The following is very off topic, especially for me, but I offer it for two reasons. First, I have been very busy this week and really haven’t had time to write something on topic, especially since the Super Bowl took a big chunk out of my Sunday routine, and secondly, because this small essay was […]

Another MURDEROUS WEEK in PARADISE by Leigh Lundin I liked murder mysteries ever since I can remember. Until I started writing, I paid scant attention to real crime. My interest was cerebral, the puzzle, matching wits with Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and Lord Peter. While writing, I grew curious about the psychology of crime, perhaps […]

DUMB & DUMBER by John M. Floyd I’ve heard that three of the many things you should try to do as a fiction writer are (1) create interesting, believable characters; (2) inject humor whenever possible; and (3) write what you know. The hidden message here is that (2) and (3) can sometimes add up to […]

HATCHET JOB by Steven Steinbock Last week I wrote ad nauseum about unoriginal television series. The crazy thing is that I set out to write a column about words – and my spiel about television was meant to be an introduction. I got curious about Corned Beef. When you look at it, there are mustard […]

MYSTERIOUS EVENTS IN LIFE AND DEATH by Deborah Elliott-Upton This past week, three people in my family passed away: My father-in-law, who was perhaps one of the sweetest, most non-judgmental men I’ve known, my mother’s aunt (the last living relative older than Mom in her family tree), and my father’s uncle, who lived to be […]

WHEN THE THEATRE GOES DARK, IT’S NOIR by Rob Lopresti    At the bottom of this column you will find the answers to the last half of my movie quotes page from two weeks ago, but as long as we’re discussing flicks, I thought I’d discuss a couple of good noir-ish movies I saw recently. […]

NOTES TO MYSELF by Melodie Johnson Howe My husband does must of the grocery shopping. He hunts. I cook. This weekend he was playing tennis and asked if I could do it this time. Now I’ve been on a writing binge and haven’t been out of the house for a while so I’m experiencing MWD. […]