This article was originally written in 2014. I repeated it two years ago when the name Parkland joined Newtown, Las Vegas, and Columbine in fame. Now we are faced with a different sort of epidemic, but conspiracy theories still abound. The … Continue reading
My inestimable agent, Trodayne Northern, decided that what he really would like to have on the new Prentis Agency website he’s building is a series of love letters from his writers to their beloved genres. Here is my “how do I … Continue reading
February 11, mystery/adventure lovers, my debut mystery novel, THE ANTIQUITIES HUNTER (Pegasus Crime) releases in trade paperback. I await my author’s copies as I type. I know it’s hard to spring for a hardback novel. I admit I only do … Continue reading
I’m celebrating the February 11 release of the trade paperback edition of THE ANTIQUITIES HUNTER starring the inimitable Gina “Tinkerbell” Miyoko, private eye. In Book View Cafe’s online bookstore, the prequel novelette, “Tinkerbell on Walkabout” is on sale for $1.99 … Continue reading
Before I had quite finished writing the manuscript that became THE ANTIQUITIES HUNTER (Pegasus Crime, Oct. 2018), I penned detective Gina Miyoko’s genesis story, Tinkerbell on Walkabout, and posted it as a novelette here on Book View Cafe. Some of … Continue reading
I did something really cool a while back. I went to a seminar sponsored by Mystery Writers of America (MWA), an organization I joined after the publication of my first Gina Miyoko Mystery, THE ANTIQUITIES HUNTER (from Pegasus Crime). The seminar … Continue reading
The words we choose to use when we speak and write can bring people joy or sorrow, can make them angry or calm them down, can lead to understanding or conflict. They can excite, amuse, enthrall, and/or inform. A single … Continue reading
I’m fascinated by beginnings. That is, the first words that fall into a reader’s brain when she opens up a book. Not all stories have evocative openings. I was bemused to find that some of my favorite novelists do not, … Continue reading
In the first part of MacGuffin or Grail, I suggested a set of criteria for judging whether your particular plot device was one or the other. Having given my protagonists in THE ANTIQUITIES HUNTER a panoply of grails, my question … Continue reading
According to Webster’s dictionary, a MacGuffin (McGuffin or maguffin, as you prefer) is: ”an object, event, or character in a film or story that serves to set and keep the plot in motion despite usually lacking intrinsic importance.” (emphasis mine) … Continue reading
