Did you know that the average public school teacher is assigned 5 or 6 classes of 25-30 students, which makes them responsible for between 125 – 180 students? And many have over 200? Can you imagine trying to read the work of that many students and giving quality feedback and guidance? They’re not teachers, they’re [...] Read More →
News/Blog at Poisoned Pen Press
I Heart Twitter
So many choices for social media, right? Love it? Hate it? Just overwhelmed? Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Shelfari, Google Plus, e-mail groups, and now Pinterest. You start feeling like you’ve got to belong to all of them. But you can’t. You have to choose.
Hats!
I’m writing this a few days ahead of time, because I’m off tomorrow for Malice Domestic and Festival of Mystery in Oakmont PA. I’m deciding what hats to bring. I love hats, but I don’t get much of an opportunity to wear them. Its unlikely hats will ever come back in a big way in [...] Read More →
The stand
Every author has a hate and love relationship with Amazon.com. Sooner or later, it will require difficult choices. Mine recently arrived.
The Mystic Eight Ball
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 →
The Terrorist who played World of Warcraft
On July 22, 2011, Anders Breivik paid homage to Timothy McVey and al-Qaeda when he bombed government buildings in Oslo, Norway, killing eight. The explosion failed to bring down a building or produce the body count Breivik hoped for, so he attacked a Labor Party youth camp on the isle of Utøya. He massacred sixty-nine [...] Read More →
About That Easel… by Stephen Anable
About That Easel… by Stephen Anable E.M. Forster, to the shock of Vladimir Nabokov, once insisted that sometimes his characters assumed control of his novels—that they became, so to speak, their own creators or co-creators. When told of this assertion, Nabokov countered that such a writer “must be very minor or insane.” “My characters are galley slaves,” [...] Read More →
I Was Raised by Books
It was during one of those long, meandering, wine-fueled, late-night coversations among women when truths are told that a friend said, “Books raised me.” I felt as if I’d been struck by lightning.
Real Time, Real Life Mykonos
Last month I promised a view of the Aegean in “real time.” Not sure what that means because so much of this part of the world is “unreal” by its very nature. After all, it’s where the gods chose to live and frolic in ancient times and modern day tourists try emulating their behavior every [...] Read More →
Fourteen Things I Have Learnt By Reading Golden Age Mysteries
by Mary Reed It’s no mystery how much I enjoy mysteries written in the Golden Age. They’re not only entertaining but also also quite instructive. Here then are fourteen things I have learned by reading them: o Characters with grey eyes tend not to be villains o Protagonists have a tendency to marry their second [...] Read More →