Read Beat (...and repeat)
If you're like me, you like to know things but how much time to invest? That's the question. Here's the answer: Read Beat--Interviews with authors of new releases. These aren't book reviews but short (about 25-30 minutes on the average) chats with folks that usually have taken a lot of time to research a topic, enough to write a book about it. Hopefully, there's a topic or two that interests you. I try to come up with subjects that fascinate me or I need to know more about. Hopefully, listeners will agree. I'm Steve Tarter, former reporter for the Peoria Journal Star and a contributor to WCBU-FM, the Peoria public radio outlet, from 20202 to 2024. I post regularly on stevetarter.substack.com.
Read Beat (...and repeat)
"CrimeReads" articles by Keith Roysdon
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An upcoming story on the CrimeReads website (https://crimereads.com/) will look at the performances of movie/TV good guys who later took on bad-guy roles and vice versa. It can only be another story by Keith Roysdon, whose previous stories on CrimeReads include looks at writers Richard Matheson and Robert Bloch, a historic scan of Universal monsters, and a review of 1970s disaster movies.
Having served as a reporter and editor in Muncie, Ind. for some 40 years, Roysdon has written three novels, most recently Seven Angels. Now living in Knoxville, Tenn., Roysdon is also a partner in Constellate Creatives (https://constellatecreatives.com/), a one-stop shop that seeks to help writers publish books with editing and marketing services.
Marketing a book once it's published is the one thing new authors tend to dread, said Roysdon, happy to provide help in getting a new book noticed.
Roysdon said his offbeat entertainment stories are the result of an open-minded editor who sees the value in giving a creative talent free rein. “I’ve got to give Dwyer Murphy, my editor at CrimeReads, and everybody there, credit, because the more obscure thing that I can think of, it seems like they're on board with that,” he said.
Who but Roysdon would review Pray for the Wildcat, a TV movie from ABC made in the 1970s starring Andy Griffith as a corporate boardroom bully who makes life miserable for all those around him? This role flies in the face of the one most of us have for Griffith--good old Andy Taylor from Mayberry, said Roysdon.
The movie’s cast includes William Shatner, Robert Reid, and Lorraine Gary, who played Chief Brodie’s wife in Jaws, said Roysdon. Other character shifts noted in the article focus on players like Angela Lansbury and Fred MacMurray, he said. The story will be published soon on CrimeReads.
Writing stories for the crime website keeps Roysdon pretty busy in itself (he’s had more than 75 stories published), but along with the three novels, he also works on reading and editing other writers’ work on the growing Constellate site.
Recalling his time writing for the newspaper in Muncie where he did movie reviews from 1977 to 1990, a distinct period, said Roysdon, identifying it as a future project he’d like to tackle.
“It was a really good time for pictures, and that's something that I've considered writing about in the way of a movie book. But I don't know if I'll ever get around to it, because I've got so many other things I want to do,” said Roysdon.
Whatever Roysdon decides to do, you know the result will be distinctive—and just slightly offbeat.
