John A. Heldt

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...

One of the things I like most about blogging is that I can draw attention to persons, places, and things that deserve all the attention th...

Now that I've written The Fire and sent it to the first of several beta readers, I've had the opportunity to devote more time to th...

Perhaps the biggest challenge facing a writer of historical fiction is creating a sense of time and place. How do you write about a time tha...

There is undoubtedly a point where every author stops reading the reviews of his or her works. The reviews become too numerous or, in some c...

Today the winners of the third-annual Indie Reader Discovery Awards were announced. The Mine fell short of an award in the Popular Fiction ...

One of the things I most enjoy about starting a new work of historical fiction is jumping into a time that is not my own. I learned a lot ab...

Today the only grandfather I ever knew would have turned 120. Andy Hoeme was one of those elderly icons every family seems to have: a good-h...

I don't read much non-fiction. I can count the number of non-fiction books I've read in the past decade on one hand. Those I've ...

The Happy Ever After blog at USA TODAY has gone through a few changes since it reviewed The Mine last April 21 . It has a new URL and a n...

John Corey is not the only thing that draws me to the works of Nelson DeMille , but he's the biggest thing. Few characters in contempora...

It's been nearly a year since a reader first suggested that I write a sequel to The Mine . She said, in so many words, that this is a st...

As my daughter Amy made clear to me a year ago, The Mine is a romance novel. The relationship between Joel Smith and Grace Vandenberg is no...

One of the things I most enjoy about the publishing process is picking the cover art. It is the first step in marketing a book and probab...

In keeping with the spirit of the season, I will give away Kindle-friendly copies of The Journey on Christmas Day. The promotion, made poss...

When you are busy marketing your second novel and writing your third, it's easy to forget your first. Fortunately, not everyone has put ...

When I debated when to start writing my third novel, I considered quotes from two great Americans: Thomas Jefferson and Mark Twain. Jefferso...

Today I am pleased to announce the release of my second novel in the Northwest Passage time-travel series. The Journey follows a 48-year-ol...

Like a lot of late Baby Boomers, I grew up on Stephen King . I have read many of his books and seen most of the movies made from these books...

One of the things I most enjoy about the often tedious, time-consuming process of promoting my books is taking questions from bloggers, part...

As a consumer of fiction, I'm pretty bread and butter. I like thrillers and historical fiction. I will occasionally read a romance. I ne...

I am grateful to the many bloggers who have taken the time to read and review The Mine and offer the kind of praise and criticism that inde...

It is inevitable that any author produces a bad read now and then, but with Vince Flynn you have to wonder. Flynn's second prequel in t...

One nice thing about living in a scenic state is that you have ready access to abundant photo opportunities. I made the most of one such ...

When asked as an old man to name the favorite among all of his paintings, Pablo Picasso was as clear as he was diplomatic. "The next on...

Today is the first day of the Sizzling Summer Reads  party at The Romance Reviews blog. More than 400 participating authors and publishers,...

Those of us who know firsthand the challenges of getting a novel published owe a big thank you today to Jessica Park. The New Hampshire woma...

Here's a shout-out to my amazing daughter Amy, a contributor to The Mine , who graduated from high school yesterday as one of several va...

One of the nice things about writing fiction is that you can create events to fit a narrative. Need a snowstorm to disrupt a Fourth of July ...

Author and blogger Elise Marion The Mine today in The Romance Writer's Reads. Elise is the author of My Ex-Wife's Wedding , availab...

Do facts matter in fiction? They do in historical fiction and in instances where anachronisms and inconsistencies can be serious distraction...

Does time travel have a moral and ethical component? It does if you are Joel Smith, the protagonist of  The Mine . Read about his challenges...

"Heldt does a good job of weaving historical events into people's lives, and the reader really gets a feel for who Joel is, as well...