by K.P. Gresham Writers (or at least me) despise (rightly so) the idea of formulaic writing. I am creative! I have my own ideas! Ain’t...

Written by Renee Kimball “From the start . . . I felt that the best fiction was both propulsive and assaultive. It gets in your face....

By Helen Currie Foster Last week Big D hosted the Bouchercon book conference. Two sessions made me wonder why we’re drawn to particular...

No matter what they tell you, Texas isn’t all cowboys and cactus and bullets and brush. Texas Book Festival  opens on the grounds of the...

by Helen Currie Foster An author can get great mileage by giving the point of view to a Watson sort of character. The Watson can be...

By K.P. Gresham I existed in a happy, but small little world of people who get together to figure out how best to kill other people....

by Helen Currie Foster Even just thinking of certain smells can yank me straight back to childhood. Oil paint­­s? Mama working on her...

by Helen Currie Foster Fred Vargas by Marcello Casal/ABr, licensed under CC BY-3.0 BR. Via Wikipedia Her sheer imagination, her complex...

By K.P. Gresham Sara Paretsky created quite a stir in the mystery writing community with her recent letter to the editor. (New York Times...

It happened again. An author killed off a character I love. I hate that. I hate the author. I continue to like the book, but the author I...

by Fran Paino The Battle of the Bulge, (December 16, 1944–January 16, 1945), was the last significant German effort to split the allies...

It is also a mournful story, and not one that you can simply close the cover and walk away from, it follows you.  It seeks answers to...

My heart speeds up on news that Donna Leon’s got a new police procedural, because I love her Guido Brunetti. Not in a romantic way, of...

by K.P. Gresham “After all, tomorrow is another day.” Recognize that book quote? They’re the five favorite words of Scarlet O’Hara in...

by M. K. Waller The other Ashby children—Simon’s sisters, nineteen-year-old Eleanor and nine-year-old twins Jane and Ruth—look forward to...

by Francine Paino I’d forgotten how much I’d enjoyed her stories, years ago, and I hadn’t read all of her works, which added up to an...

by Helen Currie Foster In her 2001 collection Rereadings, Anne Fadiman challenged writers to revisit books they read before they were...

by K. P. Gresham Hey! Hey! Holy Mackerel! The Cubs are on the field! Baseball’s back, and I’m celebrating with a return to one of my...

by Renee Kimball “Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves…” ― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the...

Helen Currie Foster Posted by Helen Currie Foster —from news, winter, deadlines, calamities. Two books did the trick for me this...