John A. Heldt

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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

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...

To be sure, Washington, D.C. has changed in the last 35 years. Construction fences and security barriers surround everything from the Whit...

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...

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 ...

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 ...

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....

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. ...

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...

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...

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...

I needed seven weeks and enough keystrokes to fulfill two NaNoWriMos, but I got it done. Hours before the vernal equinox, an occasional time...

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

Writers are notoriously quirky creatures. James Joyce, I recently read, liked to write while lying on his stomach. Lewis Carroll preferred ...

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...