In my post last month, The History of the Mystery, I promised to follow up with some advice about how to write one. Here is something I presented in a slightly different form to some aspiring high …

Greetings, lovers! Author Jan Sikes has a brand-new release arriving on October 10, 2026. You can pre-order Painting Christmas TODAY!!! He came to escape a shattered life — Christmas had other idea…

Welcome back, my fellow creatives! My twins had their birthday a few weeks back. They came back from school to a table with two pyramids of wrapped boxes–every box an odd shape, but papered i…

Welcome back, my fellow creatives! My twins had their birthday a few weeks back. They came back from school to a table with two pyramids of wrapped boxes–every box an odd shape, but papered i…

Hello, friends. I’m BACK!! And I have a lot to share. So, let’s dive in! Doesn’t this look like an awesome place to meander? It makes me think of Finn’s Forest that D.L. Fin…

A trio of well-known writers above, and I’m sure you recognise Charles Darwin and Salman Rushdie, both of whom broke taboos, one arguably paying more heavily than the other for so doing. Less recog…

Greetings, SE’ers! Beem Weeks back with you again. Today, I’m sharing a few words on the exciting (and dreaded) To-Be-Read list! For book lovers, there’s no greater joy than discovering a new…

Draft2Digital (D2D) was founded in 2012 by several individuals who wanted to provide a way for self-publishing authors to format and distribute their works. For the first ten years, they were in co…

Draft2Digital (D2D) was founded in 2012 by several individuals who wanted to provide a way for self-publishing authors to format and distribute their works. For the first ten years, they were in co…

Hello, friends. I am super excited to open my blog up to mystery author, Susie Black today. She has a new book that recently launched and I’m reading it now. I’ll turn this over to Susi…

Let’s explore the colors of orange and apricot this week for this month’s Sunday Stills color challenge.

Two Sundays ago, I binged Inside Man, a limited series on Netflix, but the ending left a major dangling thread. The four-part series explores how ordinary, moral people can make panicked decisions …

The Secret Collector (2026) Violet Marie Glass has a hunger for adventure. She dreams of leaving her family’s farm one day for a life in any big city that will have her. As the teenager comes of ag…

A poll in the UK writer’s magazine, Mslexia, a publication for women by women, revealed that the vast majority of women writers do not submit work for publication due to fear – fear of rejection, o…

Rock band The Word66 is back with the powerful new anthem “Heed The Words,” available now across all streaming platforms. Featuring legendary bassist Danny Miranda of Queen and Blue Öys…

The Secret Collector - Kindle edition by Weeks, Beem. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading The Secret Collector.

Destiny and Jace are blue‑collar nobodies with a strange weekend hunting for cryptids and conspiracies. They’re perfectly prepared for the wrong problem. Because when they accidentally uncove…

Happy Labor Day! But wait – what do we celebrate again? I looked into the origins of Labor Day and found a narrative driven by intense conflict, political maneuvering, and a real-life identity that…

Posted by Joy York When I thought about writing this post, I looked at our bookcases to see what kind of self-help books my husband and I have collected over the years. I say “collected” because no…

I was reading a Thread on the state of the publishing industry, and it occurred to me that every few weeks, someone declares that publishing is in “total meltdown.” An agent says it to …

What Genre and Indie Authors Must Know In case you missed the news, AI companies are purchasing and destroying physical books to train their models. While this has resulted in understandably angry …

Greetings Storytellers. Diana back again with another post in my Story Structure series. Today, we’re going to dive into a structure that you may have heard of – Save the Cat. It&#8…

Hello, friends! Wow! What a crazy few days I’ve had. Thank goodness I only turn 75 once. :) AND, the heat persists. We are now on our 29th day of triple digits. Back in 2011, this area set a …

We’ve been discussing our Shadow Self — the repressed, unacknowledged, or darker parts of our subconscious mind — and how it benefits us by tapping into a reservoir for creativity, authentic charac…

I had three different appointments this week. Two were medical and one involved lunch with an old friend. Medical earned me a new permanent medicine that doesn’t thrill me. I guess we all start bui…

Hello, friends. It’s been another full week of triple digit temps and honestly, there is no end in sight. Maybe by the end of next month. I’m hoping! The book festival in Greenville, Tx…

Give Yourself a Chance for Life by Tyrone Luster Tyrone Luster is a man of experience. Some of those experiences led him down the wrong path. Over the years, he has come to terms with his life choi…

Picture caption: Cover of Pull which features what appears to me to be ink swirling in water. The colours are dark and light grey. What Amazon says Alex isn’t just running from his past—he’s runnin…

So, who dunnit? Who wrote the first mystery? Since I write mysteries, this a subject that I longed to research. In my next post for Story Empire, I’ll provide some ideas about writing a mystery for…

Welcome back, my fellow creatives! I like a change of pace now and again, don’t you? For all the action, horror, mystery, and adventure I’ll see in movies or read in books, I occasionally dabble in…

Given how marriages often worked in ancient times, I can’t say whether Agamemnon and Clytemnestra were ever each other’s darling. It’s reasonable to suppose, however, that when he sacrificed her da…

Greetings, SE’ers! Beem Weeks back with you again. Today, I’m sharing a few words on Artificial Intelligence, and the AI plan to conquer the world of creativity—or not.   Several weeks ago, th…

Greetings, SE’ers! Beem Weeks back with you again. Today, I’m sharing a few words on Artificial Intelligence, and the AI plan to conquer the world of creativity—or not.   Several weeks ago, th…

I forced myself to just do some calm things for a week after my care giving month. I watched a couple of movies, played my game, listened to music. Those kinds of things. I started three different …

Welcome back to my As We Age series here at Sally’s blog. In today’s episode of the joys of aging, I’m going to talk about some of the things that begin to wane – as we age. The balance isn’t alway…

I will be sharing a series we originally ran back in 2018, and with many more visitors to the blog now and fans of Carol’s food posts, we thought you might enjoy all the foods and recipes tha…

WWW Wednesday is a meme from Sam at Taking On A World Of Words The Three Ws are: What are you currently reading?What did you recently finish reading?What do you think you’ll read next? It&#821…

Once upon a time, writers wrote and sent their works to publishers, who evaluated their merits and selected a few as worthy of being published. Publishing meant editing, book and cover design, mark…

Hello, friends. While I enjoyed taking a month break from blogging, I’ve missed all of your posts, engagement and comments. But I’m back! Wow!! July was a whirlwind. I have a lot to cat…

Greetings to one and all. Here’s an alert for those who love a good audiobook!  Cheryl Carpinello’s The King’s Ransom: Young Knight’s of the Round Table (Tales and Legends f…

Quebec flag The anniversary of the first French settlement in Quebec, in 1608, by Samuel de Champlain, is in July. It might be fun to go there, but there are some things we need to be carefu…

Greetings, everyone. Jan here again with a question for you. I look forward to the comments on this subject. So, let’s dive in. Several years ago, Mae Clair wrote a Story Empire blog post abo…

A couple of posts ago, I talked about optimising your Amazon sales page, and included reasons why you should add A+ Content, and what it is. That post elicited quite a bit of interest, as not every…

Hi gang! 👋🏼 Craig here once again. We’ve covered a lot of science fiction in the last six months, and maybe you’d like to write some yourself. I’m going to offer you some things to ponder that migh…

Posted by Joy York This post is a bit personal, but I’m sure most everyone can relate. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, “The only constant in life is change.” Change can affect our lives in m…

Embracing Imperfection: Why Sharing Our Heroes’ Failings Makes Stories Authentic You may have come across the term Mary Sue and wondered where it comes from. The term was born in 1973, when Paula S…

Greetings Storytellers. Diana back again (so soon!), this time with the fourth post of my Story Structure series. Today, we’re going to do a quick trip through the Seven-Point Story Structure. This…

Jag Peters works hard to keep his karma clean and his life peaceful. Then a near miss with a red Harley leads him straight into a world he never expected—and to Rena Jett, a fierce beauty…

Blurb: Violet Marie Glass has a hunger for adventure. She dreams of leaving her family’s farm one day for a life in any big city that will have her. As the teenager comes of age in 1910 Alabama, sh…