Love can drive you crazy, right? What better way to celebrate the most romantic day of the year than to indulge in stories of love gone very, VERY wrong?

​This month on the Association Blog, our team has put together a list of our top ValenCrimes reads that range from power couples of crime fiction to fatal attractions and dangerous liaisons. 

​Older women have traditionally been portrayed negatively in folklore, fairy tales, literature and film, for example. Images of witches, evil stepmothers, shrivelled, bitter 'spinsters', and vindictive, bullying women abusing positions of power are rife in Western culture. Yet, perhaps things are changing. A new emphasis on the need to discuss and understand the menopause seems to be at the heart of this. 
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​Conference: Falmouth University UK, 10-11 June 2022
Deadline: 1 April 2021

And so it is Christmas… we would like to wish a very Merry Christmas to our wonderful delegates! Let’s hope 2022 brings more promise than 2021 (and, of course, the unspeakable 2020).

We thought we would put together a list of quality crime fiction recommendations to indulge over the festive season for those Christmas lovers (and Grinches!) What’s your favourite Christmas Crime binge?  

Our friends at the 221B magazine have some exciting news—after its 6th year of success, they are introducing a quarterly online English edition! For those of you who don't know, 221B is a bimonthly crime fiction and culture magazine that was first published in Turkey on January 2016. 221B is not just a crime fiction magazine; it is also a crime culture magazine. 221B is committed to handling various subjects regarding universal and local crime fiction including crime narratives, comic books, academic research, film & TV and book reviews, author interviews and of course short stories.

The second runner up to be reviewed by ​Dr. Linda Ledford-Miller is Stacy Gillis and Gunnthórunn Gudmundsdóttir's edited collection, Noir in the North: Gender, Politics, and Place​ (2020). 

​Once again, we would like to congratulate all of the authors and editors of these outstanding volumes of crime fiction scholarship. 

As promised at our online event in November, we will be reviewing both of the runners up of the 2020 ICFA Book Prize on our association blog. 

​First up, ​Susannah B. Mintz's The Disabled Detective: Sleuthing Disability in Contemporary Crime Fiction (2020) reviewed by ​Dr. Linda Ledford-Miller. 

​Please find below a CFP for a seminar of the American Comparative Literature Association Annual Meeting, which will take place at National Taiwan Normal University.

Deadline: October 31, 2021
Conference:  15-18 June 2022