I’ve been on tour, and today I drove from Tucson to Phoenix, across a hundred-mile stretch of Arizona. I passed a lot of towns I’d never heard of, and it got me thinking: We all know

about the Arizona towns with butch names — Tombstone, Deadwood,

Red Rock, even Yuma. But we don’t hear much about towns with names like

Florence and Queen Creek. With nothing to do except drive, I asked

myself why, and below is the reason I came up…

I'm studying up on the history of mystery, and I've decided I need to go back and read some old stuff. Of course I knew Poe gets credit for the first mystery, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." But I need to read some of the other early guys like Dickens and Wilkie Collins.

Before the modern mystery began, the Chinese had a version of mystery fiction in which a judge or similar official is followed as he deals with the various crimes he must unravel in order to mete out punishment. It…

And late is the operative word here. As I recall I finished Tree Huggers in June of 2004. But it's going to be in print soon. My publisher (Zumaya Publications) is talking next month and I'm hoping for the best. But I know stuff happens. So I'm just saying soon. Very soon.

If you're interested, I've posted a chapter on my website judy5cents.com.

31 August 2007

The Coast Magazine supplement of The Virginian-Pilot Newspaper

"Outer Banks Books"

Review of Blue Heron Marsh by Douglas Quinn

by Mary Ellen Riddle

Likeable Fellow Featured in Series

He's not as honorable with women as mystery writer Robert Parker's Spenser. And he doesn't have the dry, drunk angst of James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux, but Douglas Quinn's Webb Sawyer is a memorable man in his own right.

Sawyer is the…

Posted by Sheila Connolly

Our weekend guest blogger Kate Flora pointed out a few realities that we as writers do our best to ignore.

I'm the newbie in this bunch of bloggers–the only one who has never seen a book of her own in print. It's something I'm looking forward to, and apparently I had better enjoy it, because that may be the high point of the whole writer's experience. After that it's going to be a long downhill slide, spending time and effort and money on…

Shep's tracks were seeping, causing his left forearm to stick to the sleeve of the Member's Only jacket that he just scored from the Catholic Charities clothing room.

Carefully, he rolled both sleeves up to his elbows, and checked the damage.

"Infected. Shit." He mumbled, as he made his way down Rush street, looking for a restroom to clean his wounds. He cursed himself for picking a "cool" jacket over a warm one. November nights in Chicago held nothing but bone chilling cold for…

Vampire as a private eye? Yeah, right. It works, though, in Charlie Huston's Already Dead which I completed last Friday. It's a bit too long and there's not enough plot for me, but Huston's style is quite good and moody at times and he also shows being capable of Ross Macdonaldish moments that seem quite essential when we talk about private eye fiction.

Just now reading Arthur Maling's From Thunder Bay (1981). Anyone? It seems pretty good, a bit Dortmunderish, but not as funny. Lots…

This past Saturday, Sept. 22, my friends Burt Hansen, Paul Clarin and Jim Linder, helped me move my 36-foot sailboat, Mustard Seed, to the boatyard on Stock Island. As the eagle flies, it’s about a five-mile trek; as the boat floats, it’s at least double that.



Burt and I have sailed for years. He and his wife, Nadja, have sailed all around the east coast delivering boats and he has worked at boat sales at various times in his life. He is a weathered sailor I always learn something…

I'm chatting at www.authorapprentices.com Monday September 24@ 8 p.m. EST

Hope to see you there.

I will have prizes!

cmr

That would be Nine Months before the Release of my book. I thought I’d share with you my efforts to market A Hotel in Paris prior to the release date.

My Web Gal is adding an events page to my website, since I have already…

For Writer, ‘Uncle Ike’ Hits a Nerve

Deborah Mandel

LYME…

HALLOWEEN PARTIES BUILD NEW ORLEANS LIBRARIES. You did it for Harry Potter, you can do it for PINCH & SCRIMP!

Bonjour, my Friends; it’s me, Lyn LeJeune, author of…