Blog Posts

Ann Perry’s Advice to Me: Make True a Major Character — Learning from a bestselling mystery author. (Apr 14, 2023)

Dispatch from the Northeast Kingdom, 3 — Spring is on its way. (Mar 19, 2023)

Lay This Body Down — It’s always a thrill to hold a new book in your hands. (Feb 3, 2023)

Naming Characters in My Mysteries — Names can speak to personality, culture, and history. (Jan 12, 2023)

Great Review for Lay This Body Down — New Gideon Stoltz Mystery on the way. (Dec 9, 2022)

Mystery, Thriller, Crime, or Suspense? — Blurring genres in a mystery. (Nov 16, 2022)

Dispatch from the Northeast Kingdom, 2 — An autumn woods walk, and news about two books. (Oct 12, 2022)

Ananias Davisson, Shape Note Composer and Enslaver — “And am I born to die? To lay this body down?” (Sep 13, 2022)

Reading Through Covid — Feeling sick? Flee to a fictional world. (Aug 16, 2022)

Coming Off the Horse — Unintentional dismounts, fictional and real. (Jul 16, 2022)

On Buying Books — How to be an author’s real friend. (Jun 27, 2022)

Forest Bathing at Alan Seeger — Nature, history, and solace in a special place. (Jun 1, 2022)

Historical Events During an Imagined Life — Politics, wars, pandemics, and more. (Apr 17, 2022)

A New Gideon Stoltz Mystery — Focusing on fugitives from slavery. (Mar 21, 2022)

Conjuring Up a Villain — A mystery’s villain is just as important as its hero. (Feb 7, 2022)

Lewis Miller's Art — “A picturesque looking Glass for the mind.” (Jan 24, 2022)

Pennsylvania's Canal Fever — In the 1830s, canals were all the rage. (Jan 10, 2022)

Dispatch from the Northeast Kingdom, 1 — Why I live in Vermont. (Dec 28, 2021)

A Most Useful Used Book — A Danish tale helped inspire a Pennsylvania mystery. (Dec 13, 2021)

Heroes and Grief — Hero stories offer solace from grief. (Nov 21, 2021)

Eric Sloane, Artist and Resource — When a picture is worth at least a thousand words. (Nov 8, 2021)

Singing in My Mysteries — How people made a joyful noise in the 1800s. (Oct 24, 2021)

Picking the Right Mystery Title — A good title is important, and an epigraph sets the mood. (Oct 11, 2021)

Doctors and Medicine in the Early 1800s — Life expectancy in the 1830s was 45 years. (Sep 27, 2021)

Noah Webster's Word Books — “You may read Pedant in his very phiz.” (Sep 14, 2021)

How Far Can You Ride in a Day? — Horses in the Gideon Stoltz mysteries. (Aug 24, 2021)

Is Second Sight Real? — “Things confusedly seen, and little understood.” (Aug 10, 2021)

When Wolves Eat Wolves — Sayings by plain-seeing, plain-speaking people. (Jul 27, 2021)

Who are the Pennsylvania Dutch? — Why I made Gideon Stoltz Pennsylvania Dutch. (Jul 13, 2021)

Excellent Historical Fiction — Historical novels that inform, inspire, and entertain. (Jun 22, 2021)

Nighthawks are Spooky Birds — Nighthawks, real and imaginary, visit characters in a novel. (Jun 8, 2021)

Getting Knocked Out — When your main character suffers a traumatic brain injury. (May 25, 2021)

Charting a Fictional Place — Maps can help a historical novelist. (May 11, 2021)

Historical Eras in the Early 1800s — Historians have identified these fascinating eras in the early 1800s. (Apr 20, 2021)

Eastern State Penitentiary in the 1830s — Eastern State Penitentiary was a wholly new kind of prison. (Apr 6, 2021)

Writing Nature into the Gideon Stoltz Mysteries — Describing nature to create a strong sense of place. (Mar 16, 2021)

The Real Truth about Murder — Murder is not something to write lightly about. (Feb 14, 2019)

Gideon Stoltz’s America — How people lived in the 1830s. (Feb 6, 2019)