Day 1, Saturday, on the Celebrity Constellation There’s nothing like the exhilaration you feel when sailing away from land and knowing you are escaping reality for a week or more. We set sail from Fort Lauderdale for a ten day cruise on the Celebrity Constellation. Here is my shaky video of the sail-away: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w59F9y5T97s] … Read more
Happy Thanksgiving to all my online friends. I am thankful for your follows and comments throughout the year. Your feedback and support are immensely important to me, and I just want to take this time to let you know how very much I appreciate each one of you. Here is wishing you and yours a … Read more
Maryglenn McCombs, book publicist, spoke at the recent Florida Chapter of MWA meeting. These are my notes from her speech. “Publishers are looking for authors who have platforms.” How do you get one? Join professional writers’ groups and get involved. Besides the Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, Maryglenn mentioned Crime Writers Association … Read more
You can’t complete a full-length novel without a strict code of self-discipline. Imagine all the distractions we have throughout the day. How can a writer put these aside to focus intently on a book? How can we face a blank page each day, knowing we have to fill in the words? How can we concentrate … Read more
Florida Romance Writers Fun in the Sun Conference Featuring Keynote Speaker NYT Bestselling Author, Carla Neggers, with Special Guest Speaker, Dr. Debra Holland, Bestselling Indie Author DATE: Saturday, January 16, 2016 TIME: 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM PLACE: Broward County Main Library, 100 S. Andrews Ave., 6th Floor, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301 Editors & Agents: … Read more
Located in downtown Bradenton, Florida, the South Florida History Museum offers two levels of exhibits. Short on time, we bypassed the Bishop Planetarium which is included in the admission price ($19 adults, $17 seniors). Our first stop was the Parker Manatee Aquarium, where a guide demonstrated the qualities of several manatees under their care. These … Read more
I was invited to give a talk for the Manatee Arts and Lecture Series in Bradenton, Florida, followed by a high tea, on Wednesday, October 21. https://youtu.be/_hRX_Pt18LY We arrived the day before at this surprisingly large town on Florida’s west coast just north of Sarasota. After crossing a bridge spanning the Manatee River on Business … Read more
We had a great time as usual at our annual excursion to Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival. As it’s their twentieth year anniversary, I bought the hardcover cookbook. Here’s the cranberry bog, back again. Here is what we tasted this year. Scotland: Potato Pancake with Smoked Salmon $4.25 (my favorite!) Dominican Republic: … Read more
Coming home from Bouchercon, we took the western route as I-95 hadn’t fully reopened after the flooding in South Carolina. This gave us some lovely hilly vistas before we descended to the lowlands with their cotton fields and other crops. I got to shop for pecans along route I-75. I use pecan meal to … Read more
Saturday at Bouchercon 2015 began with the New Author Breakfast. Anyone could attend, but each table ideally held one or two debut authors with a centerpiece of books. The authors were introduced one at a time, and each had a few minutes to tell us about his book. A list was provided on each table … Read more