“When I decided to become a police officer I knew I’d have to deal with the hard side of life. Beaten children, raped women, accident victims, blood and gore. But that’s not the hardest part, is it? It’s the goddamn tragedy of people’s lives.” Constable Molly Smith to Sergeant John Winters, Among the Departed. [...] Read More →
News/Blog at Poisoned Pen Press
Poisoned Pen Press Names Jessica Tribble New Publisher
Scottsdale, AZ—Poisoned Pen Press announces that Jessica Tribble has been promoted to Publisher. Former Publisher and Founder Robert Rosenwald will continue to serve as President of Poisoned Pen Press, while Barbara Peters will remain Editor-in-Chief.
So you want to be a writer…
We’ve been admonished to blog for readers, not writers. But I’m going to do it anyway for two reasons. First, a surprising number of my readers are aspiring writers. Second, I made a pledge all the years I was struggling to get published and nobody would help me: That if I ever “made it,” I [...] 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 →
The Adventures of Slim and Howdy, by Bill Fitzhugh
It’s not every day you get asked to write a book with the most successful country recording duo in history. So if it happens – even if you’ve promised yourself that you’d never even consider co-writing a novel with someone, let alone with two others – you have to give it at least a little [...] Read More →
Why write about Kansas?
First, for the obvious reason. Like they say, write what you know. Kansas is where I was born and grew up. You get a kind of intimate sense of place that way.
ROMANCING THE PEN….
I like reading PPP blogs. It’s good to get a sense of each others writing styles and lives. I admire each of the PPP writers. I love that Betty Webb fell in love with John Wayne. I want to channel Tina Whittle and her little pink and white square cards. I envy Stephen Anable who [...] Read More →
The End of Civilization as We Knew It
Recently, I was on a plane and while we waited on the tarmac for take-off, my seatmate was talking on the phone and crying. She told me her grandfather was dying, that she had just visited him, and that he was delirious and thought he was back in World War Two in that terrible time [...] Read More →
Abundance
I volunteer at a Food Pantry near my home in a fairly affluent suburb of New York City. Last week the local Pantry did a “Rapid Distribution” in the parking lot of an Episcopal church. Now, Rapid Distribution seems to mean that we have a whole lot of stuff we need to distribute fast. in [...] Read More →
Welcome To My Life
The toughest thing about living on a Greek island is that practically everyone on the planet thinks you’re goofing off, especially when it’s the party-hearty Aegean island of Mykonos. My Mykonian friends know better. They keep saying, “Jeffrey, it’s summertime on Mykonos, stop being so American and working all the time.” (Okay, so maybe not [...] Read More →