Bill Crider Day

There’s this guy named Bill Crider. You may have heard of him. He’s written a few books.
Well, a whole lot of books. 

Twenty yeas ago I would only have known Bill through his writing. I still haven’t met him personally. But because of the internet, particularly blogging and facebook, I’ve gotten to know him. Twenty years ago my judgement on Bill would have been: “Solid writer, always entertaining, with a great sense of character and an ability to capture the human qualities of the characters in his stories.” My judgment of Bill today includes that, but much more.

Through the time I’ve know Bill Crider online, he’s suffered through the loss of loved ones and has struggled with severe health issues of his own. He’s up against it now, with those same issues, but I’ve never seen him feel sorry for himself. His basic good humor always shines through. And he has always been the kind of man to give of himself to help others, both fellow writers and plain old fellow human beings.

My favorite book by Bill is Texas Vigilante. It’s a sequel to Outrage at Blanco, which introduced the character Ellie Taine. In “Vigilante,” Ellie is back on the justice trail, looking for the man who has kidnapped the daughter of a friend. I wouldn’t want Ellie on my trail if I were a criminal; I’d want her there if I needed rescuing. A very strong character.

I admire Bill Crider as a writer; I admire him much more as a man. I hope a miracle is in the offing for him. Today, particularly, I'm thinking of him. And wishing him the best. Bill is the best of us. No doubt about that. 

For more about Bill Crider Day, check out Patti Abbott's Blog.

Discount Noir, and Bill Crider

Our blog colleague, Patti Abbott, is trying to get the news out about the fabulous collection called Discount Noir, which contains stories by Ed Gorman, Bill Crider, and James Reasoner, along with many other fine writers. In the interest of helping Patti spread the word, I’m hosting Bill Crider on my blog today with a short piece about his story in the collection, entitled “Their Fancies Lightly Turned.” Here’s……Bill.

When Patti Abbott asked me to write a story for Discount Noir, the first thing I thought of was a story I’d done a few years ago for Damn Near Dead. People often ask me if I ever intend to do anything more with the characters in that story, so I thought this would be a good chance to revisit a couple of them named Royce and Burl. They’re fun to write about, and I decided to give a little backstory about their meth dealing or something along those lines. Since the new story was to involve a big discount store, the next thing that occurred to me was that those places really have a problem with characters like Royce and Burl because those kinds of stores are where guys like them try to pick up some of their makings. After that, it was smooth sailing. I just put my characters in motion and let them carry the story through to the end. When I finished and looked it over, I liked the way it worked. It seemed to me to be a story about the kind of thing that could happen, or maybe does happen every now and then. I’d say more, but then this comment would wind up being longer than the story. Better for people to buy the book, read the story, and find out more for themselves.


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