In July, we have a huge conference for mystery writers, where the best publishers come out looking for new talent. We also have a travel writing conference. Hundreds of people come through this conference and are now working as travel journalists.

Our used book store is a fundraiser for Hospice. The community donates books and Hospice puts them on the shelf. We sell them and the money goes to patient care.

We have writing classes and language classes. We have writing conferences.

Few writers have had less journalistic talent than James, and this is his defect, for the supreme masters have one trait in common with the childish scribbling mass, the vulgar curiosity of a police-court reporter.

Women mystery writers took a genre that before that had been exclusively male and transformed it. The tradition of the male private eye goes all the way back in literature to the lone man on the edge of society with a moral conscience, saving people's lives. In 1977 Marcia Muller wrote the first female sleuth who was a hard-core professional crime solver.

There are plenty of clever young writers. But there is too much genius, not enough talent.