John A. Heldt

The subtitle tipped me off. Preceded by an asterisk, it told me most of what I needed to know about a riveting comedy series. I say most —...

For some, Alsace is a backwater. Tucked in a remote corner of France, next to Germany and Switzerland, it is a region often overlooked by tr...

For authors, summer is supposed to be the quiet season. It is supposed to be the time we set work aside, take rejuvenating vacations, and ta...

I've been in a dog mood lately. My last dog, Mocha, passed away six years ago, and I miss her terribly. Because of circumstances — Las V...

If I have learned one thing as a parent, it is never to underestimate. Children with drive will find ways to succeed and shine. They will no...

In the beginning, it was my go-to venue, the place where the Northwest Passage series developed. Washington state was a secondary setting i...

The second act is usually the most difficult to write. In literature, as in life, it is the tough center of a story, the important and somet...

Of all the tools and techniques I employ as a writer, it is the one I use the most. When I experience writer's block, I take a walk. I...

The draft is done! At 128,700 words, it is a bit smaller than projected, but it is still big. Annie's Apple , the second book in the Sec...

The book, now seventy percent complete, is going to be a big one. With 90 chapters and a projected 132,000 words, it will trail only The Mem...

It is the gold standard of tragedies. For more than 110 years, the sinking of the RMS Titanic has inspired books, movies, and conspiracy th...

This year was like the proverbial month of March. It came in like a lion and is going out like a lamb. That's fine with me. After ten ye...

Fourteen chapters are done. Two more are planned this week. Though they make up just a fraction of the ninety I have outlined in my notes, t...

I admit I did not read the novel , the one by Jules Verne, or see the movie , the one that won Best Picture in 1956, but I have always been ...

Like a lot of history buffs, I have a fascination with World War I. I have read the books, seen the movies, and featured the war as a backdr...

As an American, I'm not a big fan of royals or aristocrats. I tend to view blue bloods with indifference or amusement. As a television...

I am a relative stranger to New York. I have visited the city only once, at least at length, and know it mostly through movies and televisio...

I should have known this would happen. When I sample a riveting miniseries, I never stop at the pilot. I binge watch the whole thing -- in w...

In golf, it's called a mulligan. In life, it's called a second shot. It is another opportunity to correct a mistake, restore a relat...

If there is one thing I enjoy about writing fiction, it is pointing a spotlight at other works of fiction. In several of my twenty publishe...

I didn't quite finish within Stephen King's recommended limit of 90 days, but I finished nonetheless. The first draft of The Fountai...

I am sixty now. That means something. It means I now look at the world as a "senior" and not a boy, a young man, or even a man of ...

I know disasters. In ten years as an author, I have written about no fewer than seven, including floods, fires, and storms. In The Fire a...

I said goodbye to my mom this month. I was not ready to. Like others who have lost a parent, I was not ready to say so long. Most of us, I...

It is not my best book — not by a long shot — but it is still the one I treasure most. It is the one that took the slings and arrows while I...

I am not big on New Year's "resolutions." I consider them empty pledges that usually fall by the wayside in weeks, if not days...

Even now, the questions come. Readers of the Time Box series want to know why I did what I did in creating the five novels. Some ask abou...

I dislike goodbyes. I particularly dislike long, drawn-out literary goodbyes that bring five-book time-travel series to a conclusion. The...

The chapter, the third in the biblical book of Ecclesiastes , has moved writers and thinkers for centuries. Even movie makers and recording ...

The first draft, I wrote a year ago, is the easy one. It's the "rough, unpolished blob a writer pushes out in a manic frenzy."...

As characters go, they are easy to spot. Though they vary in age, vocation, temperament, and even role within a series, they all have one th...