Talk:Sue Grafton

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What about G[edit]

What happened to G in her bibliography books?? 66.245.112.178 23:40, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm still working on it... hope to get it there before tomorrow... :)

summaries read like press releases[edit]

Is there any way to reword them to be less "pulpy"? -- nae'blis (talk) 16:47, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What happens after Z[edit]

Has she given any indication of what she will do if and when she gets to Z? Nil Einne 21:38, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the end of the line is Z is for ZeroVanhorn (talk) 09:32, 24 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Linda Christas[edit]

What editor out there has a problem with listing Sue Grafton's acceptance of a Chair for Literature at our school. Every time a student adds the information, an editor (could only be from a rival school already on Wikipedia) deletes the information. For Pete sake, Wikipedia won't even allow our school a listing. What kind of prejudice are we experiencing here? What, you don't like high schools or what? Somebody at Wikipedia is wearing a hair shirt for Linda Christas Academy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.142.227.237 (talk • contribs)

I'm not the editor that has done the removals, but I support them whole heartedly. Why? Because when I spoke with one of the then current members of the board, Alison Jiear, I found that her involvement with Linda Christas had consisted of the following conversation: "Do you want to be listed as a board member of our school?" "Sure, why not". Total length of involvement: 2 minutes, tops. I can only assume that the other "board members" are listed for similar exchanges. A casual conversation on that level hardly rates any sort of focus on a Wikipedia bio. If what I said doesn't apply to other board members, then let me know and I'll contact them for verification as well. - Richfife 19:38, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can this style of title be trademarked.[edit]

I was wondering if the style of novel title that Sue Grafton uses, (i.e., A is for Alibi, B is for … etc) can be trademarked or copyrighted. My understanding is that titles can't be copyrighted but could they be considered a trademark of hers. Does anyone know what is the case here?--Dmol (talk) 13:56, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, and even if it could it's hardly her invention. R is for Rocket and S is for Space are just two of the dozens of earlier books using this form of title. - Dravecky (talk) 14:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Novels of Sue Grafton[edit]

I've added short articles with infoboxes and references for each of the 17 "alphabet" novels that still needed them. I've also created a handy Sue Grafton novels navigational template, a category for the novels of Sue Grafton, and wikified where I could in the existing articles. I feel confident that there are many other editors who can add on to this jumpstart and encourage them to jump in to expand these articles. - Dravecky (talk) 14:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

V is for...[edit]

I just removed somebody's speculative title for the 22nd book in the Alphabet Series. Per this interview with her local newspaper about a week ago, Grafton is still only partially done with the novel and no title has been set. Until an official announcement is made (and, based on this, it will be many months from now, at the earliest) please refrain from posting unsourced speculation to this article. - Dravecky (talk) 05:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Brantingham, Barney (April 29, 2010). "Just Who Is Kinsey Millhone?". Santa Barbara Independent. Retrieved May 4, 2010. "I am working on V is for …," Sue told me. She's around 100 pages into it and hasn't glommed onto a title yet. "It'll come out in 2011."

Short Story[edit]

Did'nt she write at least one short story ?  Jon Ascton  (talk) 18:08, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Quotation Marks[edit]

I was bothered by the quotation marks in the titles, they didn't seem right. So I went to the shelf and learned that they are half right, they were used through "L" is for Lawless, but from M forward there are no quotation marks in the titles. I made a quick pass through and deleted the incorrect ones, then undid it when I realized it broke the links on those titles.

Sorry, it's late and I don't have the energy to change that much today. Maybe later, or maybe somebody else will fix it?

VanVanhorn (talk) 09:37, 24 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The quotation marks may be absent from the stylized dust jacket art but they are present on the books' actual title pages, page headers, and publisher listings. Even if you don't have the books at hand, you can see these on Amazon's "look inside" feature. There's an old saying about judging a book by its cover... - Dravecky (talk) 18:24, 24 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dead link[edit]

Note 4 now seems to be a dead link. I once knew how to flag these, but no longer. Got that Sometimer's Syndrome, aka CRS. Anyhoo, this needs fixed or removed. Wish I could help. Thanks. Rags (talk) 10:04, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Add {{dead link}} to future dead links, for the record. I'll take a look at this one. - Dravecky (talk) 10:25, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Merge the novels together?[edit]

Result: Absolutely everyone seems to hate this proposal, so it looks like we can call this one a failure for the moment. SnowFire (talk) 23:48, 13 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the novel articles are just a plot summary as it stands. Seems like they could be merged into a series article / list without any loss. Any that actually have any depth, or can be added to, can be spun into a full article on a case-by-case basis. Any thoughts / comments on this? Judging by the publishers website, "Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Series" seems the title they like, but might be reasonable to shorten that just to "Alphabet Series." SnowFire (talk) 00:00, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that the person who made and maintained a number of these articles has sadly passed away (Dravecky). Anyway, I'm inclined to make the change... a series article is probably appropriate anyway, and the individual books can always be spun back out if more content is found. SnowFire (talk) 22:36, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I just did "Y" Is for Yesterday. All it takes is a bit more work for each, but I guess it's easier for some to just lump them all together. Some of them won awards, yanno? — Wyliepedia 00:49, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, I'm not saying that the content should be deleted. The fact that they won awards is good, but they might still be better treated as a series article. Yesterday still seems pretty short; there's nothing wrong with keeping it as a section, I'd think? That said, if you plan on continuing to expand it, go nuts, of course, don't let me stop you.
On a total side note, Dravecy claimed above that the Quotation Marks in the title were on the cover page for the more recent works. I just checked a few at the bookstore, and they totally didn't have the quotation marks, not even on the inside cover or anything. Is this true of Yesterday as well? Does it have the quotation marks around Y on the inside? SnowFire (talk) 04:12, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
While it would normally be bad form to barge ahead despite an oppose... I really feel strongly about this. I didn't delete any content, aside from the repetitious "this is who Kinsey is" intros. Take a look at Alphabet Series. I think this is much more sustainable, especially since some feedback / awards applies to the series as a whole. I'd like to keep on merging more articles, but figured I should stop at 5 as a preview of how a series article would look... again, no complaints about un-merging if someone DOES put in the work to make a full article, but as is, some of these articles are either tiny or short - the D article was tagged with "allplot" for some time, for example. SnowFire (talk) 07:54, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I oppose strongly and am surprised to find this done and dusted on a holiday before anyone has had time to chime in and only three days or so after Grafton's death. Please remember that there is no deadline on Wikipedia, we're not in hurry, and there's no reason to have done this. I have sources for the novels, made a start editing A is for Alibi some years ago, and believe more can be found. But it's best to take a deep breath and slow down a bit, leave the proposal at least for seven days for adequate consensus building or consider a formal RfC. Victoriaearle (tk) 14:25, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Victoriaearle: I am completely baffled as to this opposition. Let me state again: I am not deleting anything. I am not saying these books are irrelevant or wouldn't pass notability guidelines. I think that one good article is better than 25 stubs, though, and such merges are very common when lots of the articles are very borderline and just plot summaries, but the group as a collective has notability. Did you look at the sample merged 5 articles? If you're invoking DEADLINE, to the extent I made any modifications, it was from adding & cleaning up some things. It is exactly the same content as was in the individual articles before.
And of course it isn't a coincidence it happened just after Grafton's death.... I saw that the likes of "L" Is for Lawless were extremely short, and everything else seemed very close to an AfD on "just a plot summary" grounds. I think a series article will be much more stable and immune from deletion. And let me say yet again that if you personally want to add some sources in, please do! I'm hardly ruling out that some of the novels might work as stand-alones, but very clearly some of them don't at the moment. SnowFire (talk) 19:24, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi SnowFire, I missed your post (if a post that's signed and saved has a malformed ping, fixing the ping won't work - a new ping has to be added). I took less than a minute a few days ago to search the New York Times archives and found plenty of material, the works are all best sellers and, therefore, notable. The issue is that someone has to take the time and write the articles but as I mentioned in my earlier post, there's no deadline, and WP:Wikipedia is a work in progress applies as well. I'm not active at the moment but if I can ever get back here would be more than happy to work up some of the articles. If I don't reply to a ping, please leave a message on my talk - I do check in every few days but things drop off my watchlist. I see from above there's an AfD for the Alphabet article - I won't post there, but it is difficult to write a single article about one writer's entire body of work - especially when each novel is notable. And, quite frankly there's no consensus for the merge. Victoriaearle (tk) 23:36, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]


Oppose merging 25 existing articles, most of them lengthy, into one article so long that it would scream to be split all over again. I see no benefit to that. I'm expressing my opposition after the proponent went ahead and did it anyway after waiting barely more than a day and having received only one response (which was also a !vote of opposition). Partly on the strength of the Oppose responses here, I'm now putting the article up for a deletion discussion. Largoplazo (talk) 02:18, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Link for convenience: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alphabet Series.
I've responded there, but re your comments here, you are misrepresenting my actions. As I have said before, and is clear from the page history if you look at it, I did not actually merge the articles yet, awaiting the results of this discussion here. SnowFire (talk) 03:13, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – if the current problem is WP:PLOT, merging them verbatim into one article isn't an improvement. PriceDL (talk) 03:07, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
So what do you propose instead? Deletion? I think that's been rejected before at AFD... see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/"A" Is for Alibi.
Anyway, I do think that one merged article will be an improvement in compliance with WP:PLOT, eventually, as it can include creation / reception / commmentary on the series as a whole at least, rather than nothing. SnowFire (talk) 03:13, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose this merger. The articles on each novel need a Reviews section added. Some have review articles already cited but not used. Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews may well have reviews as Grafton's novels were big sellers, but I did not see either used as a source for reviews. The Library Journal also has reviews, advising librarians whether to acquire certain titles. Then there are the newspapers and magazines and occasionally NPR who also do book reviews. The article on each novel could have a flag indicating that a Review section is needed, more than just plot, perhaps attracting editors to add those reviews. Putting 25 plot summaries together is not an article anyone would read. However, a good article about the series would be welcomed; that is how most of the series of which I am aware are handled, as some things can be said about the whole series that are not fit for the article about any one detective novel in that series. --Prairieplant (talk) 22:15, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Also Oppose merger, but in favour of a series article (there seems to be significant coverage generated by the author's death leaving the series unfinished, let alone the coverage of the series before this, so I'm sure this is something that readers will want to know more about). (Notified via WP:BOOK & WP:AFD/Alphabet Series.) ‑‑YodinT 13:11, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, the proposer appears to have forgotten about WP:CONTN ie. "Article content does not determine notability", most if not all of these books are separately notable and are thus entitled to individual standalone articles, i do agree with Yodin, that there should also be a separate series article, as it meets WP:LISTN. Coolabahapple (talk) 05:04, 13 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Coolabahapple: I've repeated myself like 8 times on this but since nobody seems to acknowledge it: I am not suggesting the books are not notable. I am not trying to delete the content. I entirely agree with CONTN. However there are many, many topics where in each article could qualify for an article on its own, but is also fine to cover in a larger article. I'll give one obvious example: bands, albums, and songs, or television shows, seasons, and individual episodes. It is perfectly common to move a bunch of short, small articles about individual songs into an album article, or multiple short album articles into the band's article. Same with short, all-plot articles about television episodes getting merged to a season article. If- if - somebody writes up a proper stand-alone article, great! The article can be restored and linked to from the book series / album / television season article. SnowFire (talk) 23:48, 13 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox formatting.[edit]

The following has been moved from CAWylie's (Wyliepedia) talk page. Feel free to chime in (regarding COD in her infobox):

Grafton infobox[edit]

Thanks for reverting my mistaken addition of Sue Grafton's mother to her infobox. I was not aware of that notability restriction. --Thnidu (talk) 16:02, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome. It's more of a guideline than restriction. Most infobox data is overlooked and/or accepted, but her article is still relevant, due to the incomplete alphabet series. — Wyliepedia 16:07, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The guideline for COD states that it "should only be included when the cause of death has significance for the subject's notability, e.g. James Dean, John F. Kennedy. It should not be filled in for unremarkable deaths such as those from old age or routine illness". This indicates that it should not be included in this case. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:08, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
But a family history of cancer isn't a "routine illness". — Wyliepedia 23:47, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Er... given the prevalence of cancer I would absolutely argue it qualifies as a routine illness, but nevertheless it certainly doesn't have significance for her notability. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:44, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see cancer as really "significant for the subject's notability" either. SnowFire (talk) 04:25, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Merger proposal[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The result of this discussion was merge under WP:SILENCE

I propose merging Kinsey Millhone into this article. Much of that article is in-universe fictography and the remainder is duplicated over here. Just Another Cringy Username (talk) 03:05, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Kinsey Millhone Wikipedia Page[edit]

I could have sworn I once saw a very informative Kinsey Millhone Wikipedia page. But any attempt to go there only returns to a section of Sue Grafton's page. It looks like the item immediately above this one discussed removing it and then did so. But that page had a lot more that doesn't appear to be covered elsewhere in Wikipedia, and I had been referring to it as I've made my way through the series. I found the link at Web Archive:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230530053940/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_Millhone

RSLitman (talk) 18:04, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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