1/17/2015 – TRAVELING BY BOOK TO FLORIDA
It’s a bleak winter day in Maryland, and my feet ache to walk the hot sands of a South Florida beach. It’s time to reread some of my favorite Florida authors.
You might think I’m talking about Ernest Hemingway or Marjorie Rawlings. Yes, they lived and wrote about Florida, but I never could get into The Yearling. Anyway, their books just don’t evoke the same feelings of nostalgia as my favorites. (Continue Reading)
6/17/2014 – Reality vs. the Stuff of Dreams
In my writers’ critique group, a complaint is sometimes hurled at another writer’s plot points by saying, “I don’t believe it, couldn’t happen. It’s not realistic.” Since we are writing fiction, is this a valid criticism?
One might say that so many unbelievable things do happen—we see them online everyday–that we should accept the possibilities, no matter how bizarre. We can point to the old standby from Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Another might say that fiction requires a “willing suspension of disbelief.”
For mystery writers, Dr. Max M. Houck, director of D.C.’s Department of Forensic Sciences, speaking (Continue Reading)