We started this email newsletter because we were advised that authors should have a newsletter. However, we don't really enjoy promotion, so although we sometimes talk about writing or Roman history, mostly we just do personal essays.
Character Descriptions How We Write Together King Cotton Comics Sighting A Tree Frog Historical Accuracy in Mysteries Believing in Santa Going to the Movies in the Old Days (U.S.) Interactive Fiction Working at Writing Fantasy in Mysteries Anachronisms in Historical Fiction Santa's Longest Night Who Was That Cat? Memory Louis H. Silverstein The Writer's Ticker Tape Parade From Typing Fingers to Broken Legs Naming, and Renaming, Characters Bad Reviews King's ON WRITING Bordering on Fiction (about maps) Wood You Believe? (about orienteering) We All Have the Raw Material (writing nuts and bolts) Writing for an Audience A Spell Cast by Willows (favorite childhood book) Red Star, Silver Lining (Musings on a review) How Now Snow Plow? Batting Ideas Around Falling Into A Revery (about writing historical mysteries) The Square on the Hippodrome (fact in history mysteries) Don't Leap to the Wrong Conclusion (Bull-leaping. Fact?) Salary and Egg Sandwich (Working at the law library) The Giant Slingshot (Activities of a childhood club) Little Nell's Gone Missing (Things Eric doesn't like to see in mysteries) When I Had a Purple Head (Misadventures on the stage.) Between a Turkey and a Hard Place (Reflections on the holidays.) Hacking Needed Revisions (Reflections on writing.) The Horror Behind the Curtain (Fear of photography) Purple Stains, Purple Prose (How Julius Rosenwald and Sears kept the author writing) The Vasty Deeps of Nothingness (Writing about ... nothing ....) Working for Treats (Memories of Halloween) Pillars of the Community (Using personal experiences in writing) Street Seens (Recalling street people) Brassica of Byzantium (Research and Roman cabbages) Meteorite Memories, Sort Of (Vague recollections of unforgettable things) Board With Life(The mystery board game Clue) Spring Forward to Fall (Falling into autumn) Fit to be Tied (Pondering neckwear) Biscuits, Buns and Byzantium (Thoughts on promotion) Curses Spring Eternal (Baseball and Byzantium) Dark and Stormy Beginnings (Weather in writing) A Clutch of Chamberlains (Fitting fiction to facts) Stringing Listeners Along (A basement radio station) A History of Histories (Our personal histories) Tea at the Palace (A trip into town) Chairman of the Board (remembering board games) Burn-Out of Another Sort (writing rules, right or wrong?) Returning to Reading (Reading more books) Amusement for Inferior Minds (How to read mysteries) Sent Under Plain Brown Wrapper (questing for books) How I Became Invisible (memories of cold feet) The Topless Towers of Weehawken (book & movie about Helen of Troy) Nail that Tune (Songs from an old Victrola) Lure of the White Worm (earliest memories) The Fall Wall (thinking about time) The Last Christmas Tree Standing Writing About Writing A Funny Hat Never Hurts (Mr Potato Head on writing) The Busted Knucklebones (ancient mystery settings) The Talking Fish and the Remarkable Rutabaga (Adventures in self-publishing) Whither Historical Weather (weather accuracy in historicals ) Evidence Santa Exists They Drive You Up the Wall (rats in the walls) Thoughts from a Brown Study (A Father Brown story) Typewriter Heroes (Typewriters of famous authors) Gone with the Whip (An amusement park) A Nervous Squirrel (Nuts to hiding nuts) Is the End Night?(Future of reading & writing) The Scent of...What?(Mysteries of scents) Some Mite Like It(Nasty foods) Stick Figures to Schiele (writing vs visual art) Jeepers Creepers (insect invaders) On the Cat Trail (wildlife trails) Headless in Brooklyn (remembering trash days) Styx and Stones (Dante and pulp fiction) School of Hard Rocks (gardening) Tree in the Middle (a dogwood) Crayolas and Cucumbers (where do you get your ideas?) Fall in the Air (autumnal memories) The Scientific Santa (Christmas presents past) Updike and Me(reading John Updike) Literature for the Little Gray Cells (science fiction and mysteries) Behind (What Will Become) the Seens (benefits of a publisher) Those Three Fiendish Words ("back to school") Humming While You Work (an ancient fridge) Pseudonymn Secrets (why a pseudonymn?) A Slave to the Screen(remembering TV) A Dirty Story(remembering dirt) Thirteen Guests for the Third Time(review of Farjeon novel) Always on Sale(recalling departed department stores) A Quest Ends (Sighting A Tree Frog) Merry Mithras (An ancient Roman Holiday) Ice-Bound Lucifer (winter fun) Before Chicks Wore Minis (Easters long ago) Some Ideas Got Broke (on writing a novel) Lights in the Darkness (fireflies) A Walk to the Graveyard (grave musings) Santa Claus and Mr Hyde (Christmas contradictions) A Very Peculiar Sheep(Reflections on the mystery genre) Too Indecorous for the Living Room(Old book covers) An Unmusical Brick(Musical misadventures) King of the Wild Summer Vacation(collecting Davy Crockett cards) A Nightmare at the Mall(A peculiar dream) An Old-Fashioned Christmas(Christmas as I remember it) Is it Out to Get Us?(when water pipes freeze) Cogitating on A Touch of Death(review of a Charles Williams noir) That Time I Set Fire to a Castle(making bad films in Super 8) Captain at the Switchboard(adventures in telephoning) I Licked the Stamp Habit(weird stamp collecting) Bee Stings They Were Not (in praise of John D. MacDonald) Companions of the Scourge of River City (French mystery writers) Playing Chicken With My Memory (childhood sickroom) Digital Fossils (visiting the past) Crying for Werther (reading a classic) A Proclivity for Purple (why I like purple) A Noteworthy Problem (adventures of a tin ear) Travels on the Roads of Life (commuting to school) Maybe All Dogs Don't Have Their Day (about cliches) Things the Library Taught Me (library lessons) Not Even a Gravestone to Point a Finger (murder in Roman law) Skunk Cabbage Dreams (some dreams stink) A Home With a Hook (what is a home?) Eye to Eye with a Goldfish (winter woes) Interview with a Shadow Man (about a shady actor) Soldiering On (vintage toys) Meteor Right, Murder Wrong (cozy mystery) Chairs, A Table, A Cauldron (a performance of Macbeth) Don't Play That Song!(Christmas music) Three Bean or Not Three Bean (Forgotten groceries) Berry Good Eating (Mystery berries) Memories of Memories (earliest memories) The Puzzling Case of My Favorite Mysteries (reasons for my favorite mysteries) A Famous Burning Colander (fiery tales) Tuppence for My Thoughts (thoughts on Agatha Christie) Eschew the U (living with Briticisms) The Ant Tree (memorable trees) Tackling Tomes(long books) My Life as a Businesskid(making money as a kid) The Lord Chamberlain's Mother (origin of John Lord Chamberlain) Rodent Rage (trouble with Hamsters)