Things That Confound Me by Maggie Toussaint While my Dreamwalker Mystery sleuth Baxley Powell isn’t easily confounded, I certainly am. For instance, I don’t know how the same sweet young woman got tricked into recording pitches for so many credit card companies and vacation getaway places. She’s been Emily, Elizabeth, and a few other names. […]
What Do Authors Read? by Terry Odell I’m dipping into our reader questions again this month. One reader says: “I love when authors read books. I’d like to know what genres an author reads. If they have a favorite, or least favorite book. If they have never not finished a book and why.” Speaking for […]
Autumn—Beginnings and Endings by James M. Jackson In the circle of life, endings and beginnings often overlap. Which aspect we focus on depends on our perspective at the moment. Although the calendar marks the end of summer and beginning of autumn in the third week of September, for me that demarcation occurs at the beginning […]
Character Quirks by Nancy J. Cohen I greatly admire authors who can make each character distinctive through a unique quirk of personality. As I recently watched an episode of The Brokenwood Mysteries (see the Acorn Channel on TV), I admired the writers’ ability. The background setting for this story took our detective team to an […]
Happily Ever After by Karla Brandenburg My son just got married! As the mother of the groom, I have the easy job this time around, and his wife is a charming, lovely woman. I couldn’t be happier for the both of them as I wish them their happily ever after. To get into the proper […]
Breaking Bread by Tina Whittle In addition to the usual holidays celebrated in the US, my family and I celebrate the Wheel of the Year. This calendar combines ancient feasts and holy days from the Anglo-Saxons and other Indo-European cultures and follows the agricultural cycle from the first plantings in the spring, through the various […]
Summertime and the Reading Is Easy by Maggie Toussaint When I was growing up, my favorite place to read was in the hammock on the porch. I loved the way the hammock wrapped around me, cocooning me into the story world. I explored so many wonderful authors and learned the virtue of being an armchair […]
Where do Ideas Grow? by Terry Odell Based on my post last April, when I asked readers what they’d like to ask authors, the most common question was “Where do you get your ideas?” I don’t know about any other authors, but I just go out to my yard and pick one off my idea […]
The Right Tool for the Job by James M. Jackson Growing up, I learned everything my father could teach me about repairs, which is to say almost nothing. Dad was a classical absent-minded professor, much more interested in ideas than in fixing stuff. Because I had a habit of breaking windows (boys will be boys), […]
Plot Ideas by Nancy J. Cohen “Where do you find new plot ideas for series books?” is one of the responses we received from our Booklovers’ Bench reader poll. For me, this has never been a problem. One book seems to segue into the next as though my characters’ lives are naturally evolving. For example, […]
