Connelly, who turns 64 today, decided to become a writer after discovering the crime mysteries of Raymond Chandler while attending the University of Florida. Majoring in journalism and minoring in creative writing, he excelled at both. He started his career as a newspaper reporter, working in Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale and specializing in the crime beat, of course.
While writing during the
height of a murder and violence wave rolling over South Florida, one of
his pieces was short-listed for a Pulitzer Prize for features. That attention landed him a job as a crime
reporter in Los Angeles, Chandler’s old stomping grounds. He wrote for the Los Angeles Times
and then started writing creatively in what would make him a household name –
mystery and crime fiction.
I was
first drawn to Connelly’s writing because of his “newspaper style” – concise,
to the point, and riveting. When I
read Blood Work, one of the most
clever ideas for a mystery I’d seen, I was really hooked. In it,
the protagonist, an FBI detective, receives a donor heart. After his recovery he’s contacted by the
sister of the donor to find out who murdered her, the first time he’s known
that his heart came from a murder victim.
Connelly
is a master at taking current events and weaving them into his books. He says he never starts out knowing where a
book is headed, “But I have a reasonably good idea.”
His
books, translated into 39 languages, have garnered
every major award for mystery and crime writing, including The Edgar (several
times) and the RBA International Award for Crime Writing. Many have been the basis for movies, including the Bosch and Lincoln Lawyer shows.
Connelly said that besides being a journalist, a great
incubator for being a writer is simply to BE a writer. "You need to
write. Even if it's just one paragraph, write every single day."
No comments:
Post a Comment