Last summer I drove down to the first annual International Mystery Writers’ Festival in Owensboro, Ky., of all places and had a pretty good time – and had some darned good barbecue over a long weekend.
Mystery fans should be intrigued to find that the 2008 festival will be twice as long with 16 new works including a musical, full-lengths, one-acts, screenplays (last year performed as radio theater) but most keenly interesting is that the festival does go international in 2008, with a “lost” work by Agatha Christie, “Chimneys,” which apparently went missing in 1931 (according to festival organizers) for a few decades until it was unearthed in Calgary, Alberta (again I say, of all places) where it was premiered in 2003, followed by a European premiere in Scotland.
The U.S. premiere will be in Owensboro, and also on the bill is a new play starring Sherlock Holmes, “The Final Toast,” written by Edgar winner Stuart Kaminsky, With Christie, does give an international flavor to the proceedings.
Alert to local playwrights with a mystery script in the drawer (or the computer): manuscripts are being accepted through Nov. 30. (Submit sooner than later, last year there were 1,000 entries. For more information visit www.newmysteries.org.
Jackie Demaline
