In the end, we decided to publish with two different companies, as shipping costs would always be horrendous for one continent or another. We are now selling the book on Blurb.com (US market) and Lulu.com (European market).* Since the books have several gorgeous images by Merilyn Paugus, we wanted to honour her work as well, so we created both an affordable black and white version of the book, and a slightly more fancy one with colour images.
You can find the US versions here, and the European versions here. They are only very slightly different in format, and Lulu allowed for a title on the spine, whereas Blurb did not, but essentially they are the same. Within a couple of weeks, the book should also be available via Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
All proceeds of the sales are used to cover the maintainance costs of our website and podcast hosting sites.
We would like to thank every one of those amazing ladies who offered to contribute to this project. Femme Friday resonated with a lot of people and this collection is very important to us as Sherlockians, and as women.
*We dearly hope that shipping to Africa, South America, Asia and Australia won’t be too expensive!
NEW on The Baker Street Babes: Episode 81: The Whole Art of Detection - Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes
We interview one of our own this go around as Amy, Sarah, and guest extraordinaire Elinor sit down with Lyndsay Faye about her new short story collection: The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes. Internationally bestselling author Lyndsay Faye was introduced to the ...
Read more at http://bakerstreetbabes.com/podcast/episode-81-the-whole-art-of-detection-lost-mysteries-of-sherlock-holmes/
NEW on The Baker Street Babes: The Whole Art of Detection: A Personal Book Review
Lyndsay Faye is my friend. I’m leading with that because I can’t think of anything more disingenuous than proceeding as if an early-release copy of The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes somehow magically appeared on my doorstep, independent of all p...
Read more at http://bakerstreetbabes.com/reviews/the-whole-art-of-detection-a-personal-book-review/
Hello! I'd like to start by saying that I've just read Dust and Shadow and I think it's absolutely fantastic. I've loved Sherlock Holmes since I was a kid and I had the time of my life reading it! I just wanted to ask - do you have any advice for working up the nerve to write Sherlock Holmes fiction? I can't shake the feeling that I'm being impertinent by wanting to do so, as though it's a selective club and I'm trying to muscle my way in (I know, it's silly of me). Thanks, and have a great day!
Thank you. And absolutely!
Anyone can write Sherlock Holmes fiction. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle when asked by William Gillette whether he could change some aspects of the stage adaptation answered, “You may marry, murder, or do what you like with him.” Now, it’s certainly true that a lot of modern Sherlockian fic would probably light Doyle’s hair on fire if he could see it, but the marvelous thing he did was to give the world a character who became so iconic that nowadays Holmes truly does belong to all of us. To you, and me, and the professional novelist writing a darkly artistic retelling, and the eleven year fanfic writer working on a Holmes and Ninja Turtles crossover. So it’s of no importance what Doyle or anyone else for that matter might think of your initial efforts. Holmes is the bohemian, the outsider, the iconoclast, the immaculately written dime store hero from the cheaply bought family magazines who was read all over the world and thereby became part of the world’s fabric. He’s ours for the taking.
DUST AND SHADOW was my first novel. I wasn’t in any selective club, hadn’t published so much as a short story, and it was certainly impertinent for me to imagine I could channel John Watson. I’ve never taken a creative writing class, or been to a writer’s retreat, or applied to grad school. I have a BA degree in acting, and I love the Sherlock Holmes adventures. I love them. They’ve been a part of my life since childhood and I’ve read them so many times I couldn’t begin to calculate it, and the characters have sometimes taken me through rough periods–because John Watson is rather battered and broken before meeting Sherlock Holmes, and Sherlock Holmes is a little bit haunted and empty, and the way they form this friendship that’s so full of loyalty and love always struck me as one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. Like so many fic writers, I started from a deep place of admiration from the original, and then dived in with no qualifications whatsoever, because they meant that much to me. You can do the same.
If you want to write historical fiction effectively, you do have to pay attention to period details, style, and vocabulary. You have to work hard to get it right, if getting it “right” is your goal. But as to working up the nerve to start–all you have to do is love Sherlock Holmes.
Et voila–you’re in the club. Welcome!
Live & Local 5: New York Public Library
Welcome all to the latest edition of Baker Street Babes Live and Local: New York Public Library Edition!
This June, Babe Lyndsay was honored to be a guest panelist for a fascinating discussion of the Holmes mythos at the Mid-Manhattan Library. Helmed by the erudite and charming hostess of the monthly ASH Wednesday meetings, noted Adventuress and Irregular Susan Rice, the panelists engaged in a rousing discussion of all things Holmes, followed by a sprightly (occasionally very sprightly) audience Q&A.
Otto Penzler is a longtime Baker Street Irregular and world-famous editor of mystery fiction. His brick and mortar store, The Mysterious Bookshop (located in downtown Manhattan) is a Sherlockian’s Mecca, and he yearly contributes to the BSB’s Daintiest Thing Under a Bonnet Charity Ball. He is also the editor of Lyndsay’s upcoming short story collection, The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes.
SJ Rozan, a former architect, is the author of fifteen crime novels and around four dozen short stories. She is an Irregular, and has won the Edgar, Anthony, Shamus, Macavity, Nero, and Japanese Maltese Falcon Awards, to name but a few. A tireless volunteer for Mystery Writers of American and Sisters in Crime, SJ is also the former president of the Private Eye Writers of America.
Lyndsay Faye is a Baker Street Babe and shameless nerd you can learn more about on www.lyndsayfaye.com if you’re not already all too familiar.
Hosted by the NYPL and programmed by Mystery Writers of America NY Chapter, please join us for a rollicking conversation regarding All Things Holmes!
Live & Local 5: New York Public Library
Welcome all to the latest edition of Baker Street Babes Live and Local: New York Public Library Edition!
This June, Babe Lyndsay was honored to be a guest panelist for a fascinating discussion of the Holmes mythos at the Mid-Manhattan Library. Helmed by the erudite and charming hostess of the monthly ASH Wednesday meetings, noted Adventuress and Irregular Susan Rice, the panelists engaged in a rousing discussion of all things Holmes, followed by a sprightly (occasionally very sprightly) audience Q&A.
Otto Penzler is a longtime Baker Street Irregular and world-famous editor of mystery fiction. His brick and mortar store, The Mysterious Bookshop (located in downtown Manhattan) is a Sherlockian’s Mecca, and he yearly contributes to the BSB’s Daintiest Thing Under a Bonnet Charity Ball. He is also the editor of Lyndsay’s upcoming short story collection, The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes.
SJ Rozan, a former architect, is the author of fifteen crime novels and around four dozen short stories. She is an Irregular, and has won the Edgar, Anthony, Shamus, Macavity, Nero, and Japanese Maltese Falcon Awards, to name but a few. A tireless volunteer for Mystery Writers of American and Sisters in Crime, SJ is also the former president of the Private Eye Writers of America.
Lyndsay Faye is a Baker Street Babe and shameless nerd you can learn more about on www.lyndsayfaye.com if you’re not already all too familiar.
Hosted by the NYPL and programmed by Mystery Writers of America NY Chapter, please join us for a rollicking conversation regarding All Things Holmes!
Live & Local 5: New York Public Library
Welcome all to the latest edition of Baker Street Babes Live and Local: New York Public Library Edition!
This June, Babe Lyndsay was honored to be a guest panelist for a fascinating discussion of the Holmes mythos at the Mid-Manhattan Library. Helmed by the erudite and charming hostess of the monthly ASH Wednesday meetings, noted Adventuress and Irregular Susan Rice, the panelists engaged in a rousing discussion of all things Holmes, followed by a sprightly (occasionally very sprightly) audience Q&A.
Otto Penzler is a longtime Baker Street Irregular and world-famous editor of mystery fiction. His brick and mortar store, The Mysterious Bookshop (located in downtown Manhattan) is a Sherlockian’s Mecca, and he yearly contributes to the BSB’s Daintiest Thing Under a Bonnet Charity Ball. He is also the editor of Lyndsay’s upcoming short story collection, The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes.
SJ Rozan, a former architect, is the author of fifteen crime novels and around four dozen short stories. She is an Irregular, and has won the Edgar, Anthony, Shamus, Macavity, Nero, and Japanese Maltese Falcon Awards, to name but a few. A tireless volunteer for Mystery Writers of American and Sisters in Crime, SJ is also the former president of the Private Eye Writers of America.
Lyndsay Faye is a Baker Street Babe and shameless nerd you can learn more about on www.lyndsayfaye.com if you’re not already all too familiar.
Hosted by the NYPL and programmed by Mystery Writers of America NY Chapter, please join us for a rollicking conversation regarding All Things Holmes!
Selected and Edited by Otto Penzler
Reviewed by Maria
The volume seems a little overwhelming when you first hold it in your hands. The UK hardcover edition consists of almost 900 pages and holds 83 Sherlock Holmes stories selected by Otto Penzler. (The US Version is called The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories and has fewer pages, but the same content). After an introduction by Penzler, the book starts off with an interview by Arthur Conan Doyle from 1900 (his justification of killing Holmes in “The Final Problem” and some comments on the Great Detective) and two of his non-canonical Sherlock Holmes stories. Followed by the most famous short story pastiches and parodies, including Vincent Starrett’s “The Unique ‘Hamlet’” and J.M. Barrie’s satirical “The Adventure of the Two Collaborators” and Stephen King’s “The Doctor’s Case”.
The rest of the book consists of stories that range from pastiches that are very close to the Canon to further parodies, to stories laden with intertextual references to other stories, literary characters (Raffles or Poirot) or even Arthur Conan Doyle himself while others are only very loosely related to Sherlock Holmes. Not all of the stories are good and only very few are actually brilliant, but most of the 83 stories are quite entertaining, written with love for the original, and a lovely addition to the Canon.
My personal favourites are Vincent Starrett’s “The Unique ‘Hamlet’” (yes, that’s the same man who write the book The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes and the sonnet “Always 1895” aka. “221B”), J.M. Barrie’s “The Late Sherlock Holmes”, a wonderful metafictional account of the arrest of Dr Watson as the main suspect in the death of Sherlock Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls published immediately after “The Final Problem” with a very telling conclusion which may or may not have influenced Doyle to pick up writing more Holmes stories in 1903. I also loved Antony Burgess’s “Murder to Music”, Lyndsay Faye’s “The Case of Colonel Warburton’s Madness” (I promise I am not biased. Lyndsay successfully wrote Holmes pastiches long before she became a Baker Street Babe – for instance Dust and Shadow and the story printed in this volume) and Logan Clendening’s “The Case of the Missing Patriarchs” in which Holmes after his death is employed to find Adam and Eve, who have disappeared which made me laugh harder than it probably should have.
However, those are just a few of many wonderful stories in this book and what they all have in common is the fantastic notion that Holmes lives on in manifold ways, universes, interpretations and forms. It shows that from the very beginning Sherlock Holmes has inspired both earnest pastiches and hilarious parodies and while many of the authors are known for their love of Sherlock Holmes some other names will be a surprise to the reader.
Apart from the stories, this book also features a short introductory text by Otto Penzler about the author and the context of each story, featuring interesting trivia titbits like the fact that Doyle, Barrie, Wodehouse and others had formed a cricket club, but Doyle was the only person who could actually play cricket. There short introductions add tremendously to an already fascinating and wonderful collection.
The UK publisher of the book, Head of Zeuz, has kindly offered us a copy of Sherlock to give away to one of our readers. This giveaway is currently for the UK only. All you have to do is leave a comment until February 7 on this post on our website and we will draw a random winner from all of those who commented.
The book is currently on sale on amazon.co.uk and bookdepository and can also be purchased at amazon.de.
The US version can be purchased on amazon.com, where it is also currently on sale!
Best Books Read in 2015, I’ve read a lot of Sherlock pastiches, this one was by far the best one. x
Dust and Shadow by Lyndsay Faye
See you in Hell Sooner than you think, Mr Holmes.
Woo-hoooooo! Thank you! -- @lyndsayfaye
Coming very soon to a Kindle! Watson and Holmes Volume 2. Includes multi Glyph winning and Eisner Nominated issue 6 by Brandon Easton and N.Steven Harris. Also includes issues 7-9. Author Lyndsay Faye reinterprets 2 classic Sherlock Stories, bringing the new version of Irene Adler.
Our bodies are ready!
Coming very soon to a Kindle! Watson and Holmes Volume 2. Includes multi Glyph winning and Eisner Nominated issue 6 by Brandon Easton and N.Steven Harris. Also includes issues 7-9. Author Lyndsay Faye reinterprets 2 classic Sherlock Stories, bringing the new version of Irene Adler.
Featuring BSB @lyndsayfaye in a retelling of Irene Adlero!
Babes Lyndsay Faye and Amy Thomas are featured in the new MX Anthology to benefit Stepping Stones and the preservation of Undershaw! These three lovely volumes have been a long time coming, and are now the world’s largest collection of Sherlockian pastiches, suitable for your bookshelves or your e-readers.
Amy Thomas is featured in Vol. I:
Lyndsay Faye is featured in Vol. II:
And many more wonderful authors are featured in Vol. III:
Enjoy the collection and help to Save Undershaw! Thank you for all your support for all things Sherlockian!
Babes Lyndsay Faye and Amy Thomas are featured in the new MX Anthology to benefit Stepping Stones and the preservation of Undershaw! These three lovely volumes have been a long time coming, and are now the world’s largest collection of Sherlockian pastiches, suitable for your bookshelves or your e-readers.
Amy Thomas is featured in Vol. I:
Lyndsay Faye is featured in Vol. II:
And many more wonderful authors are featured in Vol. III:
Enjoy the collection and help to Save Undershaw! Thank you for all your support for all things Sherlockian!
Babes Lyndsay Faye and Amy Thomas are featured in the new MX Anthology to benefit Stepping Stones and the preservation of Undershaw! These three lovely volumes have been a long time coming, and are now the world’s largest collection of Sherlockian pastiches, suitable for your bookshelves or your e-readers.
Amy Thomas is featured in Vol. I:
Lyndsay Faye is featured in Vol. II:
And many more wonderful authors are featured in Vol. III:
Enjoy the collection and help to Save Undershaw! Thank you for all your support for all things Sherlockian!
