“Relax,” said the librarian in the history department at the Los Angeles Public Library. “If you can’t find it, probably no one else can.” Probably. Hmmmmm. Probably doesn’t mean won’t, and knowing my luck, some self-important blowhard is going to find some uber obscure factoid that I missed in my latest historical mystery and work […]

How do you write science fiction or fantasy? Just like any other fiction, it takes two main ingredients, a story, and a setting. One usually pops into the writer’s head before the other, but both are required. Where science fiction and fantasy differ from mainstream fiction is the setting of the story. Which the author […]

Four million books entered the marketplace worldwide last year, and at least some of them entered their path to publication via a query letter, addressed to either a literary agent or a publisher.  A strong query letter can push your manuscript farther up in the slush pile. Considering that agents receive thousands of queries each […]