James D. Best

  With the exception of the Monitor vs. Merrimack (CSS Virginia), naval battles get short shrift in Civil War books. McPherson certainly fil...

When people talk about the film industry, they seldom mention Thomas Edison, yet he filmed the first western at his studio in New York Cit...

Western fiction has been hugely popular for almost two hundred years. Not only were Westerns popular in the United States, but the w...

My stomping ground, sans people. We winter in San Diego. Nothing against the grandkids, but everything against snow, cloud cover, ...

Writers can be a competitive bunch and can say nasty things about others in their profession. A good barb needs to be pithy and clever. Her...

Update: In the Land of Men is now available. In previous posts, I mentioned that several times a year I read books about writing , the p...

John Sutherland is a literary critic and columnist for the Guardian . The sub-title of his book is "50 Key Concepts" and it...

The Washington Post has an article on “ The 23 most unforgettable last sentences in fiction .” Many critics and readers focus on th...

Platforms, branding, franchise, fans, discoverability. There are many words bandied about that all represent the same thing: how does an au...

Money is printed by the government, so the faces on our various bills tend to be politicians. Okay, they’re all politicians. Three were not...

Jennifer Cody Epstein published, “10 Rules for Rewriting History” at Writer Unboxed .  As a historical writer, I found the article help...

Dead people publish new books all the time. Some of these books are unfinished manuscripts. Others are ghostwritten from scratch to take ad...

I recently read Stephen Hunter’s, The Third Bullet , which is a novel about the John F. Kennedy assassination. Through the years, I have re...

My wife and I just finished a perfect vacation in Southern California. Our daughter and son’s families have returned to their homes and eve...

I had a pleasant surprise today when I received notice of a new book review for the Steve Dancy Tales. Diane Scearce at Examiner.com revie...

I've been invited to be a panelist at the 2014 Tucson Festival of Books, which will be held March 15 and 16. The Festival will be held o...

Every novelist wants a memorable first sentence. There are innumerable lists of great and dreadful first sentences. (#95 at the great lin...

Many seem to believe if they just got a proper set of instructions, they could be a good writer. Many famous writers like Mark Twain, Georg...

It was a cold and windy night. Laura Borealis has published a blog article on TheTen Worst Story Openings. As I've mentioned pre...

I was unaware that my favorite library once banned a book by my favorite author. In 1885, the Concord Free Public Library banned The Advent...