Month: October 2012

Featured Author: Donna Huston Murray

Donna Huston Murray writes character-driven mystery and suspense novels from the perspective of a woman who doesn’t take herself too seriously. While male counterparts tackle plots with the brain and brawn of an NFL linebacker, Murray’s heroines use their own life experience and an instinctive understanding of human nature. An interviewer once remarked that he read a Murray mystery, “to find out how a woman thinks.” She wished him good luck with that.

In addition to the seven Ginger Barnes Main Line mysteries originally published by St. Martin’s Press, Donna Huston Murray has written for MYSTERY SCENE MAGAZINE, READER’S DIGEST, ECHELON, and REDBOOK. Her work can also be found in the Edgar-award winning companion book, THE FINE ART OF MURDER, and the LETHAL LADIES I and II anthologies by Berkley. CURED (…but not out of danger) is her first novel of suspense.

Donna and her husband live in the Philadelphia area and have two adult children. Continue reading “Featured Author: Donna Huston Murray”

Nuking the Newbies

Authors tend to be sensitive types. Perhaps thin-skinned is more accurate. After all, it’s not that writers are sensitive to you, but as a group, we tend to bruise easily, react strongly and bear longstanding grudges with a modicum of effort.

Whatever the reason, when you get a bunch of these daisies together in a forum of any kind, conflict is likely to occur.

Writers are people whose daily craft lies in the orderly application of carefully chosen words and phrases. To see them engage each other in a manner befitting a playground quarrel is both baffling and horrifying.  It’s bad enough to see veterans going after each other hammer and tong, but when I see a newbie getting a beat-down, it really bothers me. Continue reading “Nuking the Newbies”

Video Trailer: Alligators Overhead

alligators overheadAlligators, witches and spooky mansions aren’t your average neighbors unless you live in the Ornofree swamp in the backwater town of Hadleyville. The town’s bad boy, Pete Riley, may only be twelve, but he’s up to his eyeballs in trouble. The trouble arrives when a legendary hundred-year-old mansion materializes next door and the Ornofree alligators declare war to save their swamp from bulldozers. Then Pete’s guardian aunt and her friends vanish trying to restore order using outdated witchcraft. Pete must find the witches and stop the war. He might succeed if his one friend, Weasel, sticks with him.

Alligators Overhead, the middle grade adventure fantasy by author C. Lee McKenzie, is available through Amazon.com, Amazon UK, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and other online stores.

Happy Anniversary to IU

Ah, yes. It’s been a year since the inception of Indies Unlimited and nearly that long since I joined as co-conspirator…I mean co-administrator. So here I recline, upon a body pillow stuffed with the money I’ve made here, and showered with Canadian dollars (I prefer those because they’re colorful) by handsome hockey players I was able to hire cheaply because of the NHL lockout. Oh, wait. I guess that’s just in my mind.

After all, Indies Unlimited is staffed completely by volunteers. Any money I’ve made is thanks to Rich Meyer whose recent tutorials about how to make book covers gave me the brilliant idea to start printing money on my inkjet. Of course, I haven’t tried to spend any yet. Do you think they’ll pass?
In Hise We TrustOf course, I’ve never been in this thing for the money. I’ve been in it for the fame and adulation. Money usually follows that. I like that my weekly tutorials help people. But what I really like is that people now consider me an industry expert. Ha! People will believe anything, won’t they? But I digress. This isn’t about me. But what the hell, let’s talk about me some more anyway. Or not. Continue reading “Happy Anniversary to IU”