People often ask me where I get my ideas for my books. A lot of my ideas come from real life. Yes, I write murder mysteries, but that doesn’t mean that I have been involved with murders. Sometimes a building or a house will spark my imagination. One of those buildings is a stone mansion […]

Why is “Murder She Wrote” set in Cabot Cove, Maine? Probably first and foremost because the creators of the popular series wanted a charming backdrop that provided a plausible home for a retired teacher/mystery author turned amateur sleuth. And the small tight-knit community meant Jessica Fletcher had access to everyone and everything she needed to […]

“Relax,” said the librarian in the history department at the Los Angeles Public Library. “If you can’t find it, probably no one else can.” Probably. Hmmmmm. Probably doesn’t mean won’t, and knowing my luck, some self-important blowhard is going to find some uber obscure factoid that I missed in my latest historical mystery and work […]

How do you write science fiction or fantasy? Just like any other fiction, it takes two main ingredients, a story, and a setting. One usually pops into the writer’s head before the other, but both are required. Where science fiction and fantasy differ from mainstream fiction is the setting of the story. Which the author […]

Four million books entered the marketplace worldwide last year, and at least some of them entered their path to publication via a query letter, addressed to either a literary agent or a publisher.  A strong query letter can push your manuscript farther up in the slush pile. Considering that agents receive thousands of queries each […]

In 2018, I wrote my first mystery novel, MURDER IN THE ONE PERCENT. In the months after the book launched, I took it on a whirlwind tour of ten U.S. cities, where I met with people at bookstores, libraries, museums, and private homes. One of those cities was Chicago, where I had lived for several […]

Years ago, I attended a presentation on young adult fiction at a writer’s conference in which the speaker exhorted us to “get parents out of the way” and relegate them to the periphery of our stories. In my opinion, her advice was both on the mark and totally off. Yes, in YA fiction, our teen […]

Not long ago, a friend asked whether I had a favorite time of day and location to write. My response was that, to me, writing is much more about inspiration and mood than time or place.  I have written at my desk, at the dining room table, on an airplane, and in hotel rooms, among […]

This month marks the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and Level Best Books is publishing Hot Shots: Celebrating Thirty Years of the Short Mystery Fiction Society to mark the occasion. I had the honor of editing the anthology, and I’m grateful to Debra H. Goldstein for inviting me to […]

I love reading historical mysteries-Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody, Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins, Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs, Susan Elia MacNeal’s Maggie Hope, Rhys Bowen’s Georgiana Rannoch, Sujata Massey’s Perveen Mistry, and anything by Mariah Fredericks or Karen Odden. Inspired by my love of historicals, I’ve written two historical mystery series, The Fiona Figg Mysteries set in […]