SPOOKING ME by Melodie Johnson Howe Recently I took a private tour of the CIA (thanks to Gayle Lynds) with a group of fellow writers. Here are some of the ideas and observations I took away with me. The CIA is a vast complex. Think huge then keep quadrupling it in your mind. Thousands and […]

RETREATING INTO CREATIVE THOUGHT by Melodie Johnson Howe On this final day of one of the longest most frenetic campaigns for the presidency, I’ve retreated into thinking about creativity. I’m not very good at talking about creativity and I certainly don’t like to talk out my plots. I’m a little like the native who is […]

NEW FRIENDS & TRAVEL by Melodie Johnson Howe I took some much needed vacation time after Bouchercon and have just returned home. So I am late writing about my experience. NEW FRIENDS. It was great to meet my fellow bloggers for the first time. I think what was most interesting was that we are what […]

THE BIG DIALOGUE by Melodie Johnson Howe To call someone insular is a high-minded way of saying they are narrow-minded and therefore intellectually and creatively ignorant. According to the AP, not only did Horace Engdahl, a member of the Nobel Prize for Literature jury, call American writers insular but he also added that they, “… […]

REARVIEW by Melodie Johnson Howe While James has fortified himself with various high tech objects for Bouchercon, I am wondering what to wear. I know I’m a writer and I shouldn’t be bothered about such things; but even Lillian Hellman worried about what she should wear when “asked” to appear at the House On Un-American […]

ASHENDEN by Melodie Johnson Howe I was asked to write about W. Somerset Maugham’s book, Ashenden, or The British Agent. It is not a novel but a group of short stories connected by the character Ashenden. They gave me a fairly long deadline so I happily agreed. I ordered a paperback from Amazon. The book […]

LIPSTICK IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL by Melodie Johnson Howe My husband has trouble listening to singers who are off key. Which means he has a problem listening to most contemporary music. We attended a performance of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. When the string section and the brass section began to tune up my husband […]