You might recognize the title of this blog post from the musical “My Fair Lady” wherein linguist Henry Higgins laments that the English language was being corrupted by its many dialects. Indeed, George Bernard Shaw, who penned the original play “Pygmalion” on which “My Fair Lady” was based, was supposed to have said, “The English … Read more
Sometimes I think there’s too much information these days. It’s a good thing that it’s at our fingertips, but winnowing out the wheat from the chaff is the hard part. When I started writing to sell some thirty-four years ago, writing historical fiction at the time, I researched what I could. But it was no substitute … Read more
I’ve been immersed in history all my life. My parents were rabid Anglophiles, stuffing our bookshelves with historical novels, works of nonfiction, and having discussions at the dinner table about the British monarchy. I can definitely name more kings and queens of England than American presidents. I had my own literary relationship with Geoffrey Chaucer … Read more
Our haunted vineyard. Bats in me belfry! Halloween. I LOVE Halloween. I count the days until October 31st. What mystery and paranormal writer doesn’t like this particular holiday? Heck, I start my decorating promptly on October 1st, because not only do I like the visions of skeletons and skulls, of black cats and black bats, … Read more
Steampunk seems to be a state of mind, an aesthetic. One person’s steampunk isn’t exactly what the next person pictured. Makes for an uneasy genre to write. Nevertheless, much like porn, you know it when you see it. A lot of folks have wondered what this term means. More commonly, it refers to a subgenre … Read more
I was a mere child when the Beatles hit America, but my sister was three years older (a tween) but she was the one excited about the Beatles and that excitement filtered down to me (baby sister syndrome; always wanted to do what older sister was doing). She bought the Capitol Records when they came … Read more
This originated from “My Book the Movie” guest post on Campaign for the American Reader. THE MISPLACED PHYSICIAN is book #3 in my An Irregular Detective Mystery series, about a former Baker Street Irregular – one of Sherlock Holmes’ hired street urchins, his eyes and ears of London – who aged out of that … Read more
The Bow Street Runners. We tend to think that there was always a police force in every country, but this just isn’t the case. Prior to this, in the Middle Ages, there would be a sheriff (a ‘shire reeve’, a man appointed by the king to serve for a year’s time, without pay, to keep … Read more
In 1903, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle inserted a certain style of fighting into the canon of Sherlock Holmes stories. Unfortunately, he spelled it wrong. It is Bartitsu, but he scribed it as “baritsu”. Bartitsu is a conglomeration of several martial art and self-defense disciplines, developed in England between 1898–1902. It combines the elements of boxing, … Read more
Besides the writing of the world’s best novel, there are a few things to consider before that novel makes it to print. When I spent my years writing novels that didn’t get published, I also spent a lot of time planning what would happen when I finally was. And part of that planning was, of … Read more
Author of Medieval Mysteries, Historicals, and Paranormals