As amazing as this may sound, the democratically managed public schools in the United States have been slowly and steadily improving over the last 114 years [actually longer than that], and they continue to improve in spite of the false claims to the contrary. How much of an improvement am I talking about? In 1900,…
A fresh cup of coffee is in front of you, your cigarette is burning, the laptop is open, and its blank screen is staring back at you. We’ve all been there. You are ready to write, but nothing, not even one word, pops into your head. You spend hours raking your brain to no avail.…
Hidden fears, especially when they come from the dark side of religion, cripple the human personality. Medicine women, the powerful female healers in The Unholy, know how to help a person face these fears. Religion-induced fears come during waking and sleeping time. Nightmares of a religious nature often betray horrid pasts replete with church-bound guilt,…
Let me give you a picture of how this novel Watch the Shadows began. We were sitting by the fireplace at night, stroking the cats on our laps, and I was thinking about science fiction horror novels and movies, considering what in my own life would most terrify me. I realized that the common thread…
“Literary” is a type of book many people admire, but it’s not a genre that people necessarily seek. It’s even hard to call it a genre the way “mystery,” “romance,” and “paranormal” might be. Books that appear on Amazon’s literary bestseller list, for example, reveal how widely defined “literary” really is. For instance, this week,…
BAM! Splat! Pow! Punched, shot, exploded, shredded, rolled, kicked, stabbed . . . What are good fighting words? What makes a good fight? Should it be real? Supernatural? Painful? Showy? There are so many options that sometimes it’s hard to figure it out. Maybe you know exactly how the fight should go, but not how…
There I was, about to start writing my second novel, but a great abyss had opened between me and the story. When I wrote my first book, I clung tightly to the adage “write what you know.” I know science—biology, medicine, physics—and my first book, Resonance, is about scientists and magnetic polar reversal. It was…
I’ve written books that deal with serious issues: teen girl fights, youth suicide, sexual assault and being falsely accused. I’ve produced films that deal with girl fights and teen suicide. As I plan other projects down the road, I see myself producing other materials with equally gripping topics. The focus of my work is not…
I never imagined I would author a memoir. I dabbled in writing a little when I was younger, but I thought I wasn’t creative enough to ever publish a book. In fact, I am actually a mathematician. When I started writing Where Fault Lies, I didn’t expect it to take on the life that it…
