Operation New Hope By Tina Whittle I’ve always been a sucker for a story with a happy ending. It’s one of the reasons I write mysteries – good triumphs over evil, and life returns to the sweetly normal. However, I didn’t expect to find such a powerful one in the Chatham County Detention Center. This […]
Killer Shorts by Maggie Toussaint I write long, even when I worked for the newspaper, and I was always having to consolidate and weed out material. There’s a part of me that wants to bring the whole town along on a story ride, and that’s why I shied away from short stories forever. Then I […]
Halloween Treats by Terry Odell Where I live, out in the boonies, Halloween is a low key night. Our houses are too far apart, the roads aren’t paved, no street lights, and it’s really hilly. Too much effort for too little reward. Instead, our community hosts a “Trunk or Treat” one afternoon before the big […]
Halloween Stories That Scare Nancy J. Cohen As Halloween approaches, we look for scary stories reminiscent of the holiday. Do you like tales with a supernatural touch? Which elements appeal to you—ghosts, demons, vampires, shape shifters, zombies, psychics, witches or ghouls? In my romances, I tend to have heroines with special powers. My two paranormal […]
Fortune Telling or Developing Imagination? By Karla Brandenburg One of my fellow authors here at Booklover’s Bench, Tina Whittle, is a mystery writer, sometimes editor, and semi-professional tarot reader living and working in the Low Country of southeast Georgia. In addition to her regular blog posts, she hosts a site called Tarot by Tina. The […]
Musing on Muses by Tina Whittle Like most mystery writers, I grew up marinating my brain in unsuitable material— Edgar Allan Poe, The Nightstalker, the lurid photographs in my mother’s nursing textbooks. I whetted my appetite for the edgy and unsavory in every medium that the library and late night movies would allow, but I […]
Alien Invasion By Maggie Toussaint aka Rigel Carson In my brand new book, G-2, which is book 2 of The Guardian of Earth Series, the main topic is alien invasion. These particular aliens say they come in peace and want to do business with us Earthlings. Countries all over the planet roll out the red carpet to […]
When Research is Too Much Fun Terry Odell Last time, I talked about throwing out the “Write What You Know” rule, and mentioned writing what you can learn. Sometimes, we authors get to have Too Much Fun doing just that. I recently attended a conference devoted to helping writers get it ‘right’ with all things […]
Book Releases—What’s the Right Interval? Nancy J. Cohen There’s a reason why publishers like book releases from authors to be months, if not years, apart. They need time to pass the manuscript from the developmental editor to the copy editor, from the page proof typesetter to the person who creates review copies. They need to […]
Writing a Series By Karla Brandenburg Many readers these days look for authors who can give them continuity in what they’re reading, a series. There are two approaches, continuing saga and recurring characters. In the continuing saga, like serial television, you generally want to start at the beginning and read in order. For recurring characters, […]
