Donis thinking, here. I finished my sixth mystery novel a few weeks ago. It will be called The Wrong Hill to Die On. Look for it in October. As usual, the minute I wrote the words “The End”, I became brain dead. This happens to me every time. I finish a book and despair of [...] Read More →
Author Archives: Donis Casey
Influences
Recently an interviewer asked me who was my greatest influence as a writer. This is a common question to be put to writers, and we can always think of two or three names who were a great inspiration. But as any of us will tell you, it is an impossible question to answer fully. Often [...] Read More →
The Hard Part
When I first begin writing one of the mysteries in my Alafair Tucker series, I know who the murderer is, and I know how and why s/he did it. I also have an idea how the killer went about trying to cover up the crime. I’m pretty good about doling out clues at appropriate intervals [...] Read More →
A Book Signing Story
The following tale is a composite of actual comments said to me or to someone I know. The Author is spending her afternoon in a bookstore, doing a signing, She is pulling out everything she has in her bag of tricks, trying to interest shoppers in her latest book. She does not sit. She [...] Read More →
Amazing Stories
The very best fun thing about doing research, if I may coin a phrase, is that even if you’re looking for the most mundane piece of information, you often discover amazing stories and connections that you could not possibly have thought of on your own. Before I continue, you should know two facts, Dear Reader. [...] Read More →
Thanksgiving Traditions
Donis Casey here. I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving holiday. I did not cook this year. Instead, we had a lovely dinner at the home of a woman who has made a tradition of hosting twenty to thirty friends and relatives, some of whom have no family close by. For the past quarter-century, [...] Read More →
She Tried to Sit On My Lap, And I Was Standing Up at the Time
Sometimes it’s not as much what you say as how you say it. Prose style goes in and out of fashion, but nothing can convey the spirit of the place and time in a book in quite the same way as the language. I love the music of language in a novel. Anybody who can [...] Read More →
Time Travel
Boynton, then Donis Casey here. Writers are often exhorted to “write what you know”. But as Janet Evanovich said, and I paraphrase, “if you don’t know, go find out”. One of my favorite and oft-repeated Micky Spillane quotes (Which I’ve probably quoted a dozen times previously, but never let it be said that I didn’t [...] Read More →
Home Cooking
I’m busily working on my sixth Alafair Tucker Mystery, which as any novelist knows, entails a lot more than just writing it. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been testing the recipes that will go in the back of the book. I’ll be glad when this research phase is over, since 1910s American country [...] Read More →
A Woman of Her Time
I am a native Oklahoman, fourth generation, born and raised. But when I first began to travel, and especially after I moved away from my home state many years ago, I learned pretty quickly that most people on this wide Earth don’t know much about Oklahoma. And what they do know is likely to be [...] Read More →