The phrase, "if it bleeds, it leads" has long been a critique of journalism, but a new book of pulp-fiction style stories by New England reporters plays up the lurid, sensational, side of following crime. Today, we'll talk to two of the veteran reporters behind Murder Ink.
Also today, a look back at the roots of film noir, and a pair of true crime writers comb through the dark fantasies exposed at the trial of Seth Mazzalia.
Listen to the full show.
Murder Ink
You've heard the saying - if it bleeds, it leads. Well that's kind of the point for a new collection of short stories called Murder Ink: Thirteen Tales of New England Newsroom Crime.
Dan Szczesny is an author, a seasoned journalist, associate publisher of the Hippo, and the editor of Murder Ink.
Oreste P. D'Arconte is the former publisher of the Sun Chronicle in Attleboro, Massachusetts, and a writer of pulp fiction. His story "One Way Dead End" is just one of the tales in Murder Ink.
Film Noir
We're looking back to a shadowy genre of cinema from the 1940s and 50s - film noir. This piece, examining the history of film noir, comes to us from producer Sara Fishko, of the Fishko Files.
You can listen to this story again at PRX.org.
Dark Heart
On the evening of October 9th 2012, 19-year-old UNH student Lizzie Marriott left her home in Chester, New Hampshire to meet up with a co-worker in Dover. She was never seen again. For the next two years the tragic circumstances of Lizzie's disappearance dominated the headlines and details of the case rocked the seacoast.
Kevin Flynn and Rebecca Lavoie Flynn wrote about the Seth Mazzaglia case in Dark Heart: A True Story of Sex, Manipulation and Murder and co-hosts of the podcast Crime Writers On. ?Rebecca is also NHPR's digital director.
10-Minute Writer's Workshop: Alexander Chee
There are a few murders in The Queen of the Night, one of the year's most-anticipated novels, but they serve a plot that is intentionally over the top, reflecting the improbably tragic, melodramatic grand operas of old and the aria from Mozart's opera The Magic Flute that gives the novel its name. Author Alexander Chee joined us for our 10-Minute Writer’s Workshop series and podcast to share the un-glamorous process of getting his elegant novel on the page.
Related: 10-Minute Writer's Workshop: Alexander Chee
