You thought that once the Fifteen Weeks of Bees were over, we’d be finished with contests, right? Ah no, we’re just beginning. How creative are you feeling? Well, sharpen those pencils and wits, kids, because Laurie needs a title. That’s right, The Green Man just doesn’t do it. As a working title, sure, because it’s about…
Read MoreSo there I was, smack in the middle of the kind of plot problems that come when you’ve written a complicated first draft through some really difficult times, when the ever-clever Rick Kleffel asks me to talk into a microphone for him. He was doing an NPR piece for All Things Considered about a pair…
Read MoreOne of my favorite columnists at the San Francisco Chronicle, Jon Carroll, has nice words to say about me today, here. It’s always a kick when someone gets it, when the things that amuse me (fiction linked to fiction linked to reality and getting lost therein) amuse others as well.
Read MoreThe Language of Bees has a trailer, thanks to the fantabulous creativity of Two Rock Media:
Read MoreCorte Madera is a small town on the freeway just north of San Francisco, out of the main summer fog belt but close enough to feel its cooling effects. Every July, Book Passage runs a mystery writing conference, limited to around 80 people, although it seems as if the published writers outnumber the would-be writers,…
Read MoreThanks so much for Alice and her driving-elf Merrily for taking over the blog for the last couple of weeks, and giving me both a fun read and a holiday from blog-writing. But I’m back now, kids. Well, more or less. I’m in Corte Madera (that’s just across the Golden Gate from San Francisco, still…
Read MoreI would like to thank Alice and Merrily again for this great series of posts about their trip to England on the footsteps of Russell and Holmes. One minor problem is that Alice has left nothing for me to post about this September when I’m there, but I’m sure I’ll think of something… Great work,…
Read MoreThe continuing exploits of two Americans, lost in the moors of south-western England, expecting at any moment to come across a ghostly Hound… (Click on the photos to enlarge.) The next morning we were treated to a wonderful breakfast in Baring-Gould’s study, a narrow room with a massive fireplace in the middle of one of…
Read MoreOne of the great pleasures of the writing life is getting to know other writers. I met Rhys Bowen, oh, many and many a year ago, and because we move in much the same circle geographically, I get to see her fairly often. Some of her many books overlap with the period of Mary Russell…
Read MoreThis is the fourth episode, in which Russell’s Faithful Friends Alice and Merrily come to Dartmoor, and surround themselves with the work of Sabine Baring-Gould. (Click on each photo to enlarge.) Also, Miss Russell and her friends wish the author of this post many happy returns of the day. ******* Motoring down from Oxford to…
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