By N. M. Cedeño We’ll start with assessments: I started 2022 with the goal of getting short stories published. In aid of that goal, I set...

Texas mystery author Terry Shames’ latest book, Murder at the Jubilee Rally, has been reviewed on ABC News. To use a folksy phrase—Folks,...

By N.M. Cedeño People like to ask writers, do you ever use details from your life in your writing? Answer: Sometimes. It depends on what...

By N.M. Cedeño How long does it take to hear back from editors with acceptances or rejections of short stories? That depends on a number...

by N. M. Cedeño Many writers find motivation in challenging themselves in various ways. Some attempt to write a novel length manuscript...

by Kathy Waller I wrote the following for my personal blog to answer a “challenge.” I intended to post it at the end of September...

Anyone who lives in Texas knows that Hollywood’s version of Texas and the actual Texas are very different places. Mostly, we Texans roll...

by Kathy Waller I said to my critique partner this morning, The whole project is stinky it stinks it’s fatally flawed just nothing no...

So what if I wasn’t born in the 1960s? I can do research! In 2020, I came across a call for submissions for mystery short stories to be...

By K.P. Gresham First off, the best job I ever had (short of writing mysteries) was teaching. And yes, I taught Middle Schoolers, which...

by N. M. Cedeño For writers, setting and meeting goals can be done in a variety of ways. Some people count words produced in a given...

by Kathy Waller The summer  I was six, my cousin of the same age was visiting our spinster great-aunt and bachelor uncle who lived up the...

By N.M. Cedeño A number of the stories sitting in files on my computer were written years ago, some over ten years ago, and have never...

by Helen Currie Foster Driving into New Mexico with my husband (favorite long-time travel companion) I peer anxiously out the car...

by N. M. Cedeño Nothing makes a writer feel more like a know-nothing novice than a marked-up manuscript from an editor. Whenever I get a...

by Kathy Waller I’m thinking it over. Jack Benny A curse on this week’s post. I banged out nearly 2,000 words that should have been...

by Renee Kimball It has been a year of extremes—Covid, freezing weather, and higher than average temperatures forecast for the summer...

by Helen Currie Foster Okay—Mom Genes is such a great title, it couldn’t not be used. But Abigail Tucker’s new book of that title doesn’t...

by N.M. Cedeño Setting a story in the past requires the author to do research to make sure the details of the story are correct. For me,...

by K .P. Gresham I suspect most of us have our secrets about how we survived the Pandemic of ’20-’21. Video games, binge-watching movies,...