I heard a quote the other day stating that fiction is more “real” than non-fiction because, in writing fiction, it's easier to tell the truth.

Think about it. If you're writing non-fiction, you have to stick to the facts. There's no way a writer can go inside the mind of the subject and detail how decisions are made. Only actions and consequences are recorded. One can surmise, conjecture, and…

To cyber-socialize or not to cyber-socialize? That is the question.

My New Year's resolution for '09 was to finally, seriously and extensively take a look at all the social sites I kept hearing about. My Space. Face Book. Crime Space. Twitter. Blogs. No more letting the info slide by, no more shaking my head and saying, “Who's got time for all this bulls__t?” I…

I wrote a column in my local newspaper about a former English teacher who passed away. The article generated emails from other former students with their own stories to share. But one reader, a woman in my graduating class (1969), wrote to tell me that she not only enjoyed the article, but liked my writing enough to buy my mystery novel, FOOLS RUSH IN.

Compliment accepted (as well as the…

As a writer, I'm self-employed and living creatively close to the poverty line. The idealistic days of soulful writers in Parisian garrets, swigging cheap wine and pounding out the Great American Novel are gone with Hemingway and Fitzgerald.

Modern writers once worried people would stop reading altogether. The success of Harry Potter defied that theory. The public willingly paid money for…