Science, Art and Human Universals
We (eight Americans and seven Moroccans, along with a French documentarian and a Japanese funder) pulled off a performance of Locust: The...
When Little Gnomes Have Big Ideas
I like gnomes. The legendary, subterranean dwarfs are fine, but I mean the other sense of “gnome”—a pithy statement of general truth...
The Original Femme Fatale
The term femme fatale, used to describe a dangerous and alluring woman, originated in the mid-1800s and became a staple of noir mysteries...
Uncovering Cover Art
The cover art for Lethal Fetish, my upcoming mystery novel in the Riley series features sultry, salacious, even lascivious images. Conor...
1981 = WKRP + 64K RAM + Frogger + Bread Bowls
One of my favorite endeavors in the course of writing is research. I relish digging into maps, photos, magazines, and recordings to...
A Blind Pig and a Million Monkeys
While my stories will not be among the great works of the 21st century, every so often I nail a sentence—or so I like to tell myself as a...
How to Write an Opera (Hint: Math Helps!)
The challenge of scientific literacy is communicating knowledge in forms that are evocative, memorable and intelligent. Stories engage...
The Locusts are Coming (Operatically)!
I previously wrote about a collaborative project with Dr. Anne Guzzo—an acclaimed composer in the Department of Music—to produce a...
Darkness in Glaring Sunlight
Earworms are songs that stick in your head. Midland, Texas, is my eyeworm. Cultivating a noir sensibility means looking keenly into...
What So Good About “Normal”?
In my mystery writing, I hope for three things. First, I want to draw the reader into a good story through a plot that builds...
