Edna Buchanan (née Rydzik, born March 16, 1939)About Edna Buchanan Fantastic Fiction. Retrieved December 27, 2008. is an American
journalist
A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism.
Roles
Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...
and writer who is best known for her crime mystery novels. She won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting "for her versatile and consistently excellent police beat reporting.""The 1986 Pulitzer Prize Winner in General News Reporting,"Pulitzer.org retrieved August 12, 2019.
Early life
Buchanan was born in
Paterson, New Jersey
Paterson ( ) is the largest City (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Edna Buchanan Biography (biography.com). In high school she worked in a coat factory and after graduating she worked, along with her mother, at a
Western Electric
Western Electric Co., Inc. was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company that operated from 1869 to 1996. A subsidiary of the AT&T Corporation for most of its lifespan, Western Electric was the primary manufacturer, supplier, ...
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...
creative writing
Creative writing is any writing that goes beyond the boundaries of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on craft and technique, such as narrative structure, character ...
course and was encouraged to become a writer. She and her mother took a vacation to
Miami Beach
Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. It is part of the Miami metropolitan area of South Florida. The municipality is located on natural and human-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean an ...
and, according to Buchanan, she knew as soon as she walked off the plane that she wanted to leave Paterson.
Career
Buchanan began her career writing for the '' Miami Beach Sun'', covering crime, local politics, society, celebrity interviews and occasionally letters to the editor. In 1973, she began working as a police beat reporter for the ''
Miami Herald
The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by McClatchy, The McClatchy Company and headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Founded in 1903, it is the fifth-largest newspaper in Florida, serving Miami-Dade, Broward County, Fl ...
''. In 1986 she won the
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...
in General News Reporting. Buchanan retired from ''The Miami Herald'' in 1988 to devote herself to writing novels.
Her book ''Miami, It's Murder'' was nominated for an
Edgar Award
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America which is based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards hon ...
in 1995.
Buchanan's autobiographical book ''The Corpse Had A Familiar Face'' inspired two TV movies starring
Elizabeth Montgomery
Elizabeth Victoria Montgomery (April 15, 1933 – May 18, 1995) was an American actress whose career spanned five decades in film, stage, and television. She portrayed the good witch List of Bewitched characters#Samantha Stephens, Samantha Step ...
: ''The Corpse Had a Familiar Face'' (1994) and ''Deadline for Murder: From the Files of Edna Buchanan'' (1995), the latter marking Montgomery's final acting role before her death that year. Buchanan's novel ''Nobody Lives Forever'' was made into a TV movie in 1998.
Buchanan was embarrassed in 1990 when she was quoted extensively in the book ''Blue Thunder: How the Mafia Owned and Finally Murdered Cigarette Boat King
Donald Aronow
Donald Joel Aronow (March 3, 1927 – February 3, 1987) was an American designer, builder, and racer of Formula Boats, Formula, Donzi, Magnum Marine, Cary, and Cigarette Racing Team speedboats. Aronow built speedboats for Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, ...
'', by Thomas Burdick and Charlene Mitchell.
Burdick ... led her to believe that he was seeking only background information, never used a tape recorder or took notes, asked her to hypothesize about people and situations, then quoted her as if she were stating fact.
According to Buchanan, she tried to have her name and the quotes removed from the book after she read the galley proofs, but she was told by the publisher that it was too late.
Buchanan was profiled by Calvin Trillin in a 1986 piece for ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...
''. The article was included in Trillin's anthologies ''Killings'' (1984) and ''The Lede'' (2024).
Buchanan is featured in the 2018 documentary film '' The Last Resort.''
As of December 2023, Buchanan was living in a nursing home in Homestead.
Books
Fiction
*''Nobody Lives Forever'' (1990)
*'' Naked Came the Manatee'' ( Putnam, 1996), by Buchanan and 12 others
*''Pulse'' (1998)
*''Legally Dead'' (2008)
*''A Dark and Lonely Place'' (2011)
Britt Montero Series
* '' Contents Under Pressure'' (1992)
* ''Miami, It's Murder'' (1994)
* ''Suitable for Framing'' (1995)
* ''Act of Betrayal'' (1996)
* ''Margin of Error'' (1997)
* ''Garden of Evil'' (1999)
* ''You Only Die Twice'' (2001)
* ''The Ice Maiden'' (2002)
*''Love Kills'' (2007)
Craig Burch Series
* ''Cold Case Squad'' (2004)
* ''Shadows'' (2005)
Nonfiction
*''Carr, Five Years of Rape and Murder: from the personal account of Robert Frederick Carr III'', 1979
*''The Corpse Had a Familiar Face: Covering Miami, America's Hottest Beat'', 1987
*''Never Let Them See You Cry: More from Miami, America's Hottest Beat'', 1992
*''Vice: Life and Death on the Streets of Miami'', 1992