The release date for my novel Enemy Queen had grown close, and the Editorial Project Manager at SparkPress, the book’s publisher, asked me if I’d like to contribute a Behind the Book post for their website. She suggested the topic: “how to plot an erotic thriller.” As soon as I finished reading the email [...]

Shortly after my novel Enemy Queen was published, I discovered that another novel which employed chess as a theme, Spurious Games, had been published at about the same time in England. Both books also featured a murder mystery, along with a good dose of wicked humor. It turned out that the author of Spurious [...]

I recently found myself reading an article on the web. It purported to reveal the correct way to write a novel. I am immediately distrustful of anyone who insists that there is only one correct way of doing anything. I believe I have some good empirical evidence to back this up. Before committing to [...]

I shared some interesting correspondence with a friend recently. We’re in our late sixties now, but he and I met in college in the 1970’s where we were both English Literature and Creative Writing majors. We also played a lot of pick-up basketball back then. He lives in New York, and I live in [...]