By Mark Stevens Do you have “crutch” words? Words you inject into your prose without thinking? I mean, they are such great freaking words that you when you ask a reader to plow through your latest incredible best-selling novel, she comes back and says: “Well, not bad. But did you know you used the word…
Author: Mark Stevens
Mark Stevens is the author of the The Fireballer (Lake Union, 2023) and The Allison Coil Mystery Series including Antler Dust, Buried by the Roan, Trapline, Lake of Fire, and The Melancholy Howl. Trapline won The Colorado Book Award for Best Mystery. Stevens has also published short stories in Denver Noir (Akashic Books, 2022), Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and Mystery Tribune, among others. Stevens is longtime member of Mystery Writers of America. In 2023, Stevens was named Writer of the Year by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers for the second time. He lives in southwest Colorado.
Here Comes the Judge
By Mark Stevens Who am I to judge? No, really? I’ve judged the Colorado Gold contest for many years. I take on five or six entries each time around. That’s not many pieces to rate. Some judges handle dozens—and more. Five or six entries take time—twenty pages of each novel and a three or four-page…
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield: A Review
Review by Mark Stevens Resistance is invisible, internal, implacable, impersonal, infallible and insidious. Resistance, as Steven Pressfield points out in The War of Art, never sleeps. “Henry Fonda was still throwing up before each stage performance, even when he was seventy-five,” writes Pressfield. “In other words, fear doesn’t go away. The warrior and the artist…
What’s Your Reason for Writing?
Are you doing your own thing? Listening to your own voice? Or are you a back-up, following someone else’s vision and script?
Getting the Details Right
By Mark Stevens If I had to pick a favorite prose stylist, it might be John Updike. (I don’t have to pick, do I?) Some think his stuff is over-written. I happen to think he was a poet whether he was writing fiction or criticism. Or poetry. In fact, Updike published eight volumes of poetry…