Author: John DeDakis

John DeDakis is the author of the Lark Chadwick mystery-suspense-thriller series. You can find out more about him on his website, www.johndedakis.com and read thumbnails of his books at Blackbird Writers. Jimmy Carter, the man who promised never to lie to the American people, the man who confessed to Playboy magazine that he’d had lust in his heart, the man who brought the term “born again Christian” into the political lexicon, lived an exemplary 100 years. I had the privilege of interviewing the thirty-ninth president when I was with CNN and covered him briefly during his presidency when I was…

John DeDakis is the author of the Lark Chadwick mystery-suspense-thriller series, including Enemies Domestic, which will be released on July 4, 2024 (preorders now available). You can find out more about him on his website, www.johndedakis.com, or by clicking here, read his last post here, and buy his books here. As a freelance manuscript editor, it’s my job to protect the reader from… you—and to protect you, the writer, from yourself. So, for the love of God, please keep your paragraphs short. I mean it. Why? [See? Even a one-word paragraph is okay.] And on. Like it, or not, we…

John DeDakis is the author of the Lark Chadwick series of mystery thrillers. You can find out more about him on his website www.johndedakis.com, or by clicking here, read his last post here, and buy his books here. As I write this, I’m sitting at a makeshift desk (actually, a rickety table) somewhere in the boonies of southern Oregon. I’m 2,843 miles from my home in Baltimore, Maryland. My wife and I drove here. This trip to see our son James is a work in progress. We’re making it up as we go, and still don’t know when we’ll be…

John DeDakis is the author of the Lark Cahdwick series of thrillers. You can find out more about him on his website www.johndedakis.com, or by clicking here, read his last post here, and buy his books here. I’m frequently asked if there’s any one story I covered during my forty-five year career as a journalist that made its way into any of my novels. The short answer is . . . it’s complicated. The stories I’m most proud of were the pieces I did on “media bias” when I was a White House correspondent during the last three years of…

John DeDakis is the author of the Lark Chadwick mystery-suspense-thriller series. You can find out more about him on his website, www.johndedakis.com, or by clicking here, see his last post here, and buy his books here. Writing is like dipping a straw into your subconscious. When you ask yourself “what if?” questions, you stir up the creative juices inside you—all that subterranean psychological stuff that’s been lurking just below the surface for years. The act of writing is like taking a sip—the creativity simply flows through your fingers and onto the page. You experienced writers know what I’m talking about.…

John DeDakis is the author of the Lark Chadwick mystery-suspense-thriller series. You can find out more about him on his website, www.johndedakis.com or by clicking here, and buy his books here. This is his debut post. Wolf Blitzer credits Saddam Hussein for his fame. Wolf had just joined CNN in 1990 as the network’s Pentagon correspondent. But his background was print, not broadcast, so — in a story he tells often — he said to his wife, Lynn, that CNN didn’t feel like a good fit. John DeDakis “Just give it a little more time,” he says she told him.…