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.

Earlier today my wife Denise Kiernan revealed the cover of her next book, which is called Obstinate Daughters: The Rebels, Writers, and Renegade Women Who Ignited the American Revolution. For those you asking, “Well, what’s it about?” I respond, “That’s what it’s about.”

In 2026 the United States will mark its 250th anniversary, which is linked to July 4, 1776, the date that most Americans associate with the nation’s founding. Denise’s book arrives in bookstores June 23, 2026, and she’s planning a number of bookstore and speaking events in what will probably shape up to be a crazily patriotic year.

I have a bit more to share with you, but first…ta-da, here’s the cover…

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…

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.

Denise is on a roll. She recently spoke about her breakout bestseller The Girls of Atomic City with Ralph Pezzullo, the engaging host of the podcast, Heroes Behind Headlines. That podcast episode is now live on two platforms, if you want to dig into their hour-long discussion. It’s a great way to see if you would like to read the book. Ralph marched Denise through some of the key points of the story, and how these women of the Manhattan Project came to create the fuel for the world’s first atomic bomb without their knowledge…

Country noir writer Daniel Woodrell has died. Here’s the only line I remember from the time I met him…

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…

A few years ago, when the pandemic raged and there seemed little to be thankful for, my wife Denise Kiernan released a trio of books about the American holiday of Thanksgiving and the life-saving practice of gratitude. Recently, Our State magazine published an article on Denise for their November issue, and then followed that up with two podcasts and two YouTube videos. It’s a huge amount of content focused one North Carolina writer, a global concept, and a whole lot of turkey…

The Thanksgiving story that pops into the heads of most Americans involves a myth regarding early Massachusetts settlers called Pilgrims and Native Americans called Wampanoags. It’s a problematic story that has caused the American Thanksgiving holiday to come under fire for decades. Which is a shame, because Thanksgiving is not a bad idea for a holiday. Other nations have done well with it. Here in the USA, we foolishly linked it to a poorly understood 404-year-old historical event. My wife, New York Times bestselling author Denise Kiernan, published a book about this issue some years ago. Some of the stuff I learned during the writing of that book forms the basis for my SleuthSayers post today. The post is entitled…

Leonardo Pisano, aka Fibonacci, was one of the greatest mathematicians Europe ever produced. He lived in the Middle Ages. But modern mathematicians never read his work because he wrote in Latin. Latin scholars know nothing about math. And mathematicians don’t read Latin. So while you can go to a bookstore and find tons of classical literature translated from the original Greek and Latin, you are unlikely to find the translated works of Fibonacci, who wrote at least five texts in his lifetime that have survived to our time.

If his work was going to be made accessible to 20th and 21st century researchers, someone would have to translate his work into a modern language. Portions of his output had been translated over the centuries, but a fresh translation would bring his work to greater audiences. That person turned out to be…