This fall, PBS is running a program called “The Great American Read.” Earlier this year, they asked 7,000 readers to name their favorite works of fiction. The alphabetical list of 100 (not ranked) was then culled by a panel of…
In real life, I am generally good with time. I meet deadlines. I show up Canadian punctual (ten minutes early) to events. And I am usually aware of the date and time thanks to that job I have at MIT,…
It is a truth universally acknowledged that one when becomes a writer paid (minimally, but paid!) for writing, one chucks all of one’s precious notions about craft and art and motivation out the window that has needed replacing for three…
The crime is elusive. Despite the clues — a character transformation not quite earned, too hasty of a consequence — most of us are quick to dismiss the evidence. A writer is often the last person to realize that a…
People used to ask, “When is your next book due?” and I would laugh, self-consciously, because I didn’t have deadlines. I wasn’t a writer who had contracts or editors waiting for me to produce anything. In those bygone days, I…
When I set out to write a novel inspired by the case of Charles Schmid, the “Pied Piper of Tucson,” I knew from the start that I was not the only writer to find a story in this case.