From Writing Book Reviews to Reading Reviews of My Book Hi, everyone, and thank you, Laura, for inviting me to your blog. First, I want to state right away that Laura and I write in entirely different genres. She (as I’m sure you know) writes creepy horror stories, and my story, THE SEVENFOLD SPELL, is …Read More

The link to this video has been passed to and fro among my writer/publisher/agent Twitter friends for the past few days. It totally cracked me up, but I wasn’t sure I would post it on the blog–at first. It’s very important to me that newbie writers feel supported in their efforts. Every writer starts somewhere, …Read More

While I could regale you with the yummy lit details of the Icelandic mystery novel I’m reading, or tempt you with illicit morsels of killer poetry from a certain wicked blogger chick, or even whine about the fascist foolishness of the TSA, I’ve decided to ply you with chocolate, instead. If you make this shamelessly …Read More

A couple months back at our super-fun Noir at the Bar appearance in St. Louis, P and I made a new writer friend, the inimitable J. Travis Grundon. Not content just to write books, Grundon has begun selling them, as well. When I heard that he and partner B.C. Brown were just about to open …Read More

I taught myself how to make bread years ago because I wanted to be able to do one thing well.  I started with books, as I do with most anything I want to learn to do. Julia Child’s The Way to Cook was my bible. She uses lots of photos and step-by-step instructions for every …Read More

I’ve been listening to Elizabeth George’s novel, This Body of Death. Since my attention issues have come to light in the past two years, I’ve found I get much more out of a novel when I hear it being read, rather than following the words on a page. The first (adult) audio novel I listened …Read More

One of the many fun things that came out of my Wardrobe by Sam project–besides many recent shopping trips to replace all those cut-rate fall & winter clothes–was an invitation to submit a piece of fiction to a new crime anthology, Discount Noir. During all the days and hours that I spent in Wal-Mart and …Read More