The Happy Hollisters were a family of crime fighters in a book series I read as a kid. Today I’m talking about them over at SleuthSayers. At first, I wanted to just talk about the Hollisters, but the conversation turned into something deeper…

Struffoli are a delicious Italian treat that we used to enjoy as kids. I wrote this tiny piece back in 2001 for a national food magazine. They paid me for it, but never ran it. No idea why. No explanation why. Freelance journalism is known for this sort of fickle behavior. Editors love things, then hate them. This article was deliberately short, intended for the magazine’s front-of-the-book section. It was supposed to run with a recipe that I provided. The article has never seen the light of day—until now…

I mentioned a while ago that I’ve been getting into watches. It’s a total pandemic hobby; something I dug into when I couldn’t leave the house. I thought I’d march through the trajectory of this insanity in a logical fashion, so you can witness the birth of an obsession.

I need to take you back in time to December 2019, when I had but three watches stowed in a box in my closet…

I’m a person who frequently comes off as absent-minded. THIS IS WHY. At any given moment of the day, I’m thinking to myself:

How can I fix the story I’m working on?

What problem have I created for myself that is going to crop up down the line?

How can it make the characters, the story, the scenes better?

I’ve got two drawers in our office filled with bookmarks. The publishers print ’em up for my wife’s books, so I dutifully mail them to people whenever we send out a book or a bookplate. And if I’m anywhere near the table when Denise does signings, I always slip a bookmark into the reader’s book before they leave the table. Why? Because I hate the damn things, and I can’t wait to get rid of them. Thanks to my efforts, I predict we will finally finish them all by 2063.

Here’s what I think authors should be carrying in their pockets instead…

Among my parents’ personal effects, my brother found the photo I’m sharing today. It depicts me and my first-grade classmate, Michelle, putting on a play in our classroom.

Of all the essays I wrote in elementary school, the one that sticks in my memory is one in which I hilariously describe myself as “puppet crazy”!

How crazy was I? Well, let’s see…

One of my short story collections—Arm of Darkness—went live Tuesday afternoon in the Apple Audiobooks store. This is the first piece of my fiction to go live for readers who prefer to consume books that way.

So that’s one cool thing. You can check out the book right here, and buy it outright for $4.99.

The second cool thing is somewhat, well, complicated…

I’ve been ghostwriting so long that I often feel like I’m living inside the sausage factory that is modern American publishing. Unless you’ve spent time inside the machine, you are likely to think that it’s a really big deal to get a book deal. It can be, but if you spent any time with authors you’ll quickly find that most of them hate the way their publisher handled their last book. Not enough promotion. Not enough support. Not enough…anything.

A few months ago, I told the story of the most egregious example of publisher-fail I’d ever seen. And this was for a book that the publisher paid six figures for…

This town keeps coming up with food options. And since Covid, that thing of mine, and a new puppy, I just haven’t been seeking them out the way I used to.

But now I’m back!

…went to Regina’s Comfort Classics Friday morning and chowed down on some tasty stuff. That stretch of road on Patton Ave keeps changing. I had the chicken and waffle, something I’d been blabbing about having for a week since I looked up the menu. Steve had the breakfast sandwich—sausage, egg, and cheese on a biscuit. That came with seasoned fries…

You’ve written a book. Yay you, writer guy. But now you’ve got to sell it. You’ve got to market the heck out of it. Those two things may well seem mutually exclusive. You wrote a book because you’re at heart a quiet, contemplative sort of fellow. A person who thinks a lot about words. But to market, you must now assume the persona of a dude striding down the street in full marching band dress, pounding a drum. There’s an irreconcilable disconnect at the heart of your endeavor. Which are you—a mousy writer dude, or an attention-seeking whack job?

Well, you’re both.