…Can make a difference. After working for days on the next book in my In Maine project, I returned to Pavane for Miss Marcher to make a Dramatis Personae to remind me of all the characters that may turn up as I write That Kentucky Boy. In that process, I reread the entire novel and, […]
Dancing by Moonlight
As early as my fourteenth year, I told my classmates that I would live in Europe. The opportunity to travel to Europe did not arise until I had completed my post-graduate education in Creative Writing and travelled on a chartered tourist flight to London. I didn’t necessarily fall in love with someone from another country […]
Keep Saying Their Names
On this Memorial Day, as on every day, I think of my father, Captain Thomas A. Verrill (WWII Veteran) and how proud he was to be able to serve his country. I know very little about his service, he never spoke of it. My mother told me stories when I was a child and wrote […]
Artistic Freedom & the Creative Spirit
In June of 2019, I resigned my nine-year-long membership in Romance Writers of America. Here are my reasons: A writers’ organization’s purpose is to support and inform writers regarding their industry. Romance Writers of America has been commendably diligent in this purpose for many years. The organization has had a hand in the successful careers […]
Usurping Voices: RePost from Everwriting WP
Writers are arrogant pretenders. We freely usurp identities, characteristics, ideas, thoughts, voices of people we imagine as characters in our books and stories. These are all part of our craft—our toolbox—of storytelling. We step over the boundary between reality and fiction when we decide we also have the right, indeed the obligation, to speak for […]
Independence Day 2018
Living in the greatest country ever invented by the human mind, a country that was never ruled by any royal personage (someone believing the country was theirs by divine decree – hereditary or by violence), a country designed to be governed by the people and for the people through elected representatives, embodying the rights that […]
Sleepless in SF
This is not a first but is creeping into a more frequent event. Once in a while, some idea or notion gets into your head and sleep is pushed aside by excitement, enthusiasm or just plain worry. I have this brand new place to write…a website that includes a place to write about writing. That […]
Featured Book: December 15
Keeping Hope Alive Defying the odds, Casey Morgan opens Hope Ranch for troubled teens in a rural Texas community, but not everyone welcomes her with open arms. The unexplained death of her security guard and other disturbing activities prompts her to advertise for help to make her ranch the safe haven she envisioned. Help comes […]
Featured Book: December 11
Dollhouse Syndrome Vol.1 An intriguing and innovative Young Adult novel by Lan Hsu From the Introduction: The World. In the not too distant future “Nowadays, the world is different to how it used to be. We have split the earth into the Seven Rooms, each room never to interfere with the private affairs of another […]
Featured Book: December 7
Everybody knows the Mantoni girls are attractive, and theoretically, that’s a good thing, right? Only this time, a charming but older millionaire desires the most beautiful Mantoni, Annalisa, as his lover for the Christmas season. Her cousin, Carlina, is disgusted by the liaison and says she’d rather see him dead than at Annalisa’s side. The next […]