John A. Heldt

Time-travel extraordinaire

Sunday, November 1, 2020

Writing the second draft

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The first draft is the easy one. It's the rough, unpolished blob a writer pushes out in a manic frenzy. It's the tentative opening a...
Sunday, October 11, 2020

Review: North and South

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The questions from readers usually begin with why. Why so many characters in your books? Why so many points of view? Why so many settings an...
Saturday, September 5, 2020

The best tools in the box

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Artists, it is said, are only as good as their tools. With good ones, they can soar. With bad ones, they can't leave the ground. Write...
Sunday, August 9, 2020

Next stop: The Jazz Age

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For years, I've had a fascination with the 1920s. I don't know if it began when I read The Great Gatsby , watched people dance the C...
Wednesday, July 1, 2020

A Fair setting for a sequel

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When it comes to selecting settings, I am a creature of habit. I usually pick the time and place of a novel weeks, if not months, in advance...
Thursday, June 25, 2020

Finding history in Virginia City

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Even now, I can rattle off the names like days of the week: Wallace. Galveston. Princeton. Evansville. Gulf Shores. Chattanooga. Flagstaff. ...
Sunday, June 7, 2020

Creating covers by committee

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According to an old proverb, too many cooks spoil the broth. While that may be true with some things, I have not found it to be true when ar...
Thursday, May 14, 2020

Writing around the future

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I have been in this position before. When writing Mercer Street in 2015, I had to contend with the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs, you may recall...
Wednesday, April 8, 2020

Noticing the world around us

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Since joining the ranks of the sheltered in place, I have noticed the little things. Clean air. Quiet streets. Fewer planes in the sky. The ...
Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Coping with the coronavirus

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Let me say first, I feel fortunate. Unlike many who are struggling in these desperate times, my wife and I have the resources to weather the...
Monday, March 2, 2020

Review: Outlander (TV series)

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For someone obsessed with time travel, I took my time getting around to the gold standard of the genre. I didn't read Outlander , publis...
Saturday, February 29, 2020

Driving in a familiar Lane

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I admit I considered another course. After writing the Carson Chronicles, an exhaustive five-book set, I was ready for a change. But as I ...
Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Review: Where Crawdads Sing

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Like others, I suspect, I put this one off. I prefer other genres and wasn't eager to jump into a long novel when I was in the middle of...
Saturday, February 1, 2020

Taking a second look at history

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The row houses of F Street were more colorful and ornate. Ford's Theatre had a smaller lobby and a bigger stage. Even the forests of Nor...
Thursday, January 2, 2020

Doable goals for a new year

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New Year’s resolutions, according to a popular saying, are a bit like babies. They’re fun to make but extremely difficult to maintain. Thoug...
Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Getting (another) early start

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Those who know me best know how to process the pledge. When I say I won't start a new book for eight to twelve weeks, they know they can...
2 comments:
Friday, November 1, 2019

Revisiting a time of conflict

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If there is one thing I like about researching a new book, it is learning about people, places, and times I have never met or experienced. I...
2 comments:
Monday, October 7, 2019

Sweating the small stuff

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As one who has written fifteen novels that blend both fact and fiction, I know firsthand the importance of getting it right. Writing about t...
Sunday, October 6, 2019

A review, guest post, and more

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Camp Lake makes its first big media splash this morning at the Reading Cafe . The Canadian blog, which has reviewed all but one of my fifte...
Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Saying goodbye to a series

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I admit I miss the characters already. Even though the proverbial ink has not yet dried on the Carson Chronicles series, I miss the fiction...
Friday, September 6, 2019

Audio, sales, and new releases

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Some important updates . . . For the fourth time in three years, I will work with talented actor and voice-over artist Allyson Voller on ...
Sunday, September 1, 2019

For writers, advice is abundant

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In On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft , Stephen King advises fellow scribes to "Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open....
Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Review: Young Men and Fire

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When I was a resident of the Treasure State, I knew all about one of its most tragic chapters. One cannot live within a stone's throw of...
Monday, August 12, 2019

Returning to the capital

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To be sure, Washington, D.C. has changed in the last 35 years. Construction fences and security barriers surround everything from the Whit...
1 comment:
Friday, July 12, 2019

A visit to Molar City

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I am what you might call an American homebody. Though I have visited forty-seven states and plan to visit the remaining three -- Alaska, Haw...
Monday, July 1, 2019

Remembering a summer

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The best summer of my life began on a winter day. Like countless other Oregon college students in 1983, I spent much of that winter looking ...
2 comments:
Saturday, June 1, 2019

Visiting the venues, Part II

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The steady sea breeze was as brisk as I thought it would be. The scents of the blooming trees and flowers were just as enticing. And though ...
Wednesday, May 22, 2019

May update and giveaway

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Since getting the bright idea a few months ago to convert my Kindle collection to print, I have made steady progress toward doing just that....
Tuesday, May 7, 2019

Returning to a golden age

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At least once a year, I am asked, usually by someone who suspects I'm a time traveler, which era I would most like to visit if I could. ...
2 comments:
Sunday, May 5, 2019

Springtime in the Rockies

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The first thing you need to know about Boulder, Colorado, is that it is prettier in person. From the University of Colorado to the quaint re...
1 comment:
Monday, April 1, 2019

In defense of plain language

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It is a question every writer faces at some point: Should I dazzle or communicate? Or, put another way, should I try to craft the perfect se...
3 comments:
Sunday, March 24, 2019

Review: TURN

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As I have written at least a few times, I don't watch much television. Aside from news, sports, and an occasional movie, I simply don...
Saturday, March 23, 2019

A first draft for novel fourteen

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I needed seven weeks and enough keystrokes to fulfill two NaNoWriMos, but I got it done. Hours before the vernal equinox, an occasional time...
3 comments:
Friday, March 15, 2019

A meet-and-greet for March

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Experts advising authors rarely stray from the message. If you want to sell books in a highly competitive marketplace, they say, you have to...
Friday, February 1, 2019

Finding inspiration in music

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Writers are notoriously quirky creatures. James Joyce, I recently read, liked to write while lying on his stomach. Lewis Carroll preferred ...
2 comments:
Friday, January 4, 2019

Book trivia for the new year

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Like a lot of people, I am a fan of trivia. I find it difficult to skip a book, article, or web site filled with interesting, if otherwise u...
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About Me

John A. Heldt
John A. Heldt is the author of twenty-six bestselling time-travel novels. The former reference librarian and award-winning sportswriter has loved getting subjects and verbs to agree since writing book reports in grade school. A graduate of the University of Oregon and the University of Iowa, Heldt is an avid fisherman, sports fan, coin collector, and reader of thrillers and historical fiction. When not sending contemporary characters to the not-so-distant past, he weighs in on literature and life at johnheldt.blogspot.com.
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