Elmore Leonard

JAMES W. HALL first read LaBrava while teaching a mystery fiction class at Florida International University in the mid-1980s. It was his “fun” course — a break from the highbrow literature he taught during the week. gpsutter.substack.com

Elmore Leonard on Global Connections with Jonathan Swift June 23, 2009 Elmore Leonard sits down with host Jonathan Swift, a former opera tenor turned TV interviewer, for a sharp, funny conversation wrapped around the release of Road Dogs. gpsutter.substack.com

Dutch discusses the arc of his writing career, with his Western stories in the 1950s & his transition to crime fiction in the late 1960s. He talks about the breakthrough success of Glitz in 1985, and the decades of work that came before it. gpsutter.substack.com

Dutch told me that first encounter with the written word was being read to by his sister Margaret, who was six years older. Dutch specifically remembered her reading from My Book House for Children, gpsutter.substack.com

Dutch did a lot of these noon time news show interviews in his long career where the hosts hadn’t read the book and had a few scribbled notes from a producer. Dutch always got his points across which makes this interview worthwhile. gpsutter.substack.com

On 1/27/04 Michael Silverblatt’s interviewed Dutch about Mr. Paradise, just out from Morrow. He got Dutch talking craft—starting with types, how he lets them “audition,” and follows the ones who come alive. gpsutter.substack.com

I was researching Killshot in the summer of 1987 in Cape Girardeau, As always, I took a slew of location photos. Dutch loved pouring over my photos. Several showed towboats on the Mississippi River and that got him thinking again about Richard Bissell. gpsutter.substack.com

Dutch was at the Adams Mark Hotel on 9/9/2000, writing the remarks he would deliver that night at the Awards Banquet for Bouchercon 2000. Thus was born what would later be published as Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing. But that night there were 11. gpsutter.substack.com

On 4/8/02, Dutch spoke at the twentieth-anniversary celebration of The Library of America held at the Morgan Library in New York. He was one of six writers invited to talk about an LOA author they felt a connection to. Leonard chose John Steinbeck. gpsutter.substack.com

This 6/2/1999 CNN-Entertainment Weekly segment, with Elvis Mitchell, profiles Dutch at home in Bloomfield Village, Michigan. It covers the writing process, Hollywood adaptations, & his influence on directors like Sonnenfeld, Soderbergh, & Tarantino. gpsutter.substack.com

A touchstone is “a standard or criterion by which something is judged or recognized.” In the Dutch Forum, the term took on a more playful meaning: a clue, a crossover, or a hidden thread linking one Elmore Leonard work gpsutter.substack.com

In 1975, John Foreman—Paul Newman’s producing partner—was headed to Morocco to produce The Man Who Would Be King w/Sean Connery & Michael Caine. He asked Dutch to write a treatment called The Hawksbill Gang. gpsutter.substack.com

Dutch’s agent H.N. “Swanie” Swanson wrote to Dutch “I think you might want to read a new book just published, The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins. Dutch bought it, opened to the first line. He was hooked. gpsutter@substack.com

Brittany Frederick talks about her first interview w/Dutch & covering Justified as the series was being made. She discusses Dutch’s influence on the show, Graham Yost’s role in preserving that voice, & what distinguished the show from other crime shows. gpsutter.substack.com

In Detroit: The Renaissance City by Balthazar Korab, (1985) Dutch writes a thoughtful Detroit history. As his researcher, I spent many joyful hours at the Detroit Public Library digging through records and studying documents about the city’s origins. gpsutter.substack.com

Dutch was working on his 46th novel. The Atlantic asked him to write a story for their July/August 2012 issue. Dutch wasn’t making a political statement, per se, he had just found one of his favorite set-ups. An intolerant asshole who abuses power, More: gpsutter.substack.com

Fall 1980. My review of City Primeval for the Oakland Press. “Books aren’t written much more hard-boiled and suspenseful than City Primeval.” gpsutter@substack.com

The First Time I Read Elmore Leonard It Was in Hot Rod Magazine in an ad for Hurst Shifters George Hurst was a machinist from Pennsylvania, born in 1927, a classic postwar hot rod kid who turned his fascination with speed into a career. gpsutter.substack.com

Wild Card did not get past the first draft, but it showed how Dutch wasn’t following a book overloaded with scientific jargon — he was ignoring that stuff and shaping the book into his kind of story. gpsutter.substack.com

youtube.com/watch?v=TjTniR… gpsutter.substack.com,