Open Book On Location – Episode 4

Author Leslie S. Klinger met for a virtual conversation with authors and television writers Lee Goldberg and Nicholas Meyer to discuss the differences between writing novels and writing for TV, what makes a good mystery, and much more.

Open Book On Location – Episode 4

Session Description

Television and Mystery Writers Nicholas Meyer & Lee Greenberg in conversation with Leslie S. Klinger.

Lee Goldberg

2020 Author

Lee Goldberg is a New York Times bestselling author of more than fifty novels, TV writer and producer. He published his first book .357 Vigilante (as “Ian Ludlow,” so he would be on the shelf next to Robert Ludlum). His subsequent books include the non-fiction Successful Television Writing and Unsold Television Pilots as well as the novels My Gun Has BulletsThe WalkKing City, McGraveDead Space, and Watch Me Die, nominated for a Shamus Award for Best Novel from the “Private Eye Writers of America.” He’s also writer/co-creator of The Dead Man, the monthly series of original novels published by Amazon’s 47North imprint, and co-author with Janet Evanovich of the five international bestselling Fox & O’Hare novels and two New York Times bestselling prequel novellas The Shell Game and Pros & Cons. Goldberg broke into television with a script sale of Spenser: For Hire. His TV writing & producing credits cover a wide variety of genres, including sci-fi (seaQuest), cop shows (HunterThe Glades), martial arts (Martial Law), whodunits (Diagnosis MurderNero Wolfe), the occult (She-Wolf of London), kid’s shows (R.L. Stine’s The Nightmare Room), and comedy (Monk). His TV mystery writing has earned him two Edgar Award nominations from the Mystery Writers of America. Goldberg’s two careers, novelist and TV writer, merged when he wrote the Diagnosis Murder book series, based on the hit CBS TV mystery that he also wrote and produced. He followed that up by writing fifteen bestselling novels based on the TV show Monk. As an international television consultant, he has advised networks and studios in Canada, France, Germany, Spain, China, Sweden, and the Netherlands on the creation, writing, and production of episodic television series. He is also co-founder of the publishing company Brash Books.

Author's Website

Nicholas Meyer

2020 Author

Nicholas Meyer is an award-winning author, screenwriter, and director. His body of creative work in publishing, film, and television spans more than five decades. He published his first novel, Target Practice, that won an Edgar nomination. His Sherlock Holmes pastiche, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, remained on the NY Times Bestseller list for 40 weeks and won the British Gold Dagger award for crime fiction and the screenplay for the film was nominated for an Academy Award. Subsequent novels include four other Holmes pastiches, NY Times Bestseller The West End HorrorThe Canary TrainerThe Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols, and Black Orchid with Barry Jay Kaplan, as well as Confessions of a Homing Pigeon and Meyer’s memoir, The View from the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood. A new Sherlock Holmes novel, The Return of The Pharaoh, will be published Fall 2020. Meyer directed Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan widely considered the best of the Star Trek cinema canon. Meyer wrote two screenplays based on Philip Roth novels: The Human Stain and Elegy based on Roth’s The Dying Animal. He directed ABC’s The Day After, which remains the single most-watched television film ever made and was nominated for fourteen Emmys. Meyer’s script for the miniseries, Houdini was nominated for a WGA award and the series for seven Emmys. He is co-creator of the Netflix series Medici—Masters of Florence and worked on Star Trek: Discovery for CBS Access.

Author's Website

Leslie S. Klinger

Leslie S. Klinger

2018 Author, 2020 Moderator, 2021 Moderator

Leslie S. Klinger is considered to be one of the world’s foremost authorities on the history of crime writing. Klinger’s work has received numerous awards and nominations, including the Edgar® for Best Critical-Biographical Book in 2005 for The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories and the Edgar for Best Critical-Biographical Book in 2019 for Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s, and he is the editor of the Library of Congress Crime Classics series, published by Poisoned Pen Press, an imprint of Sourcebooks, and the Library of Congress.

Author's Website

Produced in partnership with the Altadena Library District

Produced in partnership with the Altadena Library District

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