TBT: Tacoma version

Because I’ll be in Tacoma this weekend, I thought my Throwback Thursday ought to show me when I lived there, Back In The Day, when I was still Laurie Richardson.  And this is one photo where you should be glad for both washout and fading, because the color of that dress was truly blinding: This was…

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Mary Russell’s War (five): a letter from the War Office

On the centenary of the Great War, a journal has come to light with weekly entries from a very young Mary Russell. It begins, appropriately enough, on August 4, 1914, when Russell is living with her parents and brother in San Francisco. This is week five. (To read from the beginning, click here.) 1 September…

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Criminally Thrilling Writing

Crime and Thriller Writing is my how-to book—or, about half mine.  I wrote this how-to book of crime writing with Michelle Spring, but it’s not just us: we asked twenty-six other bestselling crime writers to write an essay on…anything.  That’s right, we just asked them to write us a few pages on whatever was on their mind, or they…

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Throwback Thursday: hippies rule!

It may be entirely redundant, considering I live in Santa Cruz, to point out that I used to be a hippie.  However, I thought you might like to see how very long that has been the case.  This taken in 1971, when I was taking my first classes in religious studies at West Valley College…

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Mary Russell’s War, part four

On the centenary of the Great War, a journal has come to light with weekly entries from a very young Mary Russell. It begins, appropriately enough, on August 4, 1914, when Russell is living with her parents and brother in San Francisco. This is week four. (The journal illuminates that portion of Miss Russell’s memoirs…

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Crime & Thriller stars

Crime and Thriller Writing is my how-to book—or, about half mine.  (And it’s now available as an ebook.) I co-wrote this exploration of the mysteries of crime writing with Michelle Spring, who unlike me (an Organic Writer) is an Organized Writer down to her bones. But one of the best parts of the book is…

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Los Gatos Lit Fair

There’s a Literary Fair tomorrow in Los Gatos, on the Civic Center lawn from noon to three: it’s fair, it’s literary, it’s waiting for you to join in. Go Libraries!  Go, Indie bookstores!  

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Throwback Thursday Twofer

Today’s Throwback Thursday post serves as proof that some authors do their research long in advance.  Long, long in advance, like this picture, taken in 1982, a good twenty years before this particular writer set pen to paper to write The Game. And here, said author contemplating the possibilities of alternate universes, wherein she and…

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Mary Russell’s War, week three

On the centenary of the Great War, a journal has come to light of weekly entries from a very young Mary Russell. It begins, appropriately enough, on August 4, 1914, when Russell is living with her parents and brother in San Francisco. This is week three. (To read from the beginning, click here.) 18 August 1914…

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