CHECKLIST by John M. Floyd It’s probably safe to say that you, as a reader of this blog, enjoy reading short stories. But let’s say you also want to write short stories. (Maybe you’re a beginning writer, or even an established author of poetry or nonfiction or longer fiction and want to try something different.) […]

SENTENCED TO DEATH by Steve Steinbock Last week I posed a question about physical description in fiction. What is the right amount when describing a character’s appearance? A lot of people weighed in on the question. The general consensus was that physical description is good, but the best descriptions are the subtle and economical ones. […]

DUMB AND DUMBER by Deborah Elliott-Upton You know something out of the ordinary is going on when several squad cars and a couple of state trooper vehicles block the entrances of a Walmart super center with their lights flashing. It isn’t just a shoplifter being apprehended and for some of us, whether we’re writers or […]

BE SEEING YOU By Rob Lopresti I feel like Mr. Morbid here, writing an obit for the second time in a month, but I can’t let Patrick McGoohan pass uncommemorated. (And as I write this, John Mortimer has just died … what a month.) Back in the early sixties when spy shows were popping up […]

RANDOM THOUGHTS by Melodie Johnson Howe Good News. From the author Ann Patchett writing for The Wall Street Journal: I’ve just come in from a meeting of the Nashville Public Library Foundation Board. And after sitting through the dismal report on the state of our endowment, the conversation turned to more positive news: the use […]

LIFE SENTENCE by James Lincoln Warren Some months ago I wote a column about logic, one of the components of the classical educational curriculum called the Trivium. The other two components were grammar and rehetoric. I promised I’d get back to the other two at a later date, and now I’m fulfilling one half of […]

NO PUN IN TEN DID by Leigh Lundin We at Criminal Brief like words and word play. In the past couple of weeks, these showed up in my mailbox: Criminal lie ability determines a detective’s worth. A dyslexic man walked into a bra. A peanut walks into a bar and was a salted. A toothless […]