We were eating lunch at a little restaurant in Lake Geneva, WI, about twenty-five years ago … I think it was The Next Door Pub. The placemats on the table showed sixteen pictures of American barns with a couple sentence description under each one. I…
I’ve read all the Dick Thornby spy thrillers. LOVE THEM. Pyrotechnics, bullets, chase scenes … my sort of story. AND there is always a well-conceived plot. So when I found out Don was having a blog tour for his books, I had to be part…
Steven Paul Leiva is a friend of mine, been reading his stuff since I was on a jury for the IAMTW and read The 12 Dogs of Christmas. Delightful style. I’ve probably read all his books. He’s got a blog tour starting tomorrow for Bully…
I gotta read every day. Can’t seem to help myself. I usually have two or three books going … one on my Kindle so I can read before I call it a night, one on my back porch … because it is important to read…
Nifty looking cover. Makes me want to give it a read! Flash Point by Luna Joya Gotta love a paranormal/supernatural/spooky/romancy/story. Right? Luna has me intrigued. And I get to post a cover reveal of this new book. About the Book:Banish the demon, stop the prophecy,…
It is my pleasure to host this stop on Courtney Maguire’s Blood Pact blog tour. Recently released, the book is a bit paranormal, a bit romancy, and all of it fun. Here’s the teaser: About the Book: In Hiro’s world, youkai are a supernatural story…
I met Yvonne Navarro in 2006 at the World Horror Convention in Chicago. I was there with my buddy Gene Wolfe, sat on a panel with him, and I had the pleasure of hanging out with Neil Gaiman … who was a buddy of Gene’s.…
Gene DeWeese was a marvelous man. Brilliant, funny, generous, a pleasure to work with, and one of the most-respected Star Trek novel authors. I was thankful to call him a good friend. I met Gene a long while ago when I organized a mass book…
I’d read Steven’s Creature Feature and found it delightful. Then I decided to listen to it. I don’t listen to many audiobooks, mainly because my husband does not like them. When I’m playing one, he asks me to instead turn on the radio, as he’d…
ATINA Basically a hippopotamus, the description in the source material said. Cool beans. I could wrap my imagination around that, a hippo-like species with extra eyes and overlong arms, intense, jovial, curious, adventurous, bent on exploration. Yeah, that was my species. I’d been invited to…
It’s an old expression, 23 skidoo. I remember my mom using it … though I had no idea what she meant by it. I heard it yesterday on a sports broadcast and still was clueless, but the announcer had mentioned running backs with it, so…
I lived in a dumpy apartment in a sketchy neighborhood after I graduated from college and moved to Quincy, Illinois. It was what I could afford on the starting salary of a news reporter. I didn’t know anyone when I moved to the town ……
THE MAKING OF A MEDIA TIE-IN WRITER (AS IF I EVER HAD ANY CHOICE) A guest-blog by Greg Cox on sale now How does one end up writing new stories about other people’s characters? Looking back, it seems as though I was always destined…
Keith DeCandido is one of the authors who contributed stories to Turning The Tied, the IAMTW’s charity anthology that releases in March. Keith R.A. DeCandido has written novels, short stories, and comic books in more than thirty different licensed universes over the past two-and-a-half decades,…
I was a guest speaker Saturday night at the Galena Library’s Lit Fest. It was a lovely online program. An annual event, it had previously been held live. I’d been invited because I won the Illinois Author Project Soon-to-be-Famous Award for my thriller, The Bone…
It’s an awesome feeling to have a book released. Giddy, excited, a dash of proud. Black Heart of the Dragon God comes out at midnight. Oooooh! I want to hold a copy in my fingers. It has a gorgeous cover … with a dragon on…
My Kenosha buddy Miya is a daring soul who often colors her hair in vibrant colors. They look good on her. Since the Covid lockdown, I’ve been doing that too, trying on different shades (courtesy of a sale on such hair products on Amazon). They…
I am a box of rocks sometimes … especially when it comes to technical things with web programs, macros, codes, and the like. More, I’m sometimes savvyless (yeah, it’s not a word, but it fits) when it comes to presentation. So I’ve been taking a…
I’ve always enjoyed jigsaw puzzles, giving me time to play with the pieces while I mentally plot whatever book I’m about to dive into. Lately, however, I find it fun to play with the puzzle pieces while I listen to a book. Never used to…
My buddy Steve Sullivan (Stephen D. Sullivan) has an AWESOME NEW BOOK OUT (Dr. Cushing’s Chamber of Horrors) and I read it and LOVED IT. And Amazon won’t let me post a review because they say I am biased and too-connected. Okay, they might be…
SPELLS FOR THE DEAD available July 28 … Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and more Nell Ingram faces a dark magic with no known origin in the newest pulse-pounding paranormal procedural in the New York Times bestselling Soulwood series. Nell is a rookie PsyLED agent, using…
I have all these ideas bouncing around in my head about ghosts and mysteries and murders and working a dog or two in a story and trying to figure out who the villains are and what to do to mess with the lives of the…
It is wholly wonderful to finish a novel and send it into production. Makes me feel good, awesome really. Makes me want to go outside and toss tennis balls to my dogs until it seems like my arm will fall off … and that’s just…
One of my favorite authors has a new book out: Salt & Stilettos, and I am blessed that she stopped by my blog today. Janet Walden-West is a marvelous writer. Crisp dialog, engaging characters, great plots. Reading one of her books keeps all the bad…
I entered a contest this past spring, the Soon To Be Famous Illinois Author Project. My buddy Don Bingle told me about it and encouraged me. AND … pretend you hear a drum roll … I won. Two categories for indie-published authors, Adult Fiction and…
Wrinkles Lord of the Lawn Chair Oct 20, 2006 – Sept 16, 2019 My feet are cold; there is no dog laying across them. He was always there, Wrinkles, from the first day he arrived at my house. Always at my feet, drooling on my…
I have an old dog with health issues, and I get up during the night to check on him. I have a puppy that’s not yet housebroken … a youngling that needs to go outside every couple of hours. I get up for her, too.…
One of the hosts for my The Dead of Summer blog tour emailed me five questions to answer. Then something happened and he couldn’t make the post. Well … I figure I might as well post it here. If you could give “Past You” one…
I probably could have written two chapters in the time it took me to finalize what I wanted on the back cover of The Dead of Summer. I devoured posts about creating sell copy, tips for what to include and what not to include, and…
Everyone wants to be a success, right? Succeeding is important. As a writer, I hope to produce a successful book (trying to finish the third Piper Blackwell adventure right now). In general, I want to succeed at life. But as a foster dog-mom, I am…
