If you’ve listened to the audio versions of Brute or Housekeeping, you already know how wonderful K.C. Kelly is, because he narrated them. Or maybe you’ve heard him read some other fantastic books, like Mary Calmes’ Frog, Ryan Loveless’s Ethan, Who Loved Carter, or Rowan Speedwell’s Love, Like Water. You can also hear him as Mark …
A few weeks ago, I did a blog post about the Sonora cemetery. At the time, although I’ve been to Sonora many times, I’d never visited the old cemetery. I decided to remedy that last weekend. I dragged my kids out of the fog and up into the Sierra foothills, and we ended up visiting …
If you’ve been following me for a while, you may know that my novel The Tin Box was inspired in part by a real place, the Stockton State Mental Hospital. Once the largest mental hospital in California, it’s now been converted to classroom and office space. I’ve blogged about it before. Since I was there …
Things have been quiet here on the blog as I finished the first draft of my 13th novel, Rattlesnake. I also had two laptop meltdowns and a traumatic phone upgrade, all of which have sucked away far too much of my time. I’m planning a (probably quarterly) newsletter in the near future, with excerpts, free …
I’m in the middle of writing a novel set in a fictional town in California. The working title is Rattlesnake. The novel’s a contemporary, but the fictional town where it’s set is in Gold Rush territory in the Sierra foothills. Which, conveniently enough, is close to where I live. As I was doing some research for my …
I know I posted about forensics last week. But I recently saw this article, which is fascinating. A skeleton found under a parking lot in England has been pretty much proven to be that of King Richard III, who died in 1485. Here are several things I think are cool about this: –They could confirm …
I have a colleague who’s a forensic anthropologist and gave me a tour of her bone room when she was working on a case involving the victims of serial killers. It was poignant–a shoe still contained a skeletal foot. It was also really interesting. What looks to me like a random piece of bone allows …
During a recent trip to San Francisco, a friend and I wandered into one of Good Vibrations several Bay Area locations. I’d been to a different location before, but not this one. It’s a great store–very sex-positive and non-scrungy. The type of place in which the sweet salesclerk (who, it turns out, is a human …
My family recently took a weekend trip to the Sierra foothills. While on a walk, my daughter and I saw lots of black-tailed deer, including these guys. I looked up some facts about black-tailed deer. They’re a type of mule deer, which is kind of obvious when you see their really big ears. They live …
I’m starting some new regular features on my blog. Most Wednesdays will be Ooh, That’s Interesting! days. I’ll post some bit of trivia or news or… something that caught my interest. Expect randomness. Diocletian was Emperor of Rome from 245-311 C.E. He was born under very humble circumstances and worked his way up. He eventually …