One of the reasons I love Crimespot is that I can quickly scan and see if there's a topic of interest that's being discussed that I want to read about - instead of taking the time to actually go around to a bunch of different sites, waiting for them to be updated.

One of the shortcomings of aggregators, however, is that they don't filter content. You still have to scan it to see what all the posts are about, and sometimes the short teaser doesn't give the complete…

This is an important message for writers waiting for a response to submissions sent to Spinetingler.

In the spring there were some web issues, and ultimately Spinetingler's hosting was moved to a new service. During the transitional period, e-mails were set to forward to the new e-mail accounts, as they currently do.

However, some of the initial e-mails forwarded were stripped of the original sender information. All attempts to recover those addresses have failed,…

I'm hosting a cyber-party today, celebrating the launch of three new books. Drop by for virtual champagne and real music at my regular blog and check out the quick Q&As I did with special guests Tom Piccirilli and Barbara Fister.

There are times in your life that things are so bad all the cliches actually start making sense. Spinning out of control. Don't know which end is up. Emotional roller coaster.

And when you're there, the only thing you seem to know with certainty is just how messed up everything is.

Right now, I'm displaced. Sort of homeless, and I feel overwhelmed by the awareness that I don't have an anchor. I'm sitting here, listening to…

In the wake of the Daily Telegraph list of must-read crime/thriller authors, The Rap Sheet decided to create their own. I was looking at the discussion about it and came back to the same question I've pondered…

I got my first big review in for WHAT BURNS WITHIN, from Publishers Weekly:

What Burns Within Sandra Ruttan... Three Vancouver constables—son-of-a-sergeant Craig Nolan, bombshell in the boys’ club Ashlyn Hart, and stolidly antisocial cop Tain—are drawn together as the rapes, arsons and child abductions they’re working on respectively converge. The three, who have a beef over a prior case gone bad, must get over their personal differences and chase scant leads before another…

First: What do Kurt Vonnegut, Naomi Novik, Michael Chabon, John Scalzi, Neil Gaimon, Joe Hill and Terry Pratchett all have in common?

Along with many other authors, they’re all contenders in the Fantasy Bookspot 2007 tournaments. There are two tournaments, an all-time (classic) tournament and a 2007…

Last night, I dreamed of Germany.

It wasn’t the Germany of 1989 and 1990, when I spent time living there. In this dream, I had returned to Berlin, to Checkpoint Charlie, and it was all but gone. I was trying to glance back at what would have been that untouched white wall that ran the length of the East German side. I had been there when the wall had come down, had seen people carving up the West German side.

Now, there are no sides. Not the way there was…

Maria and Lawrence have been expressing different opinions about Robert Crais’ THE WATCHMAN and part of their exchange has centered on the issue of believability and suspension of disbelief.

Quoting Maria: I didn't have trouble with the suspension of disbelief because none of it is supposed to be terribly believable. For me, it was no different than a space story--lots of guns, lots of fighting and…

Intellectual property theft isn’t just an author issue: Today I learned a site is abusing individuals by posting their comments without permission.

I’ve been grappling with my feelings about this all day, and will come full circle. The question of how we use the internet, and how seriously we take what’s posted on it, was raised in my mind recently. The trigger was a discussion on Crimespace, in which an ITW press release was posted…