Meeting Margot Kinberg

It's funny, in the age of the Internet we can feel like we 'know' some people, at least in some small way, or in relation to a particular thing, even when we've never met them before. That we're familiar with them, in that one respect, at least. Email, Facebook, blogs, and other Internet-based conversations allow us to talk about and debate some of the things we are interested in, from sports to books to movies to parenting to the meaning of life, with a vast variety of people all over the world.

One of the people I've felt like I've got to know a little over the past couple of years in a crime fiction context is US-based mystery writer and university academic Margot Kinberg.

Kinberg has written two mystery novels herself (PUBLISH OR PERISH and B-VERY FLAT), starring former police officer and now university academic Joel Williams. I read and enjoyed B-VERY FLAT last year, and am looking forward to reading PUBLISH OR PERISH at some point soon. Kinberg has completed a third Joel Williams manuscript, which hopefully we will see published in the near future.

This week I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting Kinberg (pictured above at an Auckland cafe), who also writes the impressive Confessions of a Mystery Novelist blog, and knows a heck of a lot about the crime fiction genre, while she was visiting New Zealand for a university conference. As is often the case when two people who share a certain interest get together, we ended up chatting for a couple of hours about all sorts of things, from crime fiction, to US and New Zealand politics (we have a nationwide election here on Saturday), to the place and power of the media, and more. It was terrific, and I'm hoping to catch up with Kinberg again before she flies home to California.

I will have more to say about Kinberg's writing (I enjoyed the academic setting, the pleasant pacing, and the interesting characters in B-VERY FLAT) in due course. But in the meantime, you can read more about her at her blog here, and in her previous 9mm interview with Crime Watch here.

Have you read any of Kinberg's mystery novels? Have you met new people from places abroad thanks to your shared interest in crime fiction? Do you enjoy commenting on the genre with people from all over the world? Thoughts and comments welcome.