John A. Heldt

I admit the cat’s meows took some of the bloom off the rose. So did the endless construction, the commuter traffic in several cities, and dr...

I admit that my first impression of Helena, Montana, was not a good one. I was approaching the city on Interstate 15, bound for a job interv...

If I remember nothing else, I’ll remember the rooms. I found it impossible this week to walk through the quiet, empty rooms of my Montana ho...

Since taking up novel writing two years ago, I’ve been asked many times to weigh in on the writing process. More often than not, those doing...

For the second consecutive year, I fell short of ultimate success in the Indie Reader Discovery Awards competition. IRDA judges selected Th...

If there is one thing I like about reading classics, it’s that they don’t go away. They remain in libraries, stores, and the minds of reader...

Whether reading, writing, or viewing movies and TV programs, I never tire of exploring the past. I majored in history in college not because...

The questions almost always start with "why." "Why time travel?" "Why the Northwest?" "Why male protagoni...

There is something liberating about ending a series. When you bring a story to an end, you can focus solely on the task at hand and not what...

The thing I like most about researching possible settings for new novels is discovering works I might have otherwise ignored. Isaac's St...

I remember the day like it was yesterday. I clicked a button on a web page in the morning, waited impatiently for several hours, and finally...

If there is one thing I enjoy most about writing historical fiction, it's that it allows me to build a story around actual historical ev...

One of the most enjoyable things about producing novels is enlisting the help of others on jobs that, frankly, should be left to others. And...

An author friend recently asked me if I had any writing goals for 2014. I thought it was an odd question at first. Most authors have at leas...

Two projects months in the making each came to fruition today with the preliminary release of The Mine audiobook and the completion of the ...

One thing I've learned in nearly two years of writing and publishing novels is that you should never let an opportunity slip through you...

There is something both satisfying and sad about bringing a continuing story to a close. The satisfying part goes without saying. Authors ha...

Like a lot of people, I don't read many classics. Classics are books we remember fondly (or maybe not so fondly) from high school -- not...

As I head into the fall and begin to market my fourth novel in earnest, I feel indebted to a group of people who have helped me to get even ...

If there is one thing I've discovered in producing four novels in two years, it's that writing leaves precious little time for readi...

The mountains are calling and I must go. -- John Muir As one who has spent nearly his entire life in the Pacific Northwest, I am no stra...

More than five months of work come to fruition today with the release of The Fire , the sequel to The Journey and the fourth book in the No...