I don't know how much the average person hears about learning styles, but teachers hear about them a lot. Brain research is fascinating but still pretty new and unsure of itself. One of the things researchers know is that we each have ways to learn that are unique to us. I thought it might help to list them.

Verbal-linguistic learners are teachers' dream students. They learn well just by listening; they tend to speak and write well themselves. That means classroom learning is…

My First Review ... EVER

I've never gotten a professional review of my work, so as you might imagine, I was sweating it—especially Publisher’s Weekly. But I received my PW review this weekend and I couldn’t be more thrilled to be compared to the likes of some of my favorite authors—Lisa Jackson, Lisa Gardner and Tami Hoag. I couldn’t wait to share the good news.

Publishers Weekly, 12/10/2007

No One Heard Her…

Season's greetings, friends:

For those of you who missed my Guest Blogger discussion as a literary criminologist and mystery writer last Friday in Dishing With the Divas, it is not too late to check out.

The link is:…

Of 335 suspected or confirmed acts of terrorism in the United States, almost all were the work of either white supremacists or anti-abortion activists.…

When my small press publisher decided to cut his costs for warehousing by pulling my third book out of circulation, I acquired a supply of them to go along with a limited horde of the first two books, which were out of print for all practical purposes. I got an Amazon Advantage account and arranged to keep them on Amazon, and I put a three-book sale page on my website. Hoping to scare up some action, I created a video that I put on YouTube at…

Sometimes the tale knits itself, flowing from beginning into middle, then onward to 'the end', seemingly without effort. Sometimes, though, a beloved plot requires manipulation, either major or minor improvement -- tweaking, so to speak.

Always, though, the story springs from the mind with a life of its own, leading the author through its maze, at times soaring and at times creeping into being, but always moving forward, ever onward.

Such is the joy of the story.

Happy…

There's only one magazine in Finland that concentrates on crime fiction, Ruumiin kulttuuri / Body Culture. I contribute to the mag quite regularly and have for example interviewed people like Michael Connelly, Vicki Hendricks and Jason Starr and written articles on David Goodis, Hank Janson, the female noir fiction of the fourties and fifties (Margaret Millar, Dorothy Hughes, etc.) and James Hadley Chase. I've always tried to avoid a fanboy attitude and concentrated on the content of these…

December 2007

Happy Holidays to You and Yours,

We’ve come to the end of another good year and we hope that this note finds you in good…

As a wife, the homeschooling mother of three young sons, and an active member of a small church, holiday days were one of my breaks from a very busy life. And an opportunity for me to read undisturbed!

This particular Boxing Day, I was sitting in the family room of our Mississauga home, reading a mystery novel I’d picked up at the library. My husband was also in the room, reading the

newspaper. Our three sons, ages three to seven, were in…

I'm on a binge of discovering new authors. Never read any Huston before. I didn't realize what I was missing. Good stuff! Love a fresh take on a classic crime plot.

posted by Leann Sweeney

I am back after my adventure in the Pacific Northwest where I met my new granddaughter, Maddison Grace. I didn't write, I didn't do much of anything except hold that precious baby for three weeks--well I did cook and do dishes, which my son and daughter-in-law desperately needed someone to do! But what a wonderful…

In teaching communication for thirty years, I've learned something about the process. For some, communication is terrifying; my college roommate lived in fear that someone in a group would address her and she'd have to answer with everyone looking at her. I, on the other hand, love to talk and had to learn as I matured that less is better where conversation is concerned.

Writers today must speak as well as write. In order to continue to be published, one not only has to come up with…

It's an old quote from Shakespeare: "Brevity is the soul of wit". Communication in today's world, which is nonstop unless you're fast asleep, requires capturing the listener's attention and then communicating quickly. Most people aren't used to listening for more than a few minutes at a time.

I won't argue whether that's good or bad, but when we hear of sermons that used to last three hours and piano concerts that started with nine mazurkas as an introduction, we understand the…