WALTER MOSLEY In Person With Paul (CWA DAGGERS Special)

WALTER MOSLEY - CWA DIAMOND DAGGER WINNER - chats to Paul Burke about EVERY MAN A KING, his writing, his characters, personal inspiration, American politics, good thoughts for writers and hope & belief.

The most prestigious Dagger of all, the Diamond Dagger is for a lifetime contribution to crime writing in the English language and is nominated by CWA members.

WALTER MOSLEY was born in LA in 1952. His African-American father Leroy from Louisiana joined the great migration north. His mother Ella, of Russian Jewish descent, was politically engaged which resonates in Mosley's work. 
Mosley took up writing at 34 with Gone Fishin' but it was Devil in a Blue Dress that was first published to acclaim in 1990, winning the John Creasey New Blood Dagger in 1991. Set in LA in 1948, Easy Rawlins is facing a murder charge when he takes a job searching for a white woman. Then stone-cold killer Mouse arrives from Houston, he's more terrifying than any of the chiselled giants in Mosley's novels.
Devil in a Blue Dress was filmed in 1995 starring Denzil Washington as Easy and Jennifer Beal as Mosley's first femme fatale Daphne Monet, Don Cheadle chills the blood as Mouse. Yet there are too few screen incarnations of Mosley books. Lawrence Fishburne played Socrates Fortlow in 1998's Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned and The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey starring Samuel Jackson appeared on Apple TV+ in 2022. Mosley has worked as a scriptwriter on, amongst other shows, Snowfall, 2018, and Star Trek Discovery, 2019.
In all Mosley has written 60+ books; crime, literary, sci-fi and erotic fiction, two graphic novels, two plays, short stories and six nonfiction titles. He has often written features for the New Yorker and The Nation.
Mosley's fiction centres on irresistibly engaging antiheroes, one would be an achievement but five such is remarkable - PI Easy Rawlins (15 novels), ex-con Socrates Fortlow (3), New York bad man making amends Leonid McGill (6), Fearless Jones (3) and ex-cop Joe King Oliver (2).
The novels are about race, rampant capitalism and inequality in American society. Mosley lives in LA and Brooklyn and engages with the history of both places. He chronicles America, post-WWII to the present day, the story of African-American America and the lives of the poorest people in society.
Mosley has received acclaim throughout his career including the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award in 2016. Down the River unto the Sea, 2018, won an Edgar the following year and Mosley was the first black male recipient of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2020. There's also the PEN America Lifetime Achievement Award, the NAACP Image Award (3 times) and a Grammy and this list is by no means exhaustive.
In June 2018 Mosley with Kellye Garrett and Gigi Pandian set up Crime Writers of Color, a collective for authors from underrepresented backgrounds, now with over 350 members internationally. The organisation won the prestigious Raven Award from the Mystery Writers of America at the Edgars in April.
He has no intention of putting down his pen...

Recommendations 
Killer Of Sheep - D. Charles Burnett
A Woman Under The Influence - D. John Cassavetes 

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network. He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge

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