When I think back to my early days around Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, about twenty years ago, I remember a sound: the thumpity-bump of dragging a cooler from my car across parking lots at various Metro Denver libraries as I brought refreshments and snacks for the monthly workshops. Arvada. Lakewood. Aurora. Denver. Wherever. I had…
After high school, I enlisted in the U.S. Army for a three-year tour of duty. Never having traveled farther than a car trip from Colorado to Iowa, I took the train to basic training in Missouri. Before I completed basic, President Kennedy was assassinated, and our inexperienced platoon of raw recruits and reluctant draftees was…
I judged a few entries this year for the Colorado Gold Literary Awards. I have one takeaway. It’s this: Chill with the punctuation. Too much makes readers tired. Well, makes me tired. It’s also unappealing on the page. It looks cluttered. Our brains are already busy putting your words into images in our heads. Don’t…
I realized last month, when contemplating the fact that 2003 marks RMFW’s 40th anniversary, that I’ve been writing for 40 years. Summer of 1983. I switched jobs. I went from newspaper reporter to working as a television producer for a PBS news show. I started flying around the country working on stories. And, during all…
If there’s one thing I never want to hear about my stories it’s that they’re “hard to finish.”