Author Delia Owens is a zoologist, as a reader will realize. "Where the Crawdads Sing" paints a picture of the outer banks of North Carolina--the marshlands w...

"Trust the reader." It's great advice. I've also heard it as "Let the reader do some of the work." These comments and others like them come from friends and ...

Texas author and Spur Award Winner Elizabeth Crook brings home another winner with her historical fiction in "The Which Way Tree." It's the funniest and most...

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni--a mouthful of a name to remember for this Texan, but well worth the effort when searching for her many books. "Queen of Dreams" a...

I've buried my head in some wonderful books in the past year--The Funeral Dress by Susan Gregg Gilmore, The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow by Rita Leganski, Ho...

The central mystery of Iain Pears’ Stone’s Fall concerns how John Stone died. Was the rich and powerful ship-building magnate pushed from the window or was i...

Someone recently asked me which was more enjoyable--writing fiction or nonfiction. First, I had to narrow the terms for myself. I think of fiction as a short...

Here's one bloom from the many on an African violet I have been nurturing the past four years. (Photo by Jim.) It's a beautiful reminder that life goes on, a...

Swedish author Frederick Backman was repeatedly rejected in his attempt to publish his novel, A Man Called Ove. One publisher told him his writing had “poten...

Note: PM me if you want to know the contest and its associated workshop that I am hereby boycotting. I have had an awful experience with a writing contest. H...

So many hopes--so much dashing of hopes. Preparing for the special session happening NOW in the Texas Legislature, Drew Darby (R--San Angelo) submitted two b...

I'm hearing from some of those affected by and concerned about Texas's negligence toward teachers and education. They read my March blog post, "Texas Betrays...

Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, saved from being shot after the Russian Revolution because a poem attributed to him expressed the People's views, is sentenced...

Noting the priorities of our Texas State legislators, I’m ready for a regime change, because current priorities stink. Treatment of retired teachers, coupled...

Laws about who can use which bathrooms should be recycled into toilet paper. They’re just in place to make a statement— most notably in Alabama, Mississippi,...

Please note: I am NOT talking about the cute pink toboggans with cat ears. I love those, and I want one. I am talking about the lesser-seen, but still distur...

Nelson DeMille’s The Gold Coast, a bestseller from 1990, is a lasting classic. Author of crime series thrillers and a host of other works, DeMille adds in a ...

Out of Roswell Randon Jones pulled into the Navaho Inn on a Wednesday evening. The attached restaurant looked busy, judging from the large pickups and SUVs p...