Dirk Schmidt (writer)

Dirk Schmidt (born April 6, 1964 in Essen ) is a German writer. Schmidt works mainly as an author of detective radio plays, but also drew attention to himself as a screenwriter and novelist.

Life

Schmidt was born the son of a businessman and a hotel clerk and, after graduating from high school, studied history, German and theater, film and television studies at the Ruhr University in Bochum . While still a student, Schmidt began to write for radio, including for the WDR formats "Entertainment a la Carte" and "Encore". In 1993 the WDR produced its first radio play "Watson and the Riddle of the Pig's Paw", which was followed by other radio plays. In 2003 Schmidt's debut novel “Last Night in Queens” was published. Schmidt has been writing on behalf of WDR for the ARD series Radio-Tatort since 2011 .

Dirk Schmidt's work is difficult to assign to a particular style or school within the crime genre. In addition to classic subjects, there are, for example, excursions into the science fiction genre (“Into the heart of the night”), historical settings (“Montalbano's mistake”) or an attempt at a proto-thriller (“The fantastic nature of the hunter”). However, almost all of Schmidt's subjects revolve around phenomena of perception and communicative appropriation. The radio play “Nobody catches Johan Cruyff ”, which he produced himself, is his only non-crime material to date.

Works

Radio plays

• Watson and the Riddle of the Pig's Paw, directed by Joachim Sonderhoff , WDR 1993
• The blonde angel, directed by Burkhard Ax , WDR 1995
• Montalbano's mistake (co-author: Pierre Mattern ), director: Norbert Schaeffer , NDR 1996
• The night of twins, WDR 1998
• Into the Heart of the Night, WDR 2002
• No chance for Bach, WDR 2002
• Last Night in Queens (adaptation), WDR 2004
• The fantastic nature of the hunter, WDR 2005
• Nobody catches Johan Cruyff, WDR 2008
• Ambassador, WDR 2009
• Task Force Hamm, WDR 2010
• Not even murder, radio crime scene 50, WDR 2012
• Baginsky, Radio-Tatort 55, WDR 2012
• Kontermann, Radio-Tatort 60, WDR 2013
• Currykill, Radio-Tatort 67, WDR 2013
• Malina, Radio-Tatort 73, WDR 2014
• Calibra or the Scourge of God, Radio-Tatort 79, WDR 2014
• Exit, Radio-Tatort 84, WDR 2015
• Dead Link, Radio-Tatort 95, WDR 2016
• Old is cold, Radio-Tatort 101, WDR 2016
• Triggered, Radio-Tatort 107, WDR 2017
• Paradise City, Radio-Tatort 118, WDR 2018
• Ronsdorf, Radio-Tatort 124, WDR 2018
• Cascabel, Radio-Tatort 130, WDR 2019
• Germany has no more horses, Radio-Tatort 141, WDR 2020

prose

• Last night in Queens, Rowohlt 2003
• Schützenfest in Wickede, In: Mord am Hellweg 3, Grafit Verlag , Dortmund 2005
• Task Force Hamm, Roman, Grafit, Dortmund 2015. ISBN 978-3-89425-459-9

supporting documents

1. ^ Author profile Dirk Schmidt , Agentur Literatur, Berlin 2015