One of my favorite authors — and people — Alafair Burke gave me the opportunity to totally geek out and talk about the crime television shows I love now and loved as a kid.  Suffice it to say, after rambling on in print about everything from “Moonlighting” to “Hawaii Five-O,” from “The Wire” to “Battlestar Gallactica,” I have realized that I watch way too much television — and have for most of my life.   In Alafair’s really great article, other favorite authors Laura Lippman, James Lee Burke, Linda Fairstein, SJ Rozan (and more) talk about their own small screen love affairs.

I heard someone say that this is the first generation of writers to be as heavily influenced by television and film as we have been by literature.  I always cringe to think that it might be true. Television gets such a bad rap.  But I think the fact that a group of writers had so much to say about television — warts and all — reminds me that there’s a lot of quality programing and it’s getting better all the time.  Story is story — on the big screen, the small screen, the book in your hand.  The writing, the character development, and the act of authentic imagining are some of the critical elements of a great tale — and it can be told anywhere, in any medium.

So, thanks, Alafair for putting me in touch with my inner television nerd. I’m going out to buy “Hill Street Blues” on DVD!

What I’m watching:
“Lost”

What I’m reading:
The Watchmen
by Alan Moore and Dan Gibbons

Ocean’s Favorite Book:
Pout Pout Fish
by Deborah Diesen and Dan Hanna

What I’m listening to:
Dead Can Dance/ A Passage in Time