Enfant Terrible: Kevin Burton Smith

The decidedly scruffy-looking (but distinguished) gent over there is Kevin Burton Smith, a Montreal editor, author, critic, essayist and blogger currently stationed in the peculiar state-of-mind known as Southern California. Kevin's writings on crime fiction, music, film, bicycling and sundry other topics have appeared in web and print publications all over the world, including Details, Blue Murder, The Mystery Readers Journal, Word Wrights, Over My Dead Body, Crime Time (Britain) and Crime Factory (Australia).

He got his start in publishing working as a layout editor for various trade and business magazines in Canada, such as Pulp and Paper Canada, Genie Construction, Canadian Doctor, The CIM Bulletin and The Canadian Mining Journal.

At the present time, he serves as a contributing editor for The Rap Sheet and January Magazine, and is a columnist, book reviewer and feature article writer for Mystery Scene.

A sometime-member of The Private Eye Writers of America, Kevin is also the founder/editor of the award-winning Thrilling Detective Web Site, the internet's premier resource for fans of fictional private eyes and other tough guys and gals in literature, film, radio, television and other media.

Recent fiction projects include stories in Iced, an anthology of Canadian noir fiction, and Grunt and Groan, a collection of stories involving sex in the workplace. He has also co-edited (with partner-in-crime and fellow mystery writer D.L. Browne) Down These Wicked Streets, a collection of private eye tales, and is working on his first novel (like, who isn't?), as well as a study of pulp-era female writers.

Kevin currently lives with D.L. in he High Desert of California's Antelope Valley, just north of Los Angeles, of all places, but a good chunk of his soul still lives in Montreal. Please send smoked meat, some real beer and news of the Habs.

A man of many interests (and opinions to match), Kevin's can speak with some knowledge (and often just won't shut up) on camping, hiking, bicycling, music, film, television, popular culture and North American history.

Anyone interested in Kevin's current state-of-mind can catch up with him on The Thrilling Detective Blog or his Crimespace page.

Oh, and about THAT name: Somewhere along the line, he went from being "Kevin Smith" to "Kevin Burton Smith." He claims he wasn't getting snooty, but "people -- some of them none too pleasant -- kept e-mailing me, asking me if I was the film director who did the films Clerks or Chasing Amy, and what Ben Affleck and J. Lo are REALLY like. Good thing I changed it before Jersey Girl came out."

Care to drop me a line? Go ahead, punk. Make my day.