Well, the folks over at SleuthSayers, the mystery blog I write for, have me contributing a post on this, the deadest reading day of the year, Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving when all good Americans are out spending themselves blind. Not to be outdone, I have managed to blame the entire Black Friday concept on short story writers, the very same folks who operate the SleuthSayers blog. I know, it’s wacky clickbait premise, but you can’t blame a guy for trying. My argument is based on one of the oldest American Christmas traditions: giving books of short stories to children and adults. This, eventually led to the creation of Christmas presents.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. You can learn all about it in an article entitled:
Writers, Black Friday’s on You!
Here’s a little of the story:
The earliest advertisement for “Christmas Gifts” that Nissenbaum was able to find dated to 1806, in a Salem, Massachusetts, newspaper. Tellingly, the ad was placed by a bookseller. Eventually, adults also became recipients of the book-buying tradition. These books were more lavish, with gold-leaf paper edges, embossed covers, colored engravings, and “presentation plates”—a page at the front where the giver would inscribed the book to their loved one. Husbands and wives gifted each other these books; suitors presented them to young ladies who were the object of their affection.
That’s just a taste of the story. I hasten to add that two of the figures who appear in my tale are Edgar Alan Poe and his onetime editor, Sarah Josepha Hale, the so-called mother of Thanksgiving. (I have written of them before!)
Editress Sarah Josepha Hale and her frequent contributor, Edgar Allan Poe.
I hope you’ll visit and check out the story. It certainly took me quite a bit of time to research and fact-check. Luckily, I can now treat myself to some pie.
I wish you all a belated Happy Thanksgiving!
Turns out, I have never written a Thanksgiving short story or novel. And until very recently, I had never written a Christmas story. Well, that all changes now. I hope you will check out my warmhearted Christmas time travel novella, Preston the Provider. (Affiliate link.)
Click for details (affiliate links).
Yes, I know it is 2026, and the holidays are technically behind us. But our house and front yard are still festooned with decorations, and I don’t think I’ve taken enough photos of the Christmas Village that took so much effort to put up this year. So when it came time to write a post for SleuthSayers, the mystery blog, this week, my head was still stuck on Christmas. In one of my first posts of the new year, I always try to share some sort of inspirational message for writers. Today I am sharing an anecdote of how I came to write my first published story, and the strange thing that happened immediately afterward.
You can read my article at this link. It is called…
I promised to share some videos of our Christmas Village when we finally tricked the whole thing out, with some attention to the larger train set that snakes through the village. I have a number of videos for you in this post. The first two show two different M&M-themed cars. There are few others showing scenes from the village, and there’s a rerun of our mantelpiece trolley.
One of my rituals of the Christmas season is taking the time to read O. Henry’s charming, heartfelt story, “The Gift of the Magi.” It is only 2,000 words long, and a great snapshot of life in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. My particular favorite is the last paragraph, which at first glance seems a little redundant, until you realize that it needs to be. That said, I have an article at SleuthSayers today that focuses primarily on the “mystery” inherent in the story’s very first paragraph.
Every year, we try to get our Christmas tree and decorations up as soon as possible after the American Thanksgiving holiday. It just makes sense to do so, since in the USA this holiday is our only four-day weekend. And because Thanksgiving falls so late in November this year, if we dawdle on decorations, Christmas will be here before we are ready for it.
In our house, decorating for Christmas means at least two, possibly three, train sets…
As long as it’s July, seems a great time to remind devoted readers that they now have three—count ‘em—three Christmas books from me to read. They are…
I can’t believe it has taken me this long to write a short Christmas story. I already have two Christmas-themed novels available, but they are not exactly short. Sorceress Kringle, my gender-swapped Santa fantasy, and its prequel, The Icemaster of New-York, clock in at 600-plus pages. Whereas Christmas time is the perfect time to indulge in something short. I wrote Preston the Provider a while back, but it has taken me this long to design the cover and interior, and have the book copy-edited. It is finally out in the world as of today. You can click on the above image to see the links where to buy it. Rest assured, you can get the ebook or paperback versions, whichever you prefer…
The Sherlock Holmes mysteries consist of 56 short stories and four novels. And only one of those stories takes place at Christmas time in Victorian England. It’s the famous story, “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle,” which finds Holmes and Watson chasing a jewel thief in London who has stuffed his prize down the throat of a live Christmas goose. Yes, you heard me. A goose. First the goose is alive, then it’s not, then it’s well and truly cooked. And zaniness ensues. It’s fun story but there’s a huge gaping plot hole in the middle of it all…
Well, the folks over at SleuthSayers, the mystery blog I write for, have me contributing a post on this, the deadest reading day of the year, Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving when all good Americans are out spending themselves blind. Not to be outdone, I have managed to blame the entire Black Friday concept on short story writers, the very same folks who operate the SleuthSayers blog. I know, it’s wacky clickbait premise, but you can’t blame a guy for trying. My argument is based on one of the oldest American Christmas traditions…
Back in 2013, when the book that was to become my wife’s first bestseller was months away from publication, I found myself with time on my hands. It had taken her seven years to write and research that book, and we were constantly driving up and down the east coast so she could interview people and investigate archives.
But now her book was done, and something I had wanted to write finally had the breathing room to come to life. I envisioned a multi-book series about the life of Kris Kringle. I was inspired by the Mary Stewart books I’d read as a kid, on the life of King Arthur. The first book in that series focused not on Arthur but on Merlin as a boy. Because it had seemed logical to Stewart that we should understand the mentor before the mentee.
I wanted to do something similar…
This week I’m participating in Advent Ghosts, an annual flash fiction event run by writer Loren Eaton. You'll find links to all the stories participating in this event at his blog, I Saw Lightning Fall. Every single one of these stories is exactly 100 words.
Loren will be adding links to more stories as we get closer to Christmas, and as writers submit them.
So be sure to check back. Here’s my story…