Tag Archives: writing

My love-hate – mostly hate – relationship with alerts and notifications (disclaimer: not my phone pictured here)

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If I’m ever swept away by a tornado, you can blame the authorities in Tennessee.

I appreciate that I can get notifications on my phone. They’re often helpful. I just wish I could choose when I want them to be helpful.

Notifications – letting us know we’ve got a text message or a new email or if bad weather is on the way or a public figure has kicked the bucket – are a way of life for many of us now, and I’m not going to disable all my notifications – which are called “push alerts” by many newspapers, or just a “push” – because they can be useful.

These thoughts are occasioned by a couple of obnoxious instances of push alerts or notifications in the past couple of days, some of these of the health app variety. Yes, thank you, phone, for letting me know my trend in walking has changed lately. Did you happen to notice how rainy it was? And yes, thank you, other health app, for waking me up in the middle of the night to let me know of something that might otherwise have let me croak deep in peaceful slumber.

Part of my hate for pushes is that I’m obsessive enough to not only swipe them off my screen but actually go to my email inbox to delete the email that generated the push or, gasp, read it and even possibly respond.

(Don’t think we don’t understand that the Push Alert Industrial Complex is conspiring with our phone manufacturers to ensure we spend more time on our devices. It’s true. I read about it on the internet.)

Anyway, I’ve gradually over time changed my phone settings to end most push alerts from the authorities, who seem to abuse the tool.

The final push alert that broke the camel’s back was one recently that alerted me of a fatal shooting in Memphis, which is five hours and 47 minutes from me. Needless to say, this 2 or 3 a.m. push alert was not from a news outlet. It was from a state-run agency. I won’t comment on why this push was sent out but not why other fatal shootings are not sent out. You can guess.

So here I am, because the state insists on alerting me to things happening six hours away, perhaps expecting me to run down to the street at 3 a.m. and scan passing vehicles for the suspect, without any means of being woken in case of forest fire or flood or tornado or hurricane.

If I die, it’s on you, state officials.

Blurbs about my novel SEVEN ANGELS: Claire Booth

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Screenshot

I’m posting some blurbs I’ve received from authors who read my new crime novel SEVEN ANGELS and were kind enough to give me a blurb to use in promoting the book.

We at Constellate Publishing will publish SEVEN ANGELS on June 1. It’s available for pre-order through all the usual outlets now.

I asked a few authors I know if they’d read the book and, providing they didn’t hate it, give me a blurb.

Claire’s blurb, as seen above, suggests the background she and I have in common: journalism. I was a newspaper reporter and editor in Indiana before I started writing fiction. Claire’s reporting experience was all over the United States.

I met Claire at Bouchercon in Nashville in 2024. She was the moderator of a panel I served on about true crime writing. It was a great group and I was really pleased to get to check in with Claire again at Bcon in New Orleans in 2025.

Sometime after that point, I asked if she’d read SEVEN ANGELS and she did and gave me that wonderful blurb. I was somewhat surprised she had time because she’s incredibly busy and prolific and her book history demonstrates that.

Here’s how to know more about Claire:

https://clairebooth.com/

It comes and it goes and it comes around again

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My morning began with a rejection but ended up with signing a short story contract, all threaded through writing some totally separate piece of work.

Man, every day is a little game of expectations versus reality for all of us, but that’s especially evident for writers.

The rejection email, as these things go, was from an editor and fiction outlet I haven’t tried before. It was direct and to the point but also gracious, saying a couple of nice things about the story I’d submitted and they’d rejected. Much better than a form rejection – I got one of those just a while back – and even thanked me for my support of them on social media, which will absolutely continue.

This rejection stung, man. It was for a story I wrote for an earlier anthology call for submissions and honestly, I really like this story. It’s not my typical crime-wimey story. It was, dare I say it, hearfelt.

But I’ll submit it again somewhere and I’m sure I’ll submit something else to the humane editor who rejected this particular story this particular morning,

So i got back to work. I’m close, very close, to finishing a 5,000-word short story to sub to an anthology/collection that I really want to be included in. I’ve got a few more words to write.

Then I signed a contract for the anthology you see above, DAYDREAM BELIEVER: CRIME STORIES INSPIRED BY THE MUSIC OF THE MONKEES. The anthology comes out this fall and has some wonderful writers in it and I’m happy that editors Shelley and Larry chose my story to include.

Then I got back to working on that 5,000-worder. And I wrote this.

(I’m thinking about having a snack later, if you need that much insight into my day,)

All of this could be filed under the life in a day of a writer. Or maybe managing expectations. Or dealing with rejections and successes.

To writers and other people: Push on. The only way out is through.

A cold case father died without justice for his son

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It’s been two years now since Calletano Cisneros died. A lot of people won’t know who he was, but he made a big impression on me. I interviewed him for our fourth true crime book, COLD CASE MUNCIE, which was published by History Press in 2023.

For those of you who don’t know, longtime writing collaborator Douglas Walker and I wrote about cold cases – unsolved murders – in the area of Muncie, Indiana for a few decades for The Star Press newspaper. This entailed going over old cases, some of them dating back decades and some of more recent vintage, and reviewing the facts, looking at old files and articles and often interviewing police investigators, prosecutors, coroners and, most importantly, surviving family members. Cold cases have an impact on all of those people but especially, of course, on surviving family members.

Sebastian Cisneros – that’s him in the upper right photo of the book cover above – was killed in April 2009 in Muncie, which is marred by dozens of unsolved murders. Sebastian Cisneros was killed outside his house on Ribble Avenue in Muncie.

We wrote about the case at the time and wrote about it as a chapter of the Cold Case Muncie book because it was a compelling story, made all the more so because I interviewed his father, 75-year-old Calletano Cisneros. When we spoke via long distance – he lived in Texas – he volunteered something that I hadn’t known when I called him: He himself had killed a man in a bar fight when he was 17 and had spent 10 years in prison before he was released by the governor. He’d lived with that past for a half-century and had, in the past several years, lived with the murder of his own son.

Calletano Cisneros told me he wanted justice for his son and wanted his son’s killer to be tried and sentenced to prison just as he had been more than 50 years earlier.

“I did my time. I’d like to see the same justice done in my son’s case.”

Calletano Cisneros didn’t live to see justice for his son. He died in January 2024.

Cold cases are cases that often don’t see justice done.

You can read about the Sebatian Cisneros case in our third true crime book:

I come here not to bury the mass market paperback, but to praise it

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This is sad news. Not nearly as sad or despairing as much of what we see in the news in recent years, but sad nonetheless.

The mass market paperback is dead.

This might not surprise some of you who react, “Yeah, I know, I haven’t seen one in a bookstore in a while,” or “What is a mass market paperback?” For those young enough that they don”t remember the mass market paperback, I’m fearful you’re reading this past your bedtime.

Publishers Weekly likely broke the news to most of us who remember mass market paperbacks – I’m going to refer to them as just paperbacks pretty soon now, for expediency’s sake – in a December article that noted that the ReaderLink company said it would no longer distribute mass market paperbacks. The format’s share of the market had dropped dramatically over the past couple of decades as larger-format paperbacks, sometimes referred to as trade paperbacks, and ebooks had usurped the market that had been dominated for many decades by mass market paperbacks.

Paperbacks had been the format of choice for much of the 20th century. They were less expensive than hardbacks but more cheaply made and thus less durable. But they had an ease of use, a convenience and an aura that were hugely appealing to most of us who were buying books in the last few decades of the past century. In 1966, the Beatles released a single, “Paperback Writer,” that ironically but lovingly paid tribute to the format. You didn’t hear the Beatles singing about their desire to be a hardcover writer, did you? No you did not.

As many know, paperbacks – measuring about 4 inches by 7 inches, just the size to fit in a pocket so you could always have a book at hand – were introduced before mid-century but might have become the hottest book trend ever in the 1940s and 1950s, continuing that hot streak into the 1960s and 1970s.

Paperbacks went to our workplaces, where they were handy to read on our lunch hour. They went on our commutes, where they occupied many a train and bus rider. They went to school and war in backpacks and pockets. They went everywhere, in part because of their convenient size and in part because they were so incredibly inexpensive to buy. I just looked at one of my oldest and most rare paperbacks this morning, a copy of Harlan Elliison’s “Rockabilly” from 1961. The cover price was 35 cents.

The vast majority of paperbacks I bought in the late 1960s and 1970s were priced at 65 cents, 75 cents, 95 cents. Paperbacks I bought into the 1990s were still only a few dollars, inexpensive compared to hardcovers and large-format trade paperbacks that, in my buying experience, were confined to scholarly or pop-culture works about movies, TV shows and comic books. At least that’s what still fills my bookshelves. I recently noted my copy of “The Marx Brothers at the Movies,” a 1975 Berkley trade paperback of a 1968 hardcover original, cost me just $3.95.

I have hundreds of books. Some are of recent vintage but the majority date from the 1960s to the 1990s. Among people my age, that’s probably not uncommon. Paperbacks entertained and informed us. Some of my favorites are early Stephen King novels and short story collections, the work of Robert A Heinlein and Ray Bradbury and Dean Koontz.

And I wasn’t alone. Publishers Weekly says 387 million mass market paperbacks were sold in 1979, compared to 82 million hardcovers and 59 million trade paperbacks. The 1975 movie tie-in of Peter Benchley’s “Jaws” sold 11 million copies in its first six months

Publishers Weekly notes that the paperback began losing its share of the market with the growing popularity of trade paperbacks and ebooks, the latter of which boomed in the early 2000s. And of course the shrinking number of bookstores – a trend which has, happily, reversed course – further eroded paperback sales.

Folks who’ve read this site before know I’m a fan of bookstores, especially used bookstores, and they’ll forever be a place to find books in all formats, including the once-beloved paperback, also known as the mass market paperback.

That’s where you’ll find me, looking to recapture a little of a past that’s quickly disappearing.

Filling the void in indie publishing? Is that possible?

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I won’t pretend to sum up the weird state of small publishing here. If you’re been following the world of indie and small publishing, you know that 2025 has seen some small imprints go out of business – in some cases leaving authors unpaid – and others purport to try to fill that void.

I’m not sure that Constellate Creatives’ publishing arm, Constellate Publishing, the enterprise I’m affiliated with, will fill that void. For one thing, we can’t be all things to all people.

But as we started Constellate’s venture into editing – developmental editing and copy editing — and publishing and marketing a few months ago, it became obvious that somebody needed to be around to step in and catch a few worthy projects. Or maybe juggle chainsaws.

It’s making for a 2026 I’m really excited about. Constellate Publishing will publish my novel SEVEN ANGELS but there’s a diverse lineup of books on tap for the first two quarters of 2026, including a book of mindful self-help, a book of poetry, my novel and two by Jill Blocker, a reissue of her WHAT WAS BEAUTIFUL AND GOOD and her new novel, HAPPILY AFTER EVER. The latter is what’s increasingly termed a “new adult” book and will appeal to readers post-YA in their reading interests.

I’m proud to have noticed that every book besides mine is written by a woman and even mine has a cast of woman as protagonists.

And note the slide I’ve posted above: Constellate Creatives is offering editing, publishing and marketing services, or some combination of those, and at socially-responsible fees based on the regional wage in each writer’s local economy.

Some of us love to edit copy and help with developing your work. Others (raises hand) love marketing. Yes, I’m weird like that. We can’t promise that PR about your book will land on large market-share sites like KTLA, where our news release announcing our slate for the first half of 2026, was picked up. But we’ll be pitching your work and you won’t have to deal with the dreaded marketing.

There’s a button somewhere on the CC site that will lead you to a free consultation. We might be able to answer some questions for you.

https://constellatecreatives.com/

Constellate Creatives Publishing gets a shiny new logo and shiny new projects

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It’s a work in progress, but aren’t we all?

Y’all know by now, if you care to, that I’m working with my friends at Constellate Creatives. We’ll be helping writers with editing (both developmental and copy editing) book design, cover design, marketing and publicity for their books.

The boss at CC came up with the CP logo above, which stands for Constellate Publishing.

We’ve got a bunch of stuff in the works and best of all we’ve got a few books in the pipeline for 2026, when we really gear up. They’re a diverse lot, too.

Here’s a link if you want to know more about Constellate Creatives. There’s a button on the site for more info (services with a foundation of socially responsible pricing based on regional wage numbers), including free consultation.

And I’ll tell you more over the next few weeks.

https://constellatecreatives.com/

If you write, you’re a writer … and maybe you could use a boost

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It’s been observed by smarter people than me that writing can be a daunting profession and avocation because of the isolation inherent in sitting at a desk all day, typing on your laptop or making notes in your journal.

It can be a challenge, and I’m not talking about writer’s block, although there is that, too.

The bigger challenge can be the feeling of working in a vacuum, the feeling that you’re writing and writing and rewriting and aren’t sure if you’re getting where you want to be with your story, your article or your book.

I’m known to say, “If you write, you’re a writer.” It doesn’t matter if you’ve been published or not, if you’ve had short stories or books published, to great acclaim or total *cricket noise.*

Cause I believe if you’re writing, or making notes, or thinking about writing and sending yourself ideas in texts and emails … well, you’re writing.

Sometimes you need a boost. I know I do. I’m lucky to have writer friends who read my stuff, from flash fiction to novels, and tell me what they think. I’m lucky to provide the same kind of support for my writer friends.

So a small group of us are now offering a boost to writers, no matter what stage they’re in.

I joined up with Constellate Creatives a while back and just the other day announced my affiliation with CC, which is owned and overseen by longtime friends of mine who are writers but also know other aspects of the writing life, from editing (developmental and copy editing) to publishing to marketing and everything in between.

Our goal is to help writers.

There’s a contact button on the Constellate Creatives site that I’m linking to below.

And I’ll tell you more in the weeks and months ahead.

The image above isn’t the Constellate Creatives logo. It’s an image from the 1960s spy TV series “The Girl from UNCLE.” But it’s a pretty nifty bit of art and sort of communicates the international foundation of Constellate.

More info:

https://constellatecreatives.com/

My world and welcome to it: Seven Angels and Middletown, my fictional places

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When my short story “A Fighting Life” was published in the past couple of weeks in the FIGHTING WORDS anthology, it contained the latest reference to the fiction worlds I operate in.

Since I wrote four or five novels back in the early 2000s – books that’ll probably never be seen, unless radically rewritten with what I’ve learned about writing in the meantime – I’ve enjoyed writing in a universe where, despite some timey-wimey variations, most of my characters and storylines play out in a shared world mostly consisting of the small city of Middletown, Indiana – based on my hometown of Muncie, Indiana, which was referred to in 20th century sociological studies as Middletown – and Seven Angels, a Tennessee town based on Jamestown, the small town my parents came from.

The early 2000s books featured Jack Richmond, a Middletown newspaper reporter, and a group of friends including Jess Peterson, an affable cop on the Middletown police force. There are lots of other characters too, including Luna, a topless dancer Jack falls in love with. By the end of the series of books, the two are married and have a son, Cody, and the final, still-to-be-completed book features Jack and Peterson’s desperate efforts to get Cody back after Luna’s ex brutally assaults her and kidnaps the boy.

When I wrote SEVEN ANGELS in 2019, my first crack at writing a novel in 15 years or more, I set it in the titular small Tennessee town with a side trip to Middletown and a pivotal appearance by Peterson.

My next novel, the also unpubished GHOST SHOW, is set in Middletown, but in 1948 and follows the Anderson family, who came to the big industrial town from the small Tennessee town of Seven Angels. No crossover characters, though.

My third novel, THAT OCTOBER, which was just published in June 2025, is set in 1984 Middletown and includes, among secondary characters, Richmond and Peterson at the beginning of their newspaper and police careers, respectively.

I won’t detail it all here, but I’ve returned to the Middletown and Seven Angels wells numerous times in short stories. The foul-mouthed, fightin’ siblings in “A Fighting Life” are pulled from GHOST SHOW. My very first published short story, “Independence” from the MOTEL anthology, is set in little Seven Angels, complete with the sheriff/main bad guy from the SEVEN ANGELS novel.

The seeding of characters from my earlier stories – like Butcher Crabtree, who I posted about here recently – throughout my fiction just goes on and on.

And so do I. To quote one of my (hopefully) self-deprecating quotes, “Enough about me. What do you think of me?”

The most famous shirt at Bouchercon

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At some point I’ll write a little bit about Bouchercon, held last week (as of this writing) in New Orleans. Many of you know this is the annual worldwide convention/conference of crime writers and readers. This was my second Bouchercon and they’re a lot of fun because they’re a chance for writers like me and many much more accomplished to meet with other writers and readers.

I’ll write more about Bouchercon in the coming days, or I intend to, but a quick anecdote:

On Saturday, I was one of the authors at the debut authors’ breakfast at Bouchercon. The annual event was sponsored by Lee (“Reacher”) Child and his brother Andrew, who now writers most of the Reacher books. Another sponsor is Michael Connelly, creator of Harry Bosch and Renee Ballard and other great crime fiction characters.

Connelly also kindly hosted the breakfast.

At some point I’ll tell you how I had a quick breakfast with Connelly, but today I’ll talk about the shirt you see me wearing in the photo above.

In the photo, I’m wearing a colorful shirt with pink flamingoes and other images and it’s pretty memorable. This was the photo of me that I submitted weeks or months ago for them to use in the program book for the breakfast.

This was also the shirt I managed to wear that day to the breakfast.

I realized this only after I’m sitting at the table and about to be introduced by Connelly to speak for one minute about myself and my book, THAT OCTOBER.

So, in the interest of transparency, I opened my one minute of remarks by noting the coincidence.

“If you notice, in the our program book, I’m wearing a particular shirt and I’m wearing it today as well.

“You could assume from that that I apparently have a favorite shirt.”

I went on to talk about my book briefly but the line about my favorite shirt got a good laugh.

And I had people come up to me afterward and later in the day remarking, “Your favorite shirt!”

And it apparently is.