To this day I have not written a villain who is purely evil. I do not believe such a creature exists—not in life, not in honest fiction. At some point even the worst among us had a parent or a sibling who loved them, a pet that did, a life punctuated by trauma and loss […]
Writing Villains Who Show Their Human Side Read More »
I confess at the outset that my experience of other kinds of readers is limited, and what little I have is not encouraging. My dearest friend Yolis, whose loyalty and warmth I would not trade for anything this world has to offer, finds my novels a considerable trial. She endures them when I give her
Why Historical Fiction Readers Are the Best Readers To Write For Read More »
There is a difference between visiting a place and being taught by it. Tourism gives you impressions. Fieldwork—the kind that involves returning in different seasons, taking measurements, sitting alone in churches until the silence becomes uncomfortable—gives you something harder to name and more difficult to acquire: an understanding of how a place works upon a
Five Things Cortona Taught Me About Writing Sense of Place Read More »
A Tale of Paris and Paris: Echoes of Troy, in the Chronicles of Cortona by Edmond Thornfield, follows Lorenzo di Ranieri, a militia sergeant in Cortona, when inquisitors from Perugia arrive to pursue charges of heresy. Lorenzo forms a backstairs circle with Matteo at the Ranieri stable and relies on Costanza Briani to care for
Do you miss stories that feel alive, where the world breathes, where every word has been chosen by a human hand that hesitated, reconsidered, and chose again? Have you grown weary of fiction that tells instead of shows, of worlds that feel thin and formulaic, assembled rather than imagined? In an era when AI-generated content
Support Human Authors: Four Tales by Edmond Thornfield, Available Now Read More »
I confess that as a child I believed the following tales were the stories of real people who had lived long ago. Only when I got older did I understand their significance as myths, though at times I am not entirely sure. The details seem too specific, too human, too particular to be pure invention.
Myths That Have Haunted Me Since Youth Read More »
Every few months I set aside the novelist’s desk and return to the reader’s chair. These are six books I return to, recommend without hesitation, or simply cannot stop thinking about. They span centuries, continents, and registers—Gothic Louisiana, medieval Cornwall, the towers of Notre-Dame, Revolutionary France, the streets of Salvador da Bahia—but they share the
Six Novels to Read in June 2026 Read More »
I must be careful here. Say too much, and I spoil the particular pleasure of meeting Lino Briani for the first time in A Tale of Paris & Paris: Echoes of Troy. But I may confess a few things about where he came from and why I chose to put him in the novel at
What Kind of Villain Is Lino Briani? Read More »
The question of point of view is the first serious decision a novelist makes, and it shapes everything that follows—the texture of the prose, the range of the story, the emotional distance between reader and character. Writers have many options: first-person, second-person, omniscient third, limited third, close third, or some combination of these. For my
Why I Write in Close Third-Person POV Read More »
FEB 2026 Literary Titan Gold Book Award Winner Asterios and the Labyrinth follows Prince Asterios of Knossos as his father dies, political rivals rise against him, foreign powers threaten the island, and love pulls him in directions that the laws of his world barely allow. The story blends palace intrigue, war, prophecy, and a passionate
Asterios and the Labyrinth | Gold Book Award Winner, Reviewed by Literary Titan Read More »
