And this week’s winner of the ARC for THE ART OF DETECTION is Jim in Sacramento. Congratulations, Jim–and we have four ARCs left, to give away the next four Mondays, so don’t give up yet. But if your name isn’t on the mailing list, you can’t win one, unless you sign up here or by…

TOUCHSTONE is galloping alone, wrapping me up in it, so that even on days then I have other jobs to do, I get 2000 words in on it. Sometimes writing is like stumbling through a dark attic with a failing flashlight, hard on the shins and inspiring no confidence in the eventual outcome. Then the…

And the Monday winner for this week in March is Kathleen in Philadelphia’e2’80’94Congratulations! Both Greg in NJ and Philip in SF have their winners’e2’80’99 copies of the bound galley of THE ART OF DETECTION, and are no doubt head-down in them as I write this. Have fun, you three, knowing what happens before anyone. Well,…

The other day when I was out shopping, a couple of strangers and I had one of those little riffs of socializing that make trips to the store about more than just bags of groceries. It started when the guy at the register asked me how I was doing, and I glanced outside and said…

And the second winner in The Great THE ART OF DETECTION Advance Reading Copy Giveaway is, appropriately enough (honest, this is a random drawing!) Philip in San Francisco. Appropriate because TAoD’e2’80’99s victim goes by that name’e2’80’94please don’e2’80’99t let this put you off, Phil. We’e2’80’99re drawing from the mailing list of the LRK newsletter, and we…

For those of you who don’t–or didn’t–get the newsletter earlier this month, I’ll let you know some of what the comments posts were talking about, in this excerpt: And now, your attention, please, as I introduce the death-defying trick we call Writer’e2’80’99s Improv, in which Laurie R. King will walk the literary high-wire. I have…

Sarah Weinman’s blog has a sobering reminder that being a writer can be putting your neck right out there. Even in what is supposed to be a member country of the EU.

And the first ARC giveaway of THE ART OF DETECTION goes to:Greg, of Runnemede, NJ. Greg, if you didn’t get an email from me, get in touch somehow and let me know you’re there, okay? Congratulations, and good luck to you all for the next seven weeks of giveaways.

Q: I’ve been thinking, (shocking, isn’t it?) will we ever know what the wedding of Russell and Holmes was like? There seem to me a lot of interesting theories floating about. And a related question: This may be a subject you choose not to comment on, but have you read any of the Mary Russell…

Q: Jennifer from Minneapolis says, I love being able to hand your books off to my younger sister, knowing she can have a female hero to relate to. As a biblical archaeology student, I’ve loved the theological tidbits in your stories. I was wondering how you originally became interested in writing about Sherlock Holmes. Were…