2015 TBBCA Charlie Hounchell Art Stars Scholarships

Tampa Bay pals, do you know a talented young writer? I’m thrilled to be judging the Literary Arts entries for the 2015 TBBCA Charlie Hounchell Art Stars Scholarships. Charlie was a dear friend and I love being able to honor him by helping a young writer follow his or her dreams.

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The Truth About Fiction – Part Two

I have sometimes offended people with my work.  Occasionally, I have received angry letters from readers who feel I did not paint a flattering portrait of their geographic area. (Characters have opinions that I do not share and make observations of their own.)  I have even lost a longtime friend who did not care for…

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Mommy Writer

I was on my way to New York a couple of weeks ago on the 6 AM flight, looking ahead to a day of meetings. I left my five-year-old daughter back in Florida, which I rarely do.  So she was very much on my mind — mainly because she put the screws to me for…

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My First Time

Once upon a time, I was a secret writer.  Writing had been my passion for as long as I could remember.  But when I graduated from college, I knew I had to get a “real” job, as my father called it. (A “real job” is defined as one that pays, if not well, then at…

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Changes

I’ve said on an earlier post and in several interviews that I could not have written BLACK OUT if it weren’t for my daughter. Motherhood changed me, naturally. How could it not? It changed my view of the world, and so it changed my writing. It also made me more paranoid than ever before –…

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The Lost Girl

The theme of “the lost girl” is something I find surfacing in my work again and again. She turns up missing, murdered, abused, neglected. She’s helpless, powerless, unable to circumvent the horrible things that befall her. In earlier novels, my protagonist true crime author Lydia Strong* has an obsession with lost girls, never realizing until…

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