Second of the guest blogs I wrote for 49 Writers, No Moose in June. — The absolute best part of a writer’s life is the research. I’ve written two thrillers, Blindfold Game and Prepared for Rage. For both novels I went on patrol with the US Coast Guard, first on Alex Haley for 16 days…
Reprinted from last month’s guest blog on 49 Writers, No Moose. I was invited to write anything I wanted, about writing or not, so I did. I’ll be posting them here for the next four Fridays. — For years I tried to get an agent because “everybody” told me that the way the publishing game…
SPOILER ALERT. Do not read this if you haven’t seen Star Trek. I have seen it SPOILER and I’m going to SPOILER talk about what I saw SPOILER. So if you haven’t seen it yet and you don’t want to be SPOILED go away and come back when you have. And feel free to leave…
[fifth in the MIC blogs] I love reading series. It’s like dropping in on friends uninvited and being made welcome anyway. How much trouble is Falco’s dad going to get them all into this time? What’s up with Joe and Jim on the Rez? What the hell, Vic’s doing time? What’s that about? One of…
[fourth of MIC blogs] I once wrote that when you put four Alaskans in a room, you have five marriages, six divorces, and seven political parties. Just because I was making a joke doesn’t mean I wasn’t telling the truth, too. Alaska embraces contradiction as a way of life. For example. We pride ourselves on…
[third of the MIC blogs] —– My two first published novels were science fiction, Second Star and A Handful of Stars, about Star Svensdotter, an off-Earther building a habitat at Ellfive and a mining colony in the Asteroid Belt. I had a third novel planned for the series but I was exhausted from the research…
Second of the Minotaur Moments in Crime blogs, published a month ago. —– Excuse me, according to no less an authority than the bellhop at the Vintage Hotel in Portland, Oregon, whose acquaintance I made in the elevator during my first book tour, if you are published, you’re not a writer, you’re an author. Okay.…
Okay, we tackled sex (go here to read that post and the umpteen comments it generated). How about religion? I am in receipt of an essay written by a retired Episcopal priest from Kansas, giving me a polite thumping for the view of religion in Play With Fire, the fifth Kate Shugak novel. He writes,…
This is a painting of the Celtic, the 75-foot fish tender I lived on with my mom, off and on (on most summers, off some winters) for five years when I was a kid. Some of you will remember the short story I wrote about that time called “The Gift” (click on the link to…
Alert! Alert! Author sighting, author sighting!!! Yes, I fly out tonight to Kansas City, going to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come (also the place everything’s up to date in). This is for the Kansas City Literary Festival, an all-day orgy of readers, writers and books. There are five stages featuring culinary presentations, kids’…
