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Tim Chapman is a former forensic scientist for the Chicago Police Department and is the author of A Trace of Gold and The Blue Silence. You can find out more about him here, see his last post here, and get his books here. A few summers ago, at the Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago, author Clare O’Donohue and I gave a talk about writing sex scenes. It was essentially a conversation in which we shared opinions and read the nasty bits from a few famous novels, as well as our own. To prepare, I perused books that contained well-known…

Sharon Lynn writes short stories which have appeared in numberous anthologies, including her most recent, Final Curtain, which is in the 2020 Malice Domestic anthology, Mystery Most Theatrical. Click here for her latest post. Her books are here, and you can find out more about her here. One year my husband decided to spend two days making bagels to surprisemy daughter and me. It was a Valentine’s Day morning, and we awoke tofresh, heart-shaped bagels in our favorite flavors: salt for ourdaughter, jalapeño for me. Needless to say, the whole endeavor was ahuge hit! So much so, that the poor…

Christine DeSmet is the author of the Fudge Shop Mystery Series set in Door County, and the Mischief in Moonstone Series set in northwest Wisconsin. You can find out more about her here, see her books here, and see her last blog post here. Valentine’s Day candy hearts say “Be mine.”   That’s an implied question:  Will you be mine? It’s akin to Mister Rogers asking: “Won’t you be my neighbor?” Will you be my neighbor?  In writing, authors often begin plotting—and steer our stories and protagonist—with the “Will” question. We call it the story’s “Central Question.” In my forthcoming Fudge Shop…

Valerie Biel writes stories inspired by Celtic mythology in the Circle of Nine series. You can read her latest post here, find out more about her here, and buy her books here. I once read Under the Tuscan sun in Tuscany while basking poolside in the late-summer Italian sun. Corny? Perhaps. But I wasn’t the only one as I spied the same book cover in Swedish on another lounger not far away. (This was some years ago and later in my stay I moved on to the recently-released Fifty Shades of Grey, which I thought I was stealthily reading on…

Joy Ann Ribar is the author of the Deep Lakes Cozy Mystery series, inspired by Wisconsin’s four seasons and friendly quirks. Her most recent post is here. You can find her books here, or more about her here. Janus: Free Images by Drawing Tree Is it too late to say Happy New Year? I think not since it’s still January, the first month in our Gregorian Calendar.  Did you know the first month of the year is named after the Roman god Janus?  Janus was the god of beginnings and endings who had two faces, so he could look back…

Donna Rewolinski is the author of the Novice Mystery series. You can find out more about her here and see her books here. My writing came out of a purely accidental statement. My husband and I share a dream that once retired we will pick a foreign country and rent a home in a small town or village. We will live there for several months and see it as a wonderful way to immerse ourselves in the local culture as well as site seeing. One night my husband, a police detective, was called in on a case and worked all…

Handwriting exeprt and author Sheila Lowe is our latest new Blackbird. You can find out more about her here and see her books here. I made a big decision on Monday. I’m going to self-publish my new book, Dead Letters (#8 in the Claudia Rose psychological suspense series). I’ve been self-pubbing my nonfiction books about handwriting psychology for a couple of years now, but there is something infinitely more daunting about making this choice. It’s something I’ve been waffling over for a few weeks, and I wasn’t entirely sure it was the right thing to do. Then, this happened... Sheila Lowe Yesterday, the day…

We've got another new Blackbird to welcome, Greg Levin, who writes thrillers and neo-noir fiction. You can find out more about him here, and see his books here. I realize it’s mere days before Christmas and thus I should be blogging about something festive and holiday-related, or at least holiday-adjacent. But the pandemic often causes me to lose track of what day or month or decade it is, so you won’t be getting any candy canes or clever Santa references here today. What you will be getting are some (hopefully) helpful and entertaining tips on how to continuously create even…