Awards, Stories, and a Cool Italian Cover

First, some really exciting news! The Courtmartial of the Renegat Renegades is a finalist for the Asimov’s Readers Choice Awards in the novella category, and “Rocket Girls,” is up for best novelette! I’m really thrilled. (And super thrilled about Rocket Girls, since it’s a personal favorite). The other writers in my category are amazing, from Rick Wilber, Sean Monaghan, and Nick Wolven in the novella […]

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Winter Holidays And A Mystery

The mystery is a mystery story that I have in the current issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. “Serving Process” is a rainy Oregon story with a bit of a twist. You can get a copy here. The complete volume of last year’s Holiday Spectacular hit the virtual shelves this week! Thirty-eight stories about various winter holidays (including a June holiday from Australia). The stories […]

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Conundrums, Kickstarter, Bundles and an Anniversary

Here’s something fun. Deliberately fun. I wrote a novel in the deepest darkest time of 2020, the horrid winter where everything seemed bleak. I wanted to escape, so I wrote about old friends and good times at a 1990s-style sf convention…with some crime on the side. You see, my characters Spade and Paladin solve crimes at sf conventions. Until now, Spade and Paladin only appeared […]

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Recommended Reading List: December, 2020

What a month! I’ve been reading some things for editing projects. I also read a few holiday things. But 2020 has me deep-down angry and deeply sad, so saccharine was not to my taste this year. I only read one light holiday mystery and no holiday romances. I did read some holiday nonfiction (listed below). I did toss one book in the trash, though. Literally. […]

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Read The Prequel to The Next Kris Nelscott Novel

In October of 2017, the next Kris Nelscott novel will appear. It’ll feature Valentina Wilson instead of Smokey Dalton. (The next Smokey book will probably appear in 2018.) I’ve written about Val in Stone Cribs, and then again in a bunch of my short stories. She’s a different character in the short fiction than she is in Stone Cribs, due to life experience and the […]

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Recommended Reading List: December, 2016

Found lots of great reading in December. Here’s what I really loved.

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Business Musings: The First (?) 2017 Process Blog

I was staring down the barrel of 2017, trying to figure out my writing projects. And I realized on Tuesday that the reason I couldn’t just dive in on Monday was because I hadn’t…oh, crap…defined myself.

I had defined myself in general. That’s easy. I’m a writer first, and to me, that means all the writerly things I do and have done from the old Star Wars book to new fiction I’m writing (from the romance short to the Diving universe to the historical mystery I just finished for the next Lawrence Block antho) to this blog and all the nonfiction.

But I somehow did not handle the specifics of being a writer very well in 2016.

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And Another New Story!

I’m particularly proud of this one, probably because it surprised even me when I finished it. I wrote “Christmas Eve at The Exit” last year, after hearing this query at a hotel just below my house. Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine picked the story up for their holiday issue. It’s not a warm and fuzzy piece, but I think you’ll like it. Click here for an excerpt […]

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Recommended Reading List: August, 2014

I’ve listed the best of the best from my August reading below. Thank heavens for these pieces. They provided much needed escape.

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Recommended Reading List: December, 2013

I read a lot in December, too much of it forgettable. I read a Christmas novel by one of my favorite romance authors, a reissue that I had missed, and was pretty disturbed by the behavior of the male protagonist. I read two other novels that just didn’t thrill me, and a lot of short stories that left me…shrugging, I guess. I did read some […]

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