IN THE NICK OF TIME by Deborah Elliott-Upton One of America’s last traditional dime novels produced one of the country’s best-loved amateur sleuth turned private investigator. On September 18, 1886 in Street and Smith’s New York Weekly, the adventures of 19th century detective, Nick Carter, made his first appearance. A dedicated master of disguise, the […]

I, THE JUROR by Deborah Elliott-Upton For the third time in as many years, I received a jury summons notice in the mail. While everyone understands that serving on a jury, allowing our fellow Americans the opportunity to a fair trial and to be judged by a jury of their peers, sounds good on paper, […]

PEOPLE OF THE NIGHT by Deborah Elliott-Upton Sometimes late at night, I drive to an open all-night diner. Alone, I sit in a booth with a novel and drink coffee. I sip the coffee slowly. I don’t really need the caffeine after midnight any more than I need to read a book in a restaurant. […]

WRITE THE BEST YOU CAN by Deborah Elliott-Upton “For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.” — Ernest Hemingway I’m reading a manuscript for a young woman who is writing her first novel. She’s writing it in […]

THEIR WORDS COUNTED by Deborah Elliott-Upton The past two weeks I’ve been mostly traveling the highways. As much as I love seeing new places and meeting new people (and I really do), I’m a bit frazzled and writing this column on Wednesday, the 25th of June, designated as National Columnist Day. The notation on my […]

TWISTS AND TURNS by Deborah Elliott-Upton Last weekend, I traveled the open road. As expected along the way we witnessed road kill in the form of a snake and a coyote. They didn’t make it across the highway, but just as we passed him, a turtle did. I was surprised how many RV’s shared the […]

THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGING by Deborah Elliott-Upton The cable guy comes to my house today. We’re moving everything over to cable: the TV service, the phone and most importantly to me, the Internet service. I’ve been without Internet for a couple of weeks now and it’s been harder than I imagined. Not having […]