I’m flying back to Colorado from Las Vegas this morning. I was hanging out with my son and daughter-in-law, their dogs, cats, and horses, and maybe even a ghost, in Oatman, Arizona, from Friday through Sunday. Sunday night I stayed at the Edgewater, a casino/hotel in Laughlin, Nevada, then took a shuttle to Las Vegas …Read More
Archives for June 2009
Colorado Author — Cricket McRae
The author of three Sophie Mae Reynolds Home Crafting mysteries, Cricket McRae is a crafter of all trades, and I suspect a mistress of all as well. In Lye in Wait, she even taught us how to make homemade lip balm. While weaving all things crafty into her stories, Cricket creates believable characters and clever …Read More
Oatman, Arizona — The Ghost in the Oatman Hotel
I’m taking off a little later this morning, flying to Las Vegas, and then traveling to Oatman, Arizona, a dozen or so miles east of Bullhead City. Part of the action in The Desert Hedge Murders takes place in and around Oatman, an old historic Route 66 gold mining town which is now a tourist …Read More
Online Companies for Promotional Materials
Most authors have their favorite companies from which they order bookmarks, postcards, and other promotional materials. I’d like to share three of my online favorites with you, and hope you’ll add your favorites to the list by leaving a comment. The first is PrintingForLess.com. In 2007, I designed my bookmarks for The Prairie Grass Murders, …Read More
Why I Spent the Night in the Boys’ Locker Room
It was August, 1992. Hurricane Andrew was headed toward South Florida. At the time, my husband and I belonged to ham radio organizations ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service) and RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service). Ham radio operators provide a number of services when disasters occur, especially when normal communications are interrupted. In addition, to …Read More
Twenty Minutes in the Closet with Twitter
I know. The title makes no sense. Stick around and I’ll explain. We’ve had strange weather in Northern Colorado the last couple of weeks. Lots of rain. Hail that shredded gardens. Wind. A few tornadoes around Denver and on the eastern plains. Yesterday was stranger than most at my house. My second floor office space, …Read More
Colorado Author — Sandi Ault
Sandi Ault’s first Jamaica Wild mystery, Wild Indigo, was released in January 1, 2007, followed quickly by Wild Inferno in 2008, and Wild Sorrow, released in March 2009. Jamaica, who begins the series as a Bureau of Land Management agent in New Mexico, is a student of Pueblo culture, an interest that often gets her …Read More
The Search for Good Ideas
I wanted to use the quote, “No good deed goes unpunished,” in a story, and it occurred to me that although I use the phrase from time to time, I had no idea of its origin. I pulled my copy of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations from my bookcase and found the phrase first in the index …Read More
The Rest of the Story
So, as I was saying yesterday, things changed in my leisure and writing life at the end of 2003. That’s when I signed up for a novel-writing class at our Senior Center. The instructor was Brian Kaufman, a local author traditionally published by a small Northern Colorado press. After the class was over, several of …Read More
How Writers Pay Their Dues
I don’t need to tell writers what that means. Most of us practice our craft for years before we have a manuscript good enough to submit to an agent or publisher. Once we work up the courage, we send out enough hard copy queries, partials, and manuscripts to take down a hundred trees. We work …Read More