Bill Tapply

This morning I got the disturbing news that a good friend of all New England Mystery writers has passed on. William G (Bill) Tapply was a writer, teacher and friend to all of us in the New England Chapter of MWA. He will be missed.

I met Bill in 2002 at the first New England CrimeBake Writer Conference and over the past seven years have attended a number of events with him. He was a man of few words, both in speech and in writing, and spent most of his life passing on his love of the art. If you wanted to get Bill talking, all you had to do was ask about his two favorite pass times, writing or fishing.

Bill was prolific and published more than 45 books and thousands of magazines. I use his book The Elements of Mystery Fiction: Writing The Modern Whodunit as a primary resource. True to form, he has several books slated for release this fall, among them a new thriller and a new mystery.

Bill is going to be missed in both the writing and fishing worlds. I am certain that somewhere on the other side, Bill and his closest friend, Phil Craig, are casting a line as we speak.