Two covers, both alike in dignity…
Life Really Is Too Short
I wrote my latest women’s fiction novel featuring five point-of-view characters–three women and two men–in part for my late sister, Ellen Vartanoff. It’s not the story of her life or anything like that. She died of cancer in 2019 but before that awfulness had the great pleasure of taking a…
It’s Fun to Be in the JL-A
This isn’t really my story. It’s Paty’s story and Dave’s story and Ellen’s story. Paty and Dave as in Cockrum. My sister, Ellen Vartanoff, who had a printed copy in her files. Back in the day, mostly in 1966, I wrote a lot of letters to DC Comics with my…
Temporary Superheroine Goes Hollywood!
Five years in the making! The story YOU demanded! The senses-shattering conclusion you’ve been waiting for! At long last, the third and probably final Temporary Superheroine novel has released. You can buy the ebook right now on Amazon by clicking here. If you prefer to read a paperback, the print…
Why Write About a Ranch?
I visited Wyoming for about a day a long time ago, and I liked the looks of the state. When I decided to write a romance about a rich but entirely too self-confident man, I set it in Wyoming and made him a rancher. In real life, ranches have boundary…
I Wrote a Gothic Romance
And I didn’t even realize it at the time. I worked on the story I now call Second Chance Reunion for many years off and on. I titled it Desert Wind and started with a simple idea. Then after a while it stumped me. When I began writing the story…
The Ranch Master, or Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch
“Meanwhile, back at the ranch,” was a cliché by the mid-twentieth century, and it probably was used for another fifty years previously, the heyday of the American Western. This phrase in the old movie serials switched focus from one scene to another. With Book 4, the Selkirk Family Ranch series…
Using My Real Name as My Author Name
Discussions about pen names versus real names keep coming up. I use my real name, not merely because it is unique in this country, but also because my name has a history in the comics biz. So why not let people who know me learn about my novels? I’ve used…
Defiant Diva, a Different Kind of Romance Heroine
Writing Defiant Diva was a challenge–because the heroine of this romance novel is the villain of the previous book in the Singers in Love series. That’s right. The villain. How could I get into the head of a destructive opera star and make her sympathetic and believable? They say a…
Wishing for the Real Jane Austen
Such is the love modern readers have for Jane Austen’s witty and romantic novels that many authors have dared to write alternate Jane Austen novels, novellas, short stories, and so on. In fact, there has been in recent years a large outpouring of fiction that attempts to satisfy the fantasy…
