Stories come from all sorts of places. Surprisingly, the idea for Timber Rose came from two 1908 books on sex and self, What a Young Wife Ought to Know and What a Young Husband Ought to Know. The first was given to a friend as a gag gift when she… Read More »Origins of Timber Rose by J. L. Oakley
After many years writing feature articles for national publications such as The New York Times, The L.A. Times, and Wired, as well as several nonfiction books for Penguin, Random House, and other publishers, a few years ago I plunged into writing my first novel. I hope it’s as fun to read as… Read More »How a Boy from Queens Ended Up Writing a Historical Novel About Detroit by Warren Berger
Imagine a policeman whose first beat in 1902 took him past the shop where Orville and Wilbur Wright invented the airplane; who with his fellow officers risked life and limb amid the catastrophic 1913 flood that paralyzed Dayton, Ohio. Imagine that same man becoming Chief of Police and leading his… Read More »A MIDWEST COP WITH CHARISMA – IN 1939 by M. Ruth Myers
I didn’t intend to write historical fiction based on events or eras in my corner of the Pacific NW. My first novel, The Jossing Affair, was, after all, set in WW II Norway. I suppose it’s my first love, but when I needed a paper to write for my class… Read More »Finding Historical Stories in Your Backyard by Janet Oakley
Although the idea of writing a 1920s rum-running novel had occasionally tempted me, what made it begin to take shape was a merry-go-round … and a chance meeting with an old man on a beach. Don’t picture sweeping stretches of sand with acres of bikini-clad bodies. This was a beach… Read More »Where They Hid the Booze, by M. Ruth Myers