Fun Stuff

A Taste of Mystery Cookbook. I pulled this cookbook together when I was working on my third mystery. It contains recipes for foods that people eat in Circles of Confusion, Square in the Face, and Heart-Shaped Box. And it's also got some easy dinners for people trying to fit in more time for reading (and maybe even writing) and a cookie recipe that might buy you some time to do that if you have kids.

A Tribute to April's Father, Hank Henry. My dad was a pioneering radio and TV broadcaster (his jacket is even on display in a museum!), fought in World War II, and in general led an interesting life, that, as the child of the Depression, he never talked about much.

Diary of my First Book Tour. Learn the inside story about the glamor (eating while wearing a garbage bag) and drama of going on book tour.

Essay for Amazon: Stealing From Myself to Create A Character. Amazon asked me to write an essay about how I create characters. And then they sent the essay to thousands of people. The woman who asked me to write the essay once won the national spelling bee.

Panties In A Twist. What's it like to work full-time, be a parent, write a book a year, and try to put food on the table and keep trash off the floor? The answer isn't pretty. Now I look back and wonder how I did it.

Vanity License Plates. The Claire Montrose series featured a vanity license plate verifier (there actually are such people!) who makes sure plates don't say anything bad. As a result of writing that series, I amassed a collection of vanity plates.

Heteroynyms. A character in Square in the Face loves heteronyms, just like my old co-worker Bruce did. We started a collection. Heteronyms are words that are spelled the same, pronounced differently and have different meanings. Like slough and slough. One ends in an "uff" sound, the other in an "ow" sound.