Thanks, JB, for the kind invite. I’m flattered to be here, and your timing couldn’t have been better.

I’m scheduled to moderate a panel at the Malice Domestic convention on “Cozy Up to These Sleuths: What Does a Cozy Make?”

My first thought when I got the notification about the panel was that the conference organizers had made a mistake. I could see how that could happen: My first book, due out in July, is titled Death of a Cozy Writer (to be followed by Death and the Lit Chick). What could be a more natural fit than to put me on a cozy panel, right?

But I decided not to point out the error of their ways: I realized that the fact that my first book (which my publisher has labeled “a medium-boiled cozy”) takes a lot of the conventions of the “cozy cozy” and pokes gentle fun at them makes it a good counterpoint to the softer-boiled books to be discussed on the panel.

For one thing, the cozy writer of my title is an absolute devil who loves nothing better than to stir up trouble, even as he pens his gentle Miss-Marple-type books. His reading public loves him, but no one who knows the man can stand him, beginning with his family.

As you might guess, I had a lot of fun with this. I think a lot of people do think authors are much the same as their protagonists. Not!

But making fun of the genre doesn’t mean I don’t love the genre: Cozies are nearly all I ever read. A list of some of my favorite authors holds a clue: Robert Barnard, Agatha Christie, Caroline Graham, Martha Grimes, P.D. James, Peter Lovesey, Barbara Vine. (Okay, a couple of these may be more edgy than cozy.) But these are the mystery authors I’ve read and reread over many years, and/or whose books I buy the second they hit the shelves.

And I consider that they all fall under the cozy umbrella to some extent. But we may have to stretch the definitions just a bit.

So, what do these writers have in common, apart from an absolute mastery of the English language, and a British setting? A subversive wit is the first thing that comes to mind. Nothing slapstick, very little physical comedy. But, again, their brilliant use of language makes most of these writers laugh-out-loud funny—their ability to describe people and situations, to weave words together in ways that surprise the reader into laughter.

None of them go in for graphic sex or violence, but a swear word may slip in here and there. The language (again, the language) that they have their characters use results in a realistic—and again, often very funny—depiction of how people really talk. They may be “cozy writers” but they won’t have a character say, “Oh, gosh darn it!” when that would be absurd for that particular character. 

So to the question “What Does a Cozy Make?” I guess I have a few answers. I haven’t even gone into what makes a protagonist or his/her occupation “cozy,” but I see I’ve wandered on long enough. Maybe you can help me out. What, to you, does a cozy make? And who are the cozy authors you return to, again and again?