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...

ANIMAL SIDEKICKS AND PETS IN FICTION By Francine Paino AKA F. Della Notte “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a...

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,...

by Kathy Waller Today is Memorial Day, the last Monday in May, when we remember the men and women of the military to whom we cannot say,...

Francine Paino AKA F. Della Notte Almost every great detective has a great sidekick. Leading the pack, of course, is Sir Arthur Conan...

Tales of Matthew Shardlake, C. J. Sansom and Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall —by Renee Kimball BOOK HANGOVER Book hang-o-ver (hang-oh-ver)...

by Helen Currie Foster We read to learn, we read to be entertained. We begged at age three, “Tell me a story.” The stories began, “Once...

By N. M. Cedeño Previously, I wrote a post covering some of the basic rules for submitting short stories to anthologies, magazines, and...

I’m working on a mystery novel—I’ve been working on it for years, but now I’m working on it—and am faced with dilemmas too numerous to...

By Francine Paino AKA F. Della Notte Do we have one brain or two? Technically, we know we only have one, but then it’s divided right down...

“All things are poison and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes a thing not a poison.” Paracelsus, Swiss physician (1493 –1541)...

by Helen Currie Foster In the back of the closet I recently unearthed my mother’s old Caswell Massey “Gardenia” bubble bath. The...

By N. M. Cedeño Do you write in more than one genre? Do you blend genres or sub-genres? I do. Some sub-genres seem to lend themselves...

by Kathy Waller I was preparing an update to my January 25 post about resolving to read all forty-seven of Anthony Trollope’s novels in...

by Francine Paino Still a favorite and should never be forgotten. I was inspired to read The Ebony Swan, after reading Kay Hudson’s,...

by Renee Kimball “Almustafa, the chosen and the beloved, who was a dawn unto his own day, had waited twelve years in the city of...

Authors, how do you name your characters? Name Cloud by Wordcloud The average person only has to come up with names when they are naming...