I was supposed to take yesterday off. I have been feeling the need for a "Mental Health Day." A day to recharge my drained creative batteries. The plan was to drive to Ohio's Amish Country for lunch with our cousins. Do some shopping. Enjoy a quiet day off-grid.  Then I saw the weather forecast. Ninety-plus degrees combined with high humidity is not a pleasant setting for walking from shop to shop. We postponed our lunch date to a yet-to-be-determined point on the summer calendar. Besides, we have dense smoke from the Canadian wildfires and are under a stage red air quality alert, which occasionally wanders into code purple. It's bad, but I won't complain. How horrible must it be in Canada??? Stay safe, my northern friends. All of this goes to illustrate how plans change. Sometimes the change is sudden and unexpected as when Kensi Kitty became deathly ill just prior to the Pennwriters Conference. My husband was also sick, but less so. I made a quick decision to ca...

I was a teenager when Emergency! first hit the air, and I never missed an episode. My enthusiasm went far beyond having a crush on Johnny Gage AKA Randolph Mantooth. Following the paramedics of LA Fire Station 51 for the next few years sparked a career choice that had a far-reaching impact on my life.  It started with taking a CPR class. Not long after I graduated from high school, I signed up for emergency medical training and eventually became an EMT on my local ambulance service.  Fast forward a few decades. I had retired from that first career and moved on through several others, but I still carried a passion for the adrenaline rush of lights and sirens. I channeled that passion into my writing and created a character named Zoe Chambers, a paramedic on a small-town ambulance service.  Thirteen Zoe Chambers novels later (and a total of 19 novels), here I am, in a place where I doubt I would be had it not been for Emergency! and Randy Mantooth.   I always ho...

Every writer I know has two favorite words.  The End I typed them yesterday. This is the manuscript I have dubbed the Frankenbook. It's a standalone mystery/thriller. At least, in my mind, it's a standalone. I've been working on it for YEARS. Writing. Re-writing. Tearing apart. Copying and pasting.  It's still a hot mess, but it has a beginning, a middle, and THE END.  Today and tomorrow, I will revise a chunk of pages, which I'll send to my critique group on Sunday. Then, I'm putting it aside for a few weeks to focus on a short story I've been asked (strongly encouraged) to write.  The funny thing is, I've no clue what this short story would be about, but within an hour of typing THE END on the Frankenbook, a premise came to me along with a character name and an opening paragraph.   My muse can only deal with one first draft at a time.  

Most years, May is one of my favorite months. Spring is officially (mostly) conquering winter. The trees and grass are green. Flowers are in bloom. Birds are singing. The view from my kitchen window All that is true this year as well, but the first few weeks of May nearly did me in.  First, my husband and I had his-and-hers eye infections. Then, he brought home a wicked, bone-rattling cough. I thought for sure I was going to catch it.  The Pennwriters Conference was coming up. I tried to imagine keeping my roommate awake all night with that cough. Or trying to get through two workshops while trying to catch my breath.  Just when it looked like I might dodge that bullet, something even worse struck. Kensi Kitty, within a matter of hours, went from perfectly healthy to lethargic and refused to eat or drink. She was obviously in distress.  Sad Kensi at the vet's office I took her to the vet almost immediately. Her blood tests and X-rays looked BAD. The vet didn't expect...

I'm home after a fairytale-worthy four days at Malice Domestic in Bethesda, Maryland. No, I did not win the Agatha, but I've truly embraced my eight nominations for the honor they are. And speaking of honors, I absolutely LOVED being the Guest of Honor this year. I will treasure these memories for the rest of my life. The adventure began on Thursday, road tripping with my longtime pal Martha Reed.  There was momentary panic when I posted that picture on Social Media. "Where's Liz???" Dru Ann Love demanded. Liz moved a while back, and for this trip, since Martha is now closer to me and was also Malice-bound, I chose to ride with her. But Liz and I still roomed together. No, the Dynamic Mystery Duo has not broken up. Malice placed me in a lovely suite with a great view.  Thursday evening, I joined the board and the other honorees for a meet-and-greet, but didn't get any photos.  Friday was a busy day, although it didn't begin until later in the day with my A...

How do cats know when their humans are planning to leave them and go on a trip?  Three years ago, on the Sunday (yes, a weekend) prior to Malice Domestic, my beloved fur baby Kensi Kitty had some sort of episode. She gakked and immediately collapsed. I thought it was a stroke and rushed her to the emergency vet clinic. I thought I was going to have to cancel my trip to Bethesda, regardless of the fact that I was nominated for an Agatha. Turned out to be good news (???) and bad news. The good news was that she'd fainted because of a vagal incident caused by throwing up. Not life-threatening, I was assured.  The bad news was that they discovered, during her exam, that she had mild hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy.  In hindsight, this was good news, too, because we caught it. She's been on lisinopril ever since and has been doing well. It does mean I have to stuff a tiny pill down her throat twice a day, but she's remarkably cooperative. For me. When I go on the road,...

I can't believe how fast time is flying. Malice Domestic is little more than two weeks away! How did that happen? I've been so excited for well over a year about being Guest of Honor, and now it's just around the corner!  Yesterday, the cover of the Malice Anthology: Murder Most Senior was revealed, and I adore it.  I'll be taking part in the anthology signing on Friday night, 9:30 p.m. For the rest of my schedule, you can check my Events page on my website.  I confess, I feel like Cinderella in the days before the ball. Just a hard-working writer, plugging along and suddenly having the spotlight cast on me! I have my dress for the banquet. I've been picking up pieces to add to my wardrobe. I have an appointment to get my hair touched up before we leave. What I need to get serious about is putting those new outfits together and beginning to pack. I usually throw everything together the day before I leave, but perhaps not this year.  I have great intentions of post...

I'm currently riding a triple-decker high that is incredibly rare in the world of hard-working writers. Most of the time, the path to publishing is a struggle. We begin by struggling to write a book. Yes, it's fun, communing with those imaginary characters filling our heads. But the part about creating a complete story that entertains not just ourselves, but hopefully readers, is a struggle. We take workshops and webinars. We read craft books by the dozen. We study and try to implement what we've learned. Eventually, if we're lucky and persistent, we're able to type THE END.  Then we struggle to revise and refine our words before struggling to find an agent and/or publisher for the book. Then we struggle to find readers. All the while, we're back struggling to write the NEXT book.  And so on. And so on.  I've been incredibly lucky to have repeatedly made it through all those struggles to reach this high point in my career. As I've already stated, I'm...

I am over-the-moon thrilled to announce that The Devil Comes Calling has been nominated for an Agatha for Best Contemporary Novel. If you're thinking this ever gets old, it doesn't. For the 7th time, receiving the news brought me to tears. Yes, this is my 8th nomination. The first time, I screamed. The poor woman on the phone was probably deaf for at least 24 hours. But after that, I've cried in grateful joy every time.  It's stuff like this that gets me through the current world situation and over a foot of snow outside my door. Thanks to Gabriel Valjean for the second graphic.

Happy New Year! We somehow survived 2025. Now it's time to make a plan for 2026. For me, that means writing. Of course. But it also means getting out to talk to readers and celebrate the new books. Let's start with the BIG event of the year. I'm giddy with excitement about being the 2026 Guest of Honor at Malice Domestic in April. I still have to go to their website and make sure my picture is still there...that I didn't hallucinate the announcement. Part of me can't wait. The other part wants to ease up to the big weekend, savoring every moment, because this is truly a once-in-a-lifetime honor, and I know the actual event will fly by in a flurry of activity. Besides Malice, I have work to do.  In January, I have a couple of in-person book signings for The Devil Comes Calling and No Stone Left Unturned. The first is a joint launch party with my friend, Debut Author Sharon Wenger, at Mystery Lovers Bookshop on Sunday, the 11th.  The second is an informal hang-out-wit...