Thanks for inviting me over, Debra, to help celebrate the release of Murder at the Lobstah Shack at the end of this month! I love little kids. I know you are a new grandma, Debra. I’m not one yet, although I’m eager to be. In the meantime, I’m close to my goddaughter’s little ones, a […]

In November, I think about my mother. She was a driving force in my life until her unexpected death in November 2014. There are still times when I want to pick up the phone and share good news with her or ask for her advice, but I can’t. What I can do is keep a […]

The below blog was a combination of an assignment given to me by my Hi-Lo writing coach (a Hi-Lo series is for struggling readers in K-12 grade levels meaning high-interest, low readability). I was tasked to write anything tongue-in-cheek with a tad of sarcasm while also keeping it real. I decided to combine this assignment […]

I’ve hit double-digits! October 4th will see the release of Stitch, Bake Die!, #10 in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, currently available for pre-order from all the usual suspects. Given that when I started writing {{cough! cough!}} years ago, I expected a career in the romance genre and did briefly have one, this is […]

WRITING RACE by Laurel S. Peterson First of all, thanks, Debra, for having me on It’s Not Always a Mystery. I’m delighted to be here and to share some thoughts today on writing race. My mystery novel series, Shadow Notes and The Fallen (Woodhall Press), features a white amateur detective protagonist, Clara, who falls in […]

When to End a Series by Kassandra Lamb For the second time in my writing career, I’m facing the decision of when to end a series. It’s a bittersweet experience. An author’s characters feel very much like real people to us. It’s always tough to decide just when and where to end things. The why, […]

Sometimes I wonder why I feel such a passion for the written word and yet, I don’t love poetry. I read poems and I often appreciate the beauty of the word choices, rhythm, and beat, but I don’t go out of my way to pick up poetry books like I do novels and short story […]

Looking for a crime? Grave-robbing by Charlotte Hunter For me, grave-robbing used to conjure thoughts of 18th-century resurrection men prowling moonlit cemeteries for fresh corpses to sell to medical schools. Then I began research for my current work-in-progress and, to my surprise, discovered grave robbery remains a thriving crime throughout the United States. Some of […]

Giving the Villain a First-Person POV by Linda Lovely If the villain in a novel is intelligent, resourceful, and relentless, the heroine needs the same attributes—in spades—to outwit her opponent. An evil versus good see-saw offers an excellent suspense-building tool. This is especially true if authors give readers a peek at what evil deeds the […]

Starting a Novel: One Writer’s Approach by Lynn Slaughter As both a writer and a voracious reader, I’m always fascinated learning about the writing process of different authors. There’s definitely no one size-fits all approach. So, my philosophy is to do whatever works! Here’s what tends to work for me. First off comes a glimmer […]