Publication Day!! A rare event in any writer’s life, as all of us--no matter how prolific-- have only a finite number of books in us. The Home Guard began with an idea shortly after I arrived in Beaufort in 2005. That idea percolated over the next several years as I learned more about this luxurious, tide-happy corner of the planet. A Major influence on my book turned out to be one published before I got here: The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina, Volume 1, 1514-186

Remember a few blogs back when I talked about writers compulsively asking themselves, “What if . . .?” Beaufort’s Civil War history so engaged me that I became obsessed. “What if,” I asked myself, “one--no two--people stayed behind when all the whites fled? And what if one of them was an old woman, and the other a young boy, her grandson, only twelve years old? And what if they had to hunt and fish to stay alive? And suppose the Rebels recruited the boy to spy for them? And w

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Last week, I blogged about my Aunt Sue, who spoke to me from the grave by way of her memoir, Three Houses, the preface for which expressed the hope that a nephew like me would find material for a novel in the history she had so beautifully preserved. It didn’t take me long to hone in on a number of passages I found helpful, but to explain how I was able to use them, I need to tell you about Beaufort. Beaufort, South Carolina lies midway between Charleston and Savannah. We mov

A popular genre among readers has always been M/T/S: mystery, thriller, suspense. Given the success of writers like Agatha Christie, John Grisham and John Le Carre, an aspiring writer would be foolish not to toy with turning out a page turner. Which makes me foolish, because I’ve never flirted with the form, at least not yet. A common snatch of conversation at a cocktail party might be, “Oh, anyone could write a Grisham if they wanted to.” Oh? I disagree. John Grisham happens

In last week’s blog I described the literary summit of three dead writers (Faulkner, Proust and Nabokov) and one very much alive writer, Pat Conroy. Today I want to tell you about the day Pat became an editor. A restaurant in Beaufort, South Carolina called Griffin Market specializes in Italian cuisine from the Piedmont region of Italy. Pat’s time in Rome made him passionate for the food, so that the opening of this restaurant by Chef Laura and Sommelier Riccardo was a bit li

Last week I disclosed my dilemma in combining two short novels, A Southern Girl and Just a Dance, into the single story they cried out to be. The solution was neither painless, nor quick, nor even mine. Dante famously warned at the gateway to his Inferno, “Abandon all hope, you who enter here,” and I had abandoned all hope of getting A Southern Girl published. But in 2012, I appeared with Pat Conroy at the Savannah Book Festival. Pat always draws a large crowd, and the crowd

A Southern Girl (ASG) began as a short novel, by word count almost a novella. It began with the infant’s abandonment as the U.S. family, the Carters, debated the wisdom of adoption. It ended with the resolution of the conflicts on both sides of the world (hey, it’s a novel, it has to resolve conflicts). But then that question set in again: what if? What if the infant thrives and something happens that devastates the family unit? That led to what would have been my third novel

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Last week’s blog mentioned some challenges presented by Mexico that required adaptation. For me, the challenge above all others was to write a good book which, after all, was the reason for coming. Three forces shaped my time and influenced the results. The first of these was my writing group, the core of which consisted of Donna Meyer, Roy Sorrels, Barbara Covarrubias and yours truly. Donna had been, some years earlier, in the original cast of the European production of the

Last week’s blog listed the major factors that weighed in our decision to spend a year in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. As part of my research into the country, I came across this quote, attributed to an anonymous source. Since the credibility of any anonymous source is suspect, I’m not sure why this one stuck with me as it did, but it proved to be the truest thing I read about Mexico in all my study in advance of actually going there: “If you arrive in Mexico without patien

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Last week I wrote about our move to Mexico in 1993, a move that promised to give me the time to write the next novel at hours later than 4 a.m. to 7 a.m. I should say a bit more about that decision. Why Mexico? The three most compelling reasons were culture, distance and dollars. As long as we were planning to be gone for a year with our two younger children, ages 14 and 13, we wanted a cultural experience that broadened the horizons of all four of us. Barbara and I felt the

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When I left you last week I was on the cusp of literary stardom with my first novel, Bethesda’s Child. I had what I had been assured was a very good story, one of the top literary agents in New York had signed me up as a client, and the timing of the genetic science, which anticipated issues and tensions springing to world consciousness a few years later when Dolly the Sheep was created (invented?) seemed perfect. All the elements had fallen into place for a best seller with

In last week’s blog, a Wizard in the form of my youngest son, Carter, helped me take the first step along the road I am still traveling. Ironically, the next step on that road also involved a son, the middle one, and soccer. My copy of A Dare on the Bridge stayed on a preferred corner of my desk, and every time I saw it I got the urge to write something. I took that as a good sign. The urge to write needed to become irresistible, and it did. I read in the local newspaper, the

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For a number of years, I've had the great pleasure of regularly lunching with Pat Conroy & Bernie Schein, two of my favorite writers and favorite humans. This week, my friend Scott Graber was kind enough to videotape part of the lunch so that I could share it with you. It was a wonderful afternoon, in which longtime friends gently poked fun at each other while sharing fantastic food and wine at one of our favorite restaurants, Griffin Market. Pat and Bernie are truly two of t