Fashion in Fiction
Let’s talk about fictional characters and real fashion. I love this description from Orlando Whitfield’s, All That Glitters: A Story[…]
Read more
Category: Tips and Tricks
Merchandising: Sales Tool or Author Side Hustle?
Some Savvy Authors See it as Both I have to admit that despite creating a few mugs as giveaways for[…]
Read more
A Different Way of Pitching
On March 1, I’ll be moderating a panel at the Gotham Writers Genre Fiction Conference. Something that makes this conference[…]
Read more
Hemingway’s Tips for Writers
Happy 2025! As many of us start new writing projects, I came across these seven tips for writers from Ernest[…]
Read more
Self care for Writers
Let’s start with your skin. I apply a moisturizer that “helps shield blue light exposure” once or twice during a[…]
Read more
Writing the Culinary Mystery: Recipes for Death and Detection
With or without the addition of poisonous compounds, fabulous meals and delicious desserts have a long history in crime fiction.[…]
Read more
How Reading Across Genres Has Made Me a Better Writer
As writers, we are instructed to read widely within our genres. The advice is solid. We need to understand what[…]
Read more
Ripped From the Headlines –
TikTok’s Redacted Statements – that weren’t. In October (2024) I wrote about the exploding pagers and walkie talkies Israel got[…]
Read more
My Top Ten Tips for Self-Editing
Can an author do his or her own editing? The short answer is no.
Unless you can literally step out of your own head, you will never have the perspective necessary to see your work in its true light. Writers need editor because although we have many of the necessary skills, we don’t have the one irreplaceable skill—distance.
With that said, can an author revise his or her manuscript so that editing is a pleasant rather than traumatic experience? The good news is yes, we can. Here are my Top Ten Tips for preparing your manuscript for professional editing.
A Coroner’s Guide to Writing Autopsy Scenes: Dr. Christina VandePol
The banner shows a modern autopsy table. If your crime book contains an autopsy scene, you want to get it[…]
Read more