What is smart?

Guest Blogger: Kathleen George Sometimes a panel—even one you’re on—makes you think about it a whole year later.  That was the case for me long ago, after the 2011 Thrillerfest. Joseph Finder took a lot of abuse for coming up with our panel title, “Can a Thriller Be Both Exciting and …

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Researching the Amish

Guest Blogger: Julie Kramer For my latest thriller, I decided to go Amish. At that time, I didn’t realize that Amish fiction was on an upswing. I just needed another Minnesota-based adventure for Riley Spartz, the reporter/heroine in my series set in the desperate world of  TV news. Minnesota has …

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Fact/Fiction: The beautifully blurry line – in writing, life, and religion

  Guest Blogger: Jon Jefferson, the “writer” half of Jefferson Bass Medieval mystery meets modern murder in Jefferson Bass’s latest Body Farm thriller     Writing THE INQUISITOR’S KEY– a crime novel set in France – required a research trip to Avignon, a walled city in Provence, nestled in a …

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Five Simple Rules for Thriller Writers

Guest Blogger: Kyle Mills After fifteen years making my living as a novelist, I recently had a couple of new and strange experiences. I was happily plugging away at my manuscript for THE IMMORTALISTS when I got a call from the Robert Ludlum estate asking if I’d be interested in …

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A Career

Guest Blogger: Reed Farrel Coleman By the time this blog post appears, my thirteenth (GUN CHURCH, Audible.com) and fourteenth (HURT MACHINE, Tyrus Books) novels will be on the shelves—actual and virtual. Although I don’t get quite as excited by the release of my latest novel or novels, I do still …

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Unlikely Friends

Guest Blogger: Lisa Unger A long time ago I stopped thinking of characters as creations of my imagination, and started to understand that they are more like people who I’ve met along my colorful, complicated, ever-changing fictional journey. They come to me as they are, with their own names, personalities and …

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Cut Off, With Time Running Out

Guest Blogger: Meg Gardiner Thriller writers grumble that in the twenty-first century, it’s tough to create suspense by isolating a character in dangerous circumstances. For decades, authors could easily strand their heroes in a dark alley, or cast them alone onto a deserted shore, and force them to face down …

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Where Do You Not Get Your Ideas?

Guest Blogger: Dan Wells Every writer in the business hears the question: “where do you get your ideas?” Every convention I go to, every bookstore I sign in, every Q&A session of my podcast –it’s everywhere. And every writer has their own answer for it, assuming they don’t just throw …

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Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

Guest Blogger: Gregg Hurwitz The most dreaded question for authors. Because the truth is…we don’t really know ourselves. I suppose it’s like asking anyone where they get their ideas. We mostly have no clue, right? They just sort of show up in our heads. So the where is impossible, methinks, …

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Nick Heller’s Boston

Guest Blogger: Joseph Finder When the time came for me to create a series character, I knew right away that whoever that character might turn out to be, he’d have to be from Boston. Nick Heller, as he turned out, is, like me, an adopted son, rather than a native …

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