Just when I think I can’t come up with another blog topic, something so egregious happens that all I’m reduced to is the typical Roy Kent response to insupportable and crazy bullshit, which amounts to standing in the middle of the floor and yelling F*ck. As I’m sure anyone who follows the news at even a high level knows, OJ Simpson, once the darling of the football field and the Hertz rental car commercials, died recently. What irritates me deeply is how little attention was paid in the encomiums and eulogies to the fact that he murdered his wife and another young man. He was acquitted, yes, b ..read more

  Sandra Neily here: On Earth Day, do we have enough residual hope to celebrate success, even as the future often looks really tough? I made sure Sally and I had the same hats! Today, we hear from my good friend, Sally Stockwell, Maine Audubon’s Director of Conservation. In the midst of the pandemic (2020) she sent out this inspirational Earth Day message about progress and humans pulling together. After decades defending Maine’s wildlife and habitat, Sally should know. She was there on Earth Day #1 and, since then, every day has been an Earth Day for her. (Find links to all her great ..read more

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Sandra Neily (Monday), Dick Cass (Tuesday), Matt Cost (Thursday) and Charlene D’Avanzo (Friday). In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers: Velma Gone Awry, Matt Cost’s 1923 historical PI mystery set in Brooklyn, is a finalist in the Chanticleer Mystery & Mayhem awards. The winner will be announced tonight, Saturday, April 20th, at the banquet ceremonies in Bellingham, Washington. COST TALKS continue this week, first at the Canaan Public Library in Canaan on Wednesday, t ..read more

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, today admitting to my fondness for movie musicals—everything from Singin’ in the Rain to Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again. Not too long ago, in the course of about a month, I ended up watching three different versions of Gypsy, one starring Rosalind Russell, one with Bette Midler, and the third, to my surprise, starring British actress Imelda Staunton (perhaps best know for her role as Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter movies). But here’s the really odd thing: when an earworm inevitably surfaced—”Everything’s Coming up Roses”—it wasn’t any of those actres ..read more

Kate Flora: One of the most interest aspects of crime writing is, of course, all the Sometimes research takes me in some strange directions, like to the shooting range. research we do. True, it is easy to put off the writing while we do one more bit of research. It is also possible to get very lost in the weeds, as one question will lead to another and then another, until the block of writing time has passed. There’s always tomorrow, though. And there’s always recognizing the necessity to apply that annoying little word I like so much: DISCIPLINE. (You have all heard my snarky comment about ..read more

When my husband and I were first married, we taught and lived in a boarding school in Massachusetts. We had twenty eighth grade boys (shudder) in our care in the dorm, which as you can imagine held various perils. Someone really had to be with them at all times. Even then, a kid managed to break his arm horsing around. One winter, the fire alarms malfunctioned and went off accidentally at 2 AM for several nights in a row. There’s nothing like shepherding adolescent boys down four flights of fire escape stairs in a diaphanous nightgown. After the second time, I wised up and started sleeping in ..read more

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Maggie Robinson (Monday), Kate Flora (Tuesday), Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Thursday) and Maureen Milliken (Friday). In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:  COVER REVEAL from Kathy Lynn Emerson: Treacherous Visions is still being revised and does not yet have cover art, but I’ve just released the reprint edition of Face Down in the Marrow-Bone Pie, the first book in my Face Down Mystery series. It’s print-on-demand, so it will have to be special ordered from ..read more

Realistic fiction sounds like a bit of an oxymoron, doesn’t it? But readers love characters who feel familiar, locations they know in real life, and situations that could happen but haven’t. Except when they have. Thirty-five years ago, author Tom Wolfe complained about having his fiction scooped by reality between serializing, then fully publishing, his New York novel Bonfire of the Vanities. In that 1989 Harpers article, he quoted a similar complaint made sixty five years ago by Philip Roth. Fast forward to 2024, and the challenge is that much more real. As a writer of thrillers with strong ..read more

Happy National Library Week! As writers, we spend a lot of time in libraries talking about our work, doing research, and getting the next book to read. To celebrate our love of libraries, today we’re sharing photos of us in libraries. If we haven’t been to yours yet, there’s still time to plan an event for summer. Making a Mystery, with patron involvement? Casting Call: How Writers Find Their Characters, Why Maine?  – Crime writers on why Maine is such fertile group for our stories, There’s a Whole Iceberg Under the Surface: Mystery Writers and the Research They Do. So here we are: I al ..read more

  In a long-past-due-because-of-the-pandemic-trip, we set off with great excitement – but I soon realized the biggest problem I have while traveling is starting my day in the way that makes the rest of my day ‘feel good’. I like to complete a Morning-Write before the rest of the day gets in the way. That means getting up early, putting in three to five hours of writing or rewriting and see the page count tick (slowly) upwards. I use Rudolf Nureyev, the Russian dancer, as inspiration. He is famous for saying that his body was so tuned by his work-out habits that if he did not dance every ..read more