The dark streets of Kansas City hold many secrets.
As Steve Paul writes in the introduction to a new book, Kansas City Noir, this is also a city that's home to its share of serial killers and moral turpitude, and it's a place where police detective ply their trade.
Tuesday on Up to Date: a look at some of the gritty, gin-soaked tales of Kansas City Noir, as Steve Paul and contributors Mitch Brian and Grace Suh share their short stories featured in the latest anthology from Akashic Books.
HEAR MORE: Steve Paul, Catherine Browder, Matthew Eck, and Andrés Rodríguez will read from Kansas City Noir this evening at 6:30 at the Kansas City Library Central branch, 14 W. 10th Street, Kansas City, Mo. A 6 p.m. free reception precedes the event. Click here for more information.
Steve Paul has been a writer and editor at the Kansas City Star since 1975. Currently the arts editor, he writes about music, books, architecture, food, and, occasionally, murder. He's the author of Architecture A to Z: An Elemental, Alphabetical Guide to Kansas City's Built Environment (2011) and coeditor of and contributor to War & Ink, a collection of essays about Ernest Hemingway's early work, forthcoming from Kent State University Press. A former bookseller and a native of Boston, he has served as a board member and officer of the National Book Critics Circle. Mitch Brian has written screenplays and teleplays for major Hollywood studios, television networks and independent producers. He co-created and wrote episodes for Batman: The Animated Series and co-wrote the NBC miniseries The '70s. He has written screenplays for directors Chris Columbus, Oliver Stone and Robert Schwentke, as well as producers Geena Davis, Mike Medavoy and Dino De Laurentiis. Brian directed the award-winning short film James Ellroy's Stay Clean as well as Hang Ups and Rhubarb Pie. He contributed essays to Harper Collins' The Book of Lists: Horror, and teaches screen writing and film studies at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He writes for 435 South magazine. Grace Suh is a writer and editor who specializes in features, essays and reviews, as well as ghostwritten memoirs, branding copy and promotional materials for private and corporate clients. Her writing has been published in The San Francisco Weekly, The Pitch, Kiwi, Ink Magazine, M Magazine, KC Spaces, The FlickCast and KoreAm Journal, and anthologized in numerous collections including Kansas City Noir, Echoes Upon Echoes, Imprint and Making More Waves. It has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Overbrook Foundation, the Edward F. Albee Foundation, the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, the Kansas City Press Club and the Howard M. Teichman Foundation. Her clients include Moleskine, OverChicago, FusionLab, Ampersand Design Studio and Hamptons Film Festival.
