The Castañeda Hotel in Las Vegas, New Mexico, another still-standing Harvey House hotel and restaurant, almost fully restored thanks to the efforts of Allan Affeldt. Two interior shots of the Castañeda. There were even Harvey Girl dolls. The one at left is dressed in the uniform of one of the Harvey Girl Couriers, who guided…
Excerpted from a handout given me by an Anchorage librarian a while back, entitled “Why Books are Better than Drugs.” No one ever had to check into the Betty Ford Clinic for reading too much. Nobody ever read too many books and then jumped off a building, walked through a plate-glass window, or mooned a…
Just ’cause. (Well, okay, it might have a little something to do with this.) Launching from the Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale on Saturday, February 28, at 4pm. See you there!
from the New York Times (gift link): For example: and: and Read all the recs here. Worth it. Oh, and you wanted to know what I learned this year? Okay: That most of the men of the Old West were drunk most of the time, which explains all the gunfights. There was more truth in…
Which means of course that the Poisoned Pen will have all four Eye of Isis novels on hand when I launch The Harvey Girl from there on February 28th. Heh. Click through below to order. And of course…
A shaggy dog story. An example of great storytelling. Listen for the rhythm, the steadily increasing peaks, perfectly paced punchlines with namedrops that increase in importance, and then the biggest punchline and the biggest laugh at the end, so well earned. Something for all storytellers to learn here.
All writing is difficult. The most you can hope for is a day when it goes reasonably easily. Plumbers don’t get plumber’s block, and doctors don’t get doctor’s block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working, and then expects sympathy for it? –Philip Pullman Hear,…
[February 3, 2007, reporting from Left Coast Crime, Seattle.] The panel was called “Like Watching the Grass Grow,” and we panelists were supposed to brainstorm a whole book right before your very eyes. I was the moderator and I had a kitchen timer and I knew how to use it. I gave the audience five…
Being a sometime dive down the rabbit hole of the craft and business of writing. According to Betty Smith in Joy in the Morning, dialogue in literature serves three functions. It should and Good dialogue has two of these elements, she says. Great dialogue has all three. I’m happy if my dialogue hits any two…
