Ann Rule
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| Ann Rule | |
|---|---|
| Born | October 22, 1935 Lowell, Michigan, United States |
| Subjects | True crime |
| Official website | |
Ann Rule (born October 22, 1935, in Lowell, Michigan) is an American true crime writer.[1]
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[edit] Career
Rule got her start writing for the magazine True Detective under the presumably male nom de plume Andy Stack. When she started writing for the magazine in 1969, the editor suggested she write under a male name in order to be taken seriously as a crime writer despite having a short stint as a police officer herself (with the Seattle Police Department). After proving her ability in several magazines, including Master Detective, Inside Detective, Front Page Detective, and Office Detective she was invited to start writing under her own name, but decided to keep the pen name at that time in the interest of protection for herself and her family from her subjects.
She came to prominence with her first book, The Stranger Beside Me, about serial killer Ted Bundy. At the time she started researching the book, the murders were still unsolved. In the course of time, it became clear that the killer was Bundy, her friend and previous colleague on the suicide hotline at the King County Crisis Clinic. She has also met and interviewed a number of other serial killers in the course of researching her books.
She wrote The Stranger Beside Me under her own name. However, her next three books (The Lust Killer, Jerry Brudos; The Want-Ad Killer, Harvey Carignan; and The I-5 Killer, Randall Woodfield) were written as Andy Stack at her agent's advice since she had been offered very little advance for them. Once she had established popularity under her own name, later editions of the book listed her as the author and sold much better.
Rule, who lives in Renton, Washington, has been writing full-time since 1969 and has published over 20 books and 1400 articles, and also teaches seminars to law enforcement groups. She was also part of the task force that created Vi-CAP, a computer tracking system designed to identify serial killers. Although some of her cases have been high-profile, she says she prefers the "sleeper" cases, not wanting the reader to know the ending before picking up the book. She also tries to keep in touch with the families of the victims, and sometimes will add an update to a later edition of a book to include new information.
[edit] Full bibliography
[edit] References
- ^ "Biography: Ann Rule, A Taste For Crime Investigation". CBS News. 2001. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/20/48hours/murder/main302562.shtml. Retrieved on 2008-03-05.
[edit] External links
- Ann Rule's Official Blog
- Ann Rule's Official Home Page
- Fantastic Fiction's Ann Rule Bibliography
- Book Page interview with Ann Rule
