Mystery Writers of America National Award-Winning Author
Mystery Writers of America National Award-Winning Author
SANDRA NEILY
Blog
“Do we have to wait until it dies?” asked my husband, watching a struggling caddis fly cover the Scrabble square he wanted to use.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “They’re landing and taking off again.”
Lured by lantern light against the dark woods and even darker river, at least four types of furiously just-hatched caddis changed the game. (read more)
My dog, Raven is rolling in the snow. With wild abandon she’s tossing it over her head and rubbing it all over her body in a snow massage. I am jealous.
Animal gladness is a fine thing and I am so grateful I found Mary Oliver’s hymns to dogs, Dog Songs: Poems.
Mary Oliver was an American poet who (read more)
It was late. The snow was still falling furiously and I was still typing furiously, finally getting down a scene where my narrator Patton and her dog Pock face death. (Deadly Turn is due out in 2019). Snowplows rumbled on roads across the cove, swinging their lights back and forth over my desk. I typed on in Patton’s voice:
“ ‘Don’t look,’ I yelled at Pock, dragging him up the rock. (read more)
We’re in a field looking at Vermont’s impossibly green hills, sitting where generations of writers have come to learn the craft. Our instructor tells us she wants a short, short story about something that deeply affected us, told in the point of view of someone else. She says our work merely skirts human emotion and we must go deeper. “Try letting yourself out through another’s eyes.” (read more)
