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Writing a novel is fun. But like most writers, to lose myself in a story, I need to be alone. For hours—which zip by like minutes when I’m in the flow. I’m not lonely because I’m with my characters in my head. Depending on the scene, I could be one or two. Or with a…

Nancy Drew books ignited my love of reading as a child, and the moment I discovered The Hidden Staircase is so vividly clear in my memory, I still remember every detail, including the way it made me feel. It was the first day of third grade and my teacher, Mrs. Adams, told us that if we finished…

Crowds of joyful tourists thronged the streets of historic Saint Augustine, Florida on Christmas night, and what fun it was to be part of it all. Strolling along the ancient city’s streets with family, I reveled in the annual Nights of Lights festival, with blocks and blocks of buildings and trees and statues, and every…

I like to think of myself as a goal-oriented person, so every January 1st I dutifully sit myself down and come up with a list of New Year’s Resolutions. That I write down.  Because everybody knows that goals need to be written down in order to count, right? The problem is, as everybody also knows,…

One of the many enjoyable things about writing historical fiction is doing research. For a history buff like me, it’s a fun way to explore other times and places and even more fun when a place that you’re exploring still exists. For me, one of those places is Shriver’s Saltwater Taffy and Fudge on the…

I didn’t have a reservation to get into the Anne Frank House, and that made me sad. I’d always wanted to visit the secret annex in Amsterdam where the Jewish teenager and her family hid from the Nazis before being captured and taken to concentration camps. But the online process for applying for a reservation…

My great grandmother ran a speakeasy in Philadelphia during Prohibition. Her daughter, my paternal grandmother, assisted. My aunt, a teenager at the time, was tasked with delivering food to the prostitutes on the second floor, above the bar. And my dad, as a little boy, had the job of burying the money in the family…

It was cold, gray, and gloomy on Beach Avenue in Cape May, New Jersey on the recent March day I visited. But when Skye Holland meets an intriguing, mysterious stranger on the beach there in July, it will be hot and sunny. It will also be a turning point in her life that she never…

Mercy Montgomery, Luke Owen and the other wagon train pioneers in my historical romance novel, “Mercy’s Way,” stopped at Independence Rock on their way to Oregon Country in 1845. I did in-depth research about the Trail before I wrote my story, and portrayed Independence Rock, and all the other places along the iconic westward route,…

As a lifelong reader and longtime journalist, a part of me secretly always wanted to be a novelist. Finally, one day, I decided why not. Why not write a novel. So, I decided to give it a go. Of course, I quickly discovered it wasn’t that easy. The first thing I needed to do was…