“When I’m not at my computer I’m reading almost constantly in my recliner with a gooseneck lamp angled over my shoulder. I’m a diligent underliner and I take notes in the margins almost constantly. This is as true with the books I read for research as it is for the fiction I savor and enjoy […]
Quotation from Anne Rice’s Final Interview Read More »
Just as Christmas lights seem to go up earlier every year, so does the appearance of annual best books lists. This year they started showing up even before Halloween. B&N Best of the Year: Crime Fiction Edition From Barnes & Noble, via Novel Suspects. Best Books 2021 This page is the portal into Publishers Weekly’s
Best Books Lists I Read More »
S.A. Cosby on the Conversation Around Policing in America—And Why It Needs to Change S.A. Cosby describes the event, when he was 16, that taught him “this man who had barely graduated from high school, who still came to football games and hit on the cheerleaders, who expected and received free coffee and donuts at
Top 10 Christmas crime stories This list is from last year, but I came across it too late to include it in any of my holiday posts back then. So let’s enjoy it this year. 10 December eBook Deals for Quiet Nights by the Fire December eBook deals from Simon & Schuster. 33 Best Christmas
What I Learned About My Writing By Seeing Only The Punctuation I’ve saved this piece until after NaNoWriMo so as not to distract you from the all-important task of writing. But once you’ve completed that draft of your novel, take a look at this article (which I find fascinating) and see if it can help
This month we start with the classic novella Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. 1. I never think of Edith Wharton without also thinking about her friend and correspondent Henry James. A prominent figure in Ethan Frome is a broken pickle dish that symbolizes the broken lives of the characters. Henry James also wrote a novel
6 Degrees of Separation: A Convoluted Journey Read More »
Related Posts: Quotation: Are You a Plotter or a Pantser? Quotation: Are You a Plotter or a Pantser (Again)? Quotation: On Outlining a Novel I thought I had finished this topic during NaNoWriMo (November), but I just found this quotation that provides a nice resolution to the question. When asked “Do you outline your novels?”
Quotation: On Outlining a Novel Read More »
Related Posts: Books You Can Read in One Day (from 2020) Books You Can Read in One Day or Less (2019) Books You Can Read in One Day or Less (2018) Books You Can Read in One Day (2016) I’ve already admitted to myself that I’m not going to make my quota for books read
Books You Can Read in One Day Read More »
World AIDS Day occurs every year on December 1st. This year marks 40 years since the first reported cases of what later became known as AIDS were officially reported: “more than 36 million people, including 700,000 in the United States, . . . have died from AIDS-related illness globally since the start of the epidemic.”
For this final day of NaNoWriMo, here are some words of wisdom from one of the most prolific and best known American authors. “if you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer. It means you are so busy keeping one eye on the commercial market, or
Ray Bradbury on Writing Read More »
