OH SNAP! by Steven Steinbock Continuing on last week’s column about words, as well as Rob’s slinky column from Wednesday, I have a few more words about words to share with you. The first one defies logic. My thirteen year-old has been using it relentlessly and I only recently learned that its usage goes beyond […]

WALKING THE WALK by Deborah Elliott-Upton If you ever want to see a writer who not only talks the talk, but walks the walk, make sure you meet Deborah LeBlanc. A few years ago, I ran into her at a writer’s conference. She laughingly referred to me as the Energizer bunny that weekend, but that […]

THINK SLINK by Rob Lopresti Not long after the Oscars Awards I heard someone refer to a woman’s outfit as slinky. That got me thinking about that word: what exactly does it mean, anyway? I went to my favorite source for such information: the Oxford English Dictionary, where the word is listed as a proper […]

To celebrate my latest sale to AHMM, a ghost story/mystery called “Ten Thousand Cold Nights”, this week and next I present my favorite ghost story of all time. Naturally, it involves a despicable crime. Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936) was a renowned classical scholar who served as Provost (i.e., Master) of King’s College, Oxford, and Eton, […]

WATCHING THE DETECTIVES by James Lincoln Warren The other day, I went looking to see if the classic TV detective show 77 Sunset Strip, starring Ephrem Zimbalist, Jr., and Roger Smith, were available on DVD. This was the first private eye show I remember ever watching when I was a little kid. I didn’t get […]

100 BEGINNINGS by Leigh Lundin Sharon (a friend, teacher, editor, writer) sent me a link to an article denoting the one hundred best opening lines in (mostly) English literature, as chosen by the editors of American Book Review. Rather than point you to the list or repeat the list and knock off early for the […]

A GOOD STORY AND OTHER STORIES by John M. Floyd The title of my column today is actually the title of a collection of short stories by Donald Westlake. But it should probably have been called “A Good Story and Other Good Stories.” All of his were. I recently saw a DVD interview with Mr. […]