My mother’s father, Howard Baugh, came from a family of long-Americanized Germans. It never occurred to me that not everyone’s family ate pickles in everything from potato and egg salad to lunchmeat. (Don’t get me started on pickle/pimento loaf!) Beer was the grown-ups’ adult beverage of choice–though I confess I never saw any of my …Read More

DAUGHTER   Run, daughter, run. I cast no blame, my darling girl. The blood that stains our rough-hewn floor will bear no witness: my own deceit has brought me thus. Your hand your tender hand was just its agent. Run, daughter, run. While you slept in another’s womb, I spun the golden thread to bind …Read More

(Be sure to read to the end of this post for a fun, not-so-spooky, time-sensitive surprise, okay?) It’s October. Let’s talk scary. There are so many late-20th century horror novels I count as influences on my work, I could spend all day nattering on about them. When I was a young teen, horror novels put …Read More

Is it just me, or is the cover of BLISS HOUSE just breathtaking? The novel won’t be released until June 15th of next year, but this image feels so incredibly right that I feel comfortable with it already. It’s a good thing I don’t have to create my own book covers. Between my traditionally published …Read More

(photo by Kermit Moore) I am a big fan of traditions. Not just of big holiday traditions like serving turkey at Thanksgiving (along with cornbread dressing and scalloped oysters and homemade rolls and a little cranberry sauce to cut the carbohydrates), hiding Easter baskets for my kids, and crafting handmade Valentines for my darlings on …Read More

I had no idea what to expect when I picked this up in audio from the library. I read a few of Harold Robbins’ more commercial, salacious novels from the late seventies, yet hadn’t thought of him in years. Part of the reason why I wanted to look at Robbins again concerned those books: One …Read More

I’m not terribly fond of blackberries. Their texture is too complex, their flavor unpredictable. When I was very young, I often confused them with raspberries because we rarely had either in our house. In Southern Illinois, where I live now, I don’t know that anyone grows them for sale. Really, there shouldn’t be any need …Read More

I am not a snake person. Don’t like them. Don’t want them around. A few days ago I opened the garage door and spied–peeking from behind the new power washer I’ve yet to use on our deck–a 3-foot Black Snake. I didn’t run away screaming, but it thoroughly unnerved me in that ancient part of …Read More

In no particular order of fun. It was all good, as they say.

Gothic is an interesting word. You know who the Visigoths were: those unsophisticated, crusty and crude pre-Germanic types who swooped down on the slothful, stuttering remains of the Roman Empire in the fourth century and gobbled them up. They were fairly illiterate victors, so they’ve gotten a bad rap in history. (Pardon me if I’m a …Read More