When I created my first drawing, it was very crude. I drew a rectangle, which was to be a house, with two windows, a door, a chimney, and a sidewalk leading to the house. When I created my 100th drawing, it was the same scene and no better. Clearly, I do not have creative drawing skills. When I created my first piece of original writing, it was equally crude. It was equal to what I was reading at the time, “See Dick run.” In the ensuing time … [Read more...]
Alice Kay Hill
I am a fifth generation Kansan on my mother’s side and have spent the majority of my life tending the soil and livestock. During just my lifetime the number of small family farmer/ranchers has dwindled to just over 1% of the US population from an average of 25-30% in the 1940’s. As the daughter of an Air Force Lt. Col, I was not born on a farm. My mother had inherited the family land from her grandfather, but it was managed by a local farmer. … [Read more...]
Patrick Gallagher
Patrick Gallagher has been a “jack of all trades, master of one,” the “one” being a U.S. Customs Broker and logistics specialist. But over a course of a lifetime Patrick has worked as a farm laborer, forest fire fighter, process server, retail store manager, preacher, warehouseman and dishwasher. However, founding and managing a business in international logistics was the career he loved. Now retired, Patrick and his wife enjoy their four … [Read more...]
Detective Paula May On Domestic Violence Victims And Why They Stay
"Hidden beneath our outward surfaces are layers of ourselves that we never see and others never see. Sometimes we do see the 'red flag' layers and easily dismiss them. We accept these red flags as 'normal defects' that could be present in every single human being. I was one who did dismiss red flags. I didn't know people like this could exist. I was raised to love people and do no harm. I had much to learn! Paula writes a profound and passionate … [Read more...]
Meet Author Paula May
Writing is my second favorite solo pastime; reading is my first. My name is Paula May, and I recently retired after thirty years in law enforcement; over twenty in major crime investigation and the last ten as Chief of Police directing major criminal incident response and investigation. For a country farm girl who grew up in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains, reading was my entertainment, my educator, my gateway to the world beyond my … [Read more...]
Larry Sells Tells Of The Most Dangerous Man He Has Ever Prosecuted In New True Crime BEAST OF NEW CASTLE
WINNER: American Book Fest Award for True Crime: Non-Fiction! Maybe the youngest son of a violent criminal named Hoggy Thompson was born a beast. Maybe rage was beaten into him. One thing was certain, by the time he reached manhood, Jerry Thompson was a savage killer. He had no conscience about rape, child molestation, or thrashing a dozen men in a prison fight. Once he got his hands on a gun, any target would do. He didn't leave … [Read more...]
Author Larry Sells Debates The Death Penalty
If you offend someone, you might talk it over and come to a point of forgiveness. If you steal someone’s money, it can be repaid. If you take or destroy property, there may be a way to make restitution. Violence is another matter. Wounds can heal but trauma lingers. You cannot un-rape a person and you cannot un-do an injury. Certainly, you cannot return a life that’s been taken. Our justice system staggers beneath the weight of crimes that can … [Read more...]
Margie Porter On What She Has Learned From Writing True Crime
My grandson, a college student, asked if I gain any special insights from writing about crime. He raised the age-old question, “Can people be born evil? Can life events force them to become that way?” There are no clear-cut, scientific answers, of course, but it is interesting to ponder how we become the people we are. We have all experienced our share of trauma, but if hunger, poverty, and mistreatment made people evil, wouldn’t the residents … [Read more...]
Christian Barth
I never set out to become a writer. When I graduated from college, I was a directionless and unmarketable young man with a political science degree. Fresh off two stage productions, for a brief time, I entertained delusional fantasies of moving to Hollywood and becoming an actor, but for the next two years, what theatrical aspirations I'd secretly harbored were subsumed by the ebb and flow of what we do before we discover what we want to do with … [Read more...]
Charity Lee
Charity Lee Photo Credit: Ben Easter Charity Lee is the subject of the award-winning documentary The Family I Had, which premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Fest, and has been distributed worldwide and viewed by millions. She is the author of her memoir, How Now, Butterfly?, that tells her tale of Hell and back. Charity is the daughter of a murdered father, daughter of an acquitted mother, mother of a murdered daughter, and mother of a … [Read more...]
