People in a Magazine: The Selected Letters of S. N. Behrman and His Editors at The New Yorker, University of Massachusetts Press - 2018
Playwright, biographer, screenwriter, and critic S. N. Behrman (1893–1973) characterized the years he spent writing for The New Yorker as a time defined by "feverish contact with great theatre stars, rich people and social people at posh hotels, at parties, in mansions and great estates." While he hobnobbed with the likes of Mary McCarthy, Elia Kazan, and Greta Garbo and was one of Broadway's leading luminaries, Behrman would later admit that the friendships he built with the magazine's legendary editors Harold Ross, William Shawn, and Katharine S. White were the "one unalloyed felicity" of his life.
People in a Magazine collects Behrman's correspondence with his editors along with telegrams, interoffice memos, and editorial notes drawn from the magazine's archives―offering an unparalleled view of mid-twentieth-century literary life and the formative years of The New Yorker, from the time of Behrman's first contributions to the magazine in 1929 until his death.
South of Sunset: Nine Early Plays, Perfect Crime Books - 2015
Nine early plays by author-dramatist Joseph Goodrich, 2008 winner of the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar for Best Play. Drawing on Modernism and Hollywood noir, these short dramas seethe with violence and desperation. "There are no happy endings for the characters in these plays," says Goodrich in his introduction.
Blood Relations: The Selected Letters of Ellery Queen, 1947-1950, Perfect Crime Books - 2012
2013 Malice Domestic Agatha Award Nominee "What a treasure! . . . literally a blow-by-blow account of the creation of three of the strongest Queen novels." Francis M. Nevins, two-time Edgar winner "A superlative book . . . jaw-dropping revelations." William Link, creator of Columbo The writing team of Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee (better known by their joint byline of Ellery Queen) produced some of the most ambitious mystery novels of the mid-20th Century. Yet their relationship was acrimonious, marred by pain, financial and professional dependency and mistrust. Here, culled from the Dannay archives by author and dramatist Joseph Goodrich, is the selected correspondence of these two volatile men during a period of their most important creative achievements. With a Foreword by longtime television producer-writer William Link (Columbo, Ellery Queen, Murder, She Wrote).
Panic, Samuel French, Inc - 2008
Mystery Drama / 2m, 4f / Interior set Recipient of the 2008 Mystery Writer's of America Edgar Award for Best Play. Paris, 1963. Director Henry Lockwood has come to the City of Light for the premiere of his new film, Panic. Accompanied on the trip by his wife Emma and his secretary Miriam, Lockwood expects nothing more than to enjoy another cinematic success and to bask in the adulation of young French film critic Alain Duplay. But when Lockwood is accused of a hideous crime---a crime that could destroy his career and his marriage---he's forced to confront the truth about himself and those closest to him. Lockwood, known the world over as 'the Sultan of Suspense,' is caught in a nightmare straight out of one of his own films.
Smoke and Mirrors, Samuel French, Inc - 2008
Drama / 4 m, 3 f / Interior Set in the break room of a quasi-governmental organization, Smoke and Mirrors follows Anita and a handful of her co-workers through the course of a seemingly normal day, complete with bad cafeteria food, inept bosses, inappropriate e-mails and blood-stained lab-coats. Smoke and Mirrors mingles the comic with the nightmarish, creating a world composed of patriotism and cupcakes, of paranoia and air freshener---a world uncomfortably close to our own. "In Smoke and Mirrors, playwright Joseph Goodrich conjures up a wickedly amusing portrait of a stultifying but nerve-racking workplace." -Backstage.com "If Kafka scripted an episode of The Office, it might resemble Joseph Goodrich's bizarre and often intriguing Smoke and Mirrors, set in the smoking room of a nebulous American corporation." -Time Out New York
