Author: Anne Louise Bannon

Anne Louise Bannon is the author of the Old Los Angeles series, the Operation Quickline series, and the Freddie and Kathy 1920s series. You can find out more about her at her website, or by clicking here, see her last post here, and find her books here. My friends tell me that one of the things I should be proud of as a writer is that I'm prolific. And I'm always afraid that me being prolific is discouraging to my other writing friends. The reason I'm prolific is probably because of my background as a journalist. Daily, or even weekly deadlines do not give…

Nicholas Chiarkas is the author of Weepers. You can find out more about him on his website, www.nickchiarkas.com, or by clicking here, see his last post here, and buy his book here. In May, I had the honor of presenting my 10-step plan for self-editing at the Lakefly Writers’ Conference in Oshkosh, WI. The feedback was positive, and so I thought I would discuss my self-editing process here in this blog. As we all know, a poorly edited manuscript is certain death. However, don't obsess over perfect grammar. In the words of Stephen King, "Language does not always have to…

Anne Louise Bannon is the author of the Old Los Angeles series, the Operation Quickline series, and the Freddie and Kathy 1920s series. You can find out more about her at her website, or by clicking here, see her last post here, and find her books here. Given that most writers work a day job as well as write their novels, it might seem a little odd that writers need a day off from writing here and there. I know I do. But part of that may be that I mostly write and do research full-time. Also, I work on…

Anne Louise Bannon is the author of the Old Los Angeles series, the Operation Quickline series, and the Freddie and Kathy 1920s series. You can find out more about her here, see her books here, and read her last post here. I love the beginning of a new year. There is something about the blank pages of a calendar that fills me with hope. The past two years have been pretty strange, thanks to COVID. But during all that time there have been plenty of ups as well as downs. On the loss side of the ledger, I lost three…

Anne Louise Bannon is the author of the Old Los Angeles series, set in the 1870s. You can read about her here, see her books here, and read her last post here. Sigh. It's time. Folks have been bugging me about book number four in the Old Los Angeles series, so, it's time to get it written. My mother-in-law, in particular, made it clear that she's not getting any younger. I mean, it's seriously cool that my mother-in-law is one of my biggest fans. She does have a point, however. She's not that old, but she is not getting any…

Jeff Nania used to catch bad guys and restore wetlands. Now he writes The Northern Lakes Mystery series. You can find out more about him here, see his books here, and read his last post here. Fairly frequently I get asked where I came up with the characters that appear in my books. That is good news to me because it means someone is reading my books. My characters are the foundation of the tales I tell, and most are people I have come to know.  When I started writing I wrote mostly police reports in my first career and…

Anne Louise Bannon is the author of the Old Los Angeles and Operation Quickline series. You can find out more about her here and read her latest post here. I figure with the holidays coming up, and COVID still rearing its ugly head, it would be nice to write something funny. Or about being funny. The problem is, I'm not very good at being intentionally funny. I can write funny scenes in my stories. Heck, even Death of the Chinese Field Hands, which is possibly the darkest book I've ever written has several scenes that are quite humorous. But sitting…

Anne Louise Bannon is celebrating the release of the third book in her Old Los Angeles series, Death of the Chinese Field Hands. Find out more about Anne here. Smoke outside my house. Yuck I hope that by the time you read this, the sky over my house will be blue and I will be able to open the windows again. You see, I live in Southern California and you may have heard that the entire freaking state is on fire. Well, not the entire state. But one of the bigger fires is burning in the foothills to the northeast…