At first, I wasn’t sure what was happening. Flickering in and out of consciousness is like staccato dreamtime — flashes of motion and brightness, then darkness and thick confusion. I remembered that I was flying from Sacramento to Atlanta, that I’d been feeling unwell, that I’d headed for the restroom . . . and then [...] Read More →
Author Archives: Tina Whittle
Not Exactly Your Mama’s Poet
Polite, it ain’t. When I decided to set Darker Than Any Shadow in the world of competitive performance poetry, I was lucky to have a research edge — Lawrence Green Jr. He’s one of my best friends, and he’s also a spoken word poet (that’s the cover of his debut album Spare Change to the [...] Read More →
Your Brain on Research
It’s a seductive quicksand, research. One little foray to look up which Peachtree Street intersects I-75, and suddenly I’m immersed in the intricacies of a Krav Maga takedown. Or a sniper rifle that can shoot around corners. Or the Siege of Savannah. But no scholarly side road is as dangerously distracting to me as neuroscience.
The Pin is Mightier
It was the word “curate” that got me. Suddenly, what I’d previously thought of as frittering away my time now had an air of legitimacy. I’m talking about Pinterest, which you can check out at http://pinterest.com. Pinterest describes itself as a virtual pinboard — it allows you to “pin” interesting web images (like the one [...] Read More →
The Thoughts That Count
I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t out there getting pepper-sprayed this Black Friday. To anyone who knows me, this was not news. I’m never out of the house on Black Friday. Or most Fridays, for that matter. I got into this writing gig because I’m an introverted homebody, which is a great match [...] Read More →
Lost and Found
It’s a moment of panic that hits a writer especially hard – you reach for your personal computer only to find an empty place. All your words – gone. All your work – vanished. All your notes and outlines and character sketches — poof. I swear, I thought I was going to throw up.
Writing at the Thin Blue Line
Here’s the thing about being handcuffed — it produces an irresistible urge to get out of said handcuffs. For most handcuffed people, that’s not an option. Luckily for me, it was. All I had to do was ask, which I did. Quickly and nicely.
Getting the Bang-Bang Right
Tai Randolph, the protagonist of my first novel The Dangerous Edge of Things, is a liberal feminist daughter of the South who inherits a Confederate-themed gun shop. She has a corporate security agent romantic interest who — more often than not — has a Heckler and Koch P7M8 under his Armani. There’s also an Atlanta [...] Read More →
One Writing Life: Two Versions
I always envisioned the writer’s life thusly: a secluded cabin somewhere beside a rippling creek, in a mountain-shaded valley. A clean desk, a sunrise view on the patio, a pot of coffee percolating. And time, vast stretches of time for me to immerse myself in my work-in-progress as I lounge about in my organic cotton [...] Read More →
Putting the Pedal to the Metal
by Tina Whittle On Saturday mornings in Atlanta, the Ferrari showroom swarms with gawkers. They mill about the light-dazzled space with a combination of delight, reverence and delicious fear, as if the cars were jungle beasts lounging on the savannah. As if those shiny red and yellow and black hoods concealed equally shiny teeth. As [...] Read More →