John A. Heldt

One of the things I like most about this time of year is that people and organizations focus more on disparities in society and the needs of...

Fifty-five days after telling others I would not begin writing the fifth American Journey book until January 1, I have finished its first dr...

There is nothing like bringing a series to an end to focus the mind. Authors pay more attention to details and getting it right because they...

I am not a fast reader. I almost never finish a book before it’s due at the library and usually max out my renewals before bringing it back....

Like a lot of people, I love time travel. I’ve written nine time-travel novels and read or watched everything from A Sound of Thunder , Time...

I don’t watch a lot of movies these days. One reason is that I don’t take the time to watch them. Another is that I don’t find current offer...

In every series there is usually one novel the author looks forward to writing the most. For some, it’s the first book, the one that sets th...

She is usually the first person I consult on writing matters and the contributor I trust the most. She is the person most likely to recogniz...

It took seven weeks, a lot of sweat, and some swearing at the cat (just kidding), but I finally got it done. The first draft of Class of ’59...

Those who know me well know that I rarely keep my word when I say I will take a long break between books. The temptation to jump into the ne...

There’s a reason Sandra Brown , author of more than 50 New York Times bestsellers, is still going strong 35 years after publishing her firs...

As a reader for the past couple of years, I have really been a listener. More often than not, I have selected audiobooks over print and digi...

One of the things I enjoy most about writing time-travel novels set in twentieth-century America is learning about the people, customs, and ...

If there is one thing I’ve learned in four years as an indie author, it’s that people like certain things in the books they read. They like ...

As one who came of age in the early 1980s, I remember what writing was like before Microsoft Word, spell check, and the Internet. I remember...

When it comes to movies and books, I’m not a first-run or first-edition kind of guy. I will almost always wait until the works are inexpensi...

According to a saying popularized by newspapers, a picture is worth a thousand words. It can say things that even a hundred words cannot. It...

I barely remember the first time I read Of Mice and Men . It was one of those classics I read in school because I had to. As a teen in the 1...

Near the end of The Nightingale , a novel by Kristin Hannah , the protagonist, an old woman, makes an observation in 1995. Looking back at h...

I didn’t quite match the frenetic pace of some in the NaNoWriMo crowd. It took me five weeks to write fifty thousand words and eight to wri...

There are days I think Nora Roberts isn’t real. No one, I am convinced, could write 214 books, including 195 New York Times bestsellers, e...

I like the Christmas season. I like the music, the lights, the festive spirit, and, of course, the holiday itself. No other time of the year...

As a reader, I am not easily impressed. I have read more than 500 books and wouldn’t consider more than 30 great works of literature. Every ...

If there is one American holiday that never seems to get its due, it is Veterans Day. Lost in the maze between Halloween and Christmas, it i...

If there was one event that dictated the primary setting of Mercer Street , released last week, it was a radio broadcast that was supposed t...

I admit I resisted writing this book. Even as one who had written six novels set in the twentieth century, I resisted writing about the 1930...

It’s been a while since I’ve seen Back to the Future Part II . Maybe twenty years, in fact. But today, the movie is fresh in my mind, if not...

Of the six time-travel novels I have published in three and a half years, The Journey is perhaps the least like the rest. It is easily my s...

I never tire of reading Nelson DeMille . There is no one in the business who combines suspense and humor as well as the New York novelist, w...

As a sports fan, I generally root for the underdog. If my favorite team is not playing in a game or in the hunt for a playoff spot, I side w...

One of the first things I learned as a self-published author three years ago was that I was more than an author. I was a businessman who had...

As I noted in a review of Timothy Egan’s The Big Burn more than two years ago, I don’t read many non-fiction books. And, when I do, I tend ...

When you write historical fiction, you are immediately confronted with at least two challenges. The first is to describe a time. The second ...

I admit I’m not very good at keeping track of these things. Had I not seen an obscure Internet reference yesterday, I would have never known...

Of all the rules Stephen King has laid down for writers, none gets my attention like this one: "You have three months." That’...

Oxford defines writer’s block as "the condition of being unable to think of what to write or how to proceed with writing." It ...

There was a time when I went through James Patterson novels like some people go through newspapers. In a stretch of five years, I read thir...

I have sought its assistance when writing every book. When preparing The Mine and The Mirror , I asked it for information on the peacetim...

To say that Ken Follett is one of my favorite authors is a serious understatement. I have read eighteen of his novels, including four of hi...

E.L. Doctorow once said, “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whol...