Suspense
The Rise of “Mom-Noir”
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It was a few weeks in that I realized why I was finding motherhood such a shock to the system. As I leaned over the sink to tearfully rinse…
How to Corral Your Nightmares for Use in Your Next Novel
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Will robots dream of us in the same way that we dream about them? They say that AI can “hallucinate”, right? Hadn’t Philip K. Dick warned us about all…
Alexis Soloski on Theater, Criticism, and the Mystery of Performance
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Vivian Parry, the main character of Alexis Soloski’s Here in the Dark, is a perceptive theater critic for a New York magazine. She’s tough on hammy actors, but even…
Crafting Creepy Crime Fiction in the Danish Countryside
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So there you are, sitting in a cozy café in Odense, the hometown of the great fairytale writer Hans Christian Andersen, enjoying a flaky Danish pastry and a strong…
Travel Thrillers That Will Make You Reconsider Your Vacation Plans
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If you’d told me thirty-one years ago that the Los Angeles backpacking hostel I was living in would one day become the centerpiece of a bestselling thriller—written be me—I…
What Makes a Novel Unique? On Retellings and Plagiarism
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My latest novel, The Fiction Writer, is a modern-day gothic mystery that explore the boundaries of creative freedom. It asks questions about writing and ownership and who owns the…
Fictional Versus Real Settings: A Writer’s Dilemma
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Every story has to start somewhere. And be somewhere. Take Dennis Lehane’s 2003 novel, Mystic River. Its setting is so pivotal to the plot that you can find it…