Questions About Writing Stories
I received an email the other day from someone who wanted to interview me for a class project. I think he’s for real, but some of the requests I have been getting recently are questionable, so I thought I’d post my responses here to stake my claim. Feel free to respond to any of the questions. If the interviewer does, in fact, read my blog as he said he did, I’m sure he’ll be glad of the additional input. What, in your opinion, are the essential qualities of a good story? The most essential quality of a good story is the ability to take readers somewhere else and make them glad they went. It’s also

Sharing a Thanksgiving Day Card With You
I received this card from Joylene Nowell Butler, author of Dead Witness, and decided to share it with all of you. Click on the card to see the whole story. Don’t you wish your dinner was as easy to prepare? Thank you, Joylene! Tagged: Dead Witness, giving thanks, Joylene Nowell Butler, Thanksgiving Day card

Grateful to be an Author
It seems a bit paltry to have a single holiday to give thanks when I have so much for which to be grateful. I am grateful for my online friends and for my fans. (Odd to think I actually have fans!) I am grateful for the readers of my blog, who never fail to offer support and suggestions. I am especially grateful for my publisher, who understands my books better than I do. But I am most grateful for being the author of my novels rather than being a character in them. It’s an author’s responsibility to put her characters through as many traumas as possible. Rea

Three Chances to Win a copy of DAUGHTER AM I
You have three chances to win a copy of Daughter Am I.  Eric Beetner, author of One Too Many Blows to the head is sponsoring an ebook contest for the new releases from Second Wind Publishing. To win a Daughter Am I ebook, all you have to do it go to the Second Wind blog and answer the question: “have you ever learned something shocking about your past? Maybe not murder but what rocked your world once you found out?” I know you have learned something that rocked your world — for example, how did you feel when you found out where you (and all babies) came from? See, it’s not so hard! You can also answer another questio

Snow White and the Seven Old Fogies
Snow White and the Seven Old Fogies. Well, sort of. Mary Stuart, the twenty-five-year-old hero of Daughter Am I, learns that her grandparents have recently been murdered and that she is their sole heir. This comes as rather a shock because her father always claimed they had died before she was born. Wanting to find out who her grandparents were, why her father had disowned them and why someone wanted them dead, Mary sets out on a journey armed only with her grandfather’s address book. She travels from Colorado to Arizona to Kansas, Omaha, Illinois, searching out people her grandparen