Thinkery
Why I Love Shawn Cosby’s Work
Raw. Raw fear. Raw rage. Raw passion and love. Real life. We don’t read a book, we feel it. Or don’t. Shawn Cosby’s work gives us the life that feels rather than the so-called writerly “showing”of bit lips and drumming fingers, mere mini portholes to the soul...
Confetti #1
These "Confetti" are FB posts of mine from various threads. They are, in effect, little mini essays in response to what the thread presented. Though they are also self-contained thoughts. What made this country the place much of the rest of the world envies &...
Review: Hiding Among the Dead by Chris Bauer
The story lines of illegal organ harvesting, crime scene cleanup and bare knuckle boxing were easy to make hash out of, but Bauer does a masterful job weaving those plot lines together in this excellent crime thriller. It is tightly written and amply researched,...
Writing Characters III
All writers have their own process. Mine begins with character(s). They present early on. I pay no mind to back-story, physical characteristics, or even their role at this initial stage; rather, I contemplate how their emotional construct impels their actions....
The Pitch: It’s a Bitch
Like most writers, I’d rather be writing stories—lost in images, worlds, words, characters and their conflicts—instead of pitching my work. We’re pitching all the time, aren’t we? We pitch to agents, publishers and readers. Our query letters are pitches; we...
Noir Fiction: Why I Love It
I love noir fiction and movies. So do millions of others. Why is that? For me, it’s clear: Noir comes closer than any other genre to capturing the human condition. You won’t find superheroes in noir, and redemption only occurs by the cubic centimeter. When it does,...
