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Creativity Inside a Supportive Group

Today in writing group, I wrote about how practicing law haunts me. Why the hell do I dream about it every week, every ten days, every two weeks. Never more than a month goes by without a “practicing law” dream. Inside the writing, buried as deep as the pea beneath the hundred stacked mattresses, was the question: what gives you your...

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Best Legal Thrillers

I wrote this legal thriller. Then I wondered, what other legal thrillers are like my legal thriller? I embarked on a reading research campaign. I read—and charted by title, author, and salient features; after all, I’m a former lawyer—twenty-three legal thrillers in about two weeks (I don’t want to exaggerate). I want to share with you...

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New Blog Features 2022

Good and happy 2022. In this new year, I’m making some blog changes. I actually intend to have regular features, which I’ve never done before (I’m an associative person; I follow ideas laterally; I’m very productive but hardly linear.) My news: I’m adding new blog features! New Blog Features The first of the three...

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A Writer’s Work

In the last five days, I’ve:  Approved the final back cover for MODEL FOR DECEPTION, my next and second novel I’ll be releasing, and worked with the graphics person on formatting its content and taming a Table of Contents that, when properly formatted, ran on for 5 pages….sheesh. Finished the final manuscript revisions to THE HART WOMEN, the...

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So, Donald Trump—how’s your mama?

I hate being manipulated. Donald Trump wants a second term as president. So, he’s running his presidency the same way he’s managed his life so far: divide everyone beneath him. He ran his companies that way—pitting each subordinate against the other so advancement depended on the other losing. His current goal: to pit me against you. To...

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Around the World in Love

What do London and San Francisco have in common? They are the top two cities downloading my short stores. Where in Canada—the third highest download site—are listeners downloading the stories? Everywhere but Nova Scotia—Nova Scotia don’t like Cain’t Do Nothing with Love. After France, what’s the next most popular country downloading the stories? Iran Where...

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My Patriotism, Who Knew?

For almost a week now, creeping unbidden into my brain is the image of me early voting. I keep seeing me walking across the voting precinct floor. I pause, touching the arm of the poll worker who is leading me to my machine. He is older, African American, and he pauses too. “I feel like I did when I voted for President Obama,” I tell...

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Dressing Up My Vote

Usually, when I vote, I dress to scare the other voters standing in line. I want them to look at me and think, “Dear God—she’s got the right to vote?” But this morning when I thought about casting my vote to elect our next president, I went back to 1982 when I arrived at Wise Carter law firm in Jackson, Mississippi as a new associate. I’d brought...

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