In the early 2000’s I began seeing a noticeable increase in news stories about climate change, which was usually referred to at the time as global warming. It seemed like I read a new dire warning nearly every week. There was growing concern about melting glaciers, melting at the poles, rising sea levels, droughts – you name it. Visions of that Kevin Costner movie, “Waterworld,” floated through my mind. One day I had this vivid mental image of a young woman with a device on h

As I gear up to publish the final installment in “The Shade Ring Trilogy,” I’m pleased to report that two characters I deleted from the first book before it was published DID make a comeback in books 2 and 3. I deleted them because there were too many personalities for readers to keep up with as the story began on that expedition to sunken Charleston. Originally, the graduate students on the excursion in Chapter 1 of “The Shade Ring” included Neave Alvarez, her cousin and fr

I’m on the home stretch – polishing and revising book #3 of “The Shade Ring Trilogy.” It’s been a fun, challenging, memorable experience. A fellow author asked me recently if I would miss the characters once the trilogy is complete. I have mixed feelings. But, for sure, I’m really glad I got to know Neave Alvarez and the other characters! And it’s been a thrill to set my story a century in the future when, as the blurb says, “oceans have risen fifteen feet and it’s 120 degree

If you’ve read “The Shade Ring” and “Albedo Effect,” the first two books in “The Shade Ring Trilogy,” you know there’s an important, Shakespeare-quoting character. You also know why he quotes Shakespeare. While you may think that’s a charming bit of fictionalizing on my part, the fact of the matter is: we all quote Shakespeare every day. If you say “for goodness sake” when you get frustrated, or talk about your son “eating you out of house and home,” or if you talk about some

Bye-bye, blue eyes. That’s one of the conclusions drawn by demographers about Americans’ appearance in the not-too-distant future. Before I began writing “The Shade Ring” and its sequels, I researched demographic predictions. Bottom line: Americans will increasingly be more ethnically diverse due to immigration and inter-marriage. What that means is more brown eyes and fewer blue eyes, among other things. According to a recent study, half of Americans had blue eyes a cen

To each her own. Some readers like their sex scenes hot and steamy. Others want the details left up to their imagination. I tend to fall into the second category. Although, I admit, I’ve read a few sex scenes that were, well… pretty romantic. I’ve also read some sex scenes that were downright awkward – about as sexy as watching Miley Cyrus twerking. I obligated myself to read a romance last year that included some explicit sex scenes, and I have to admit, I skimmed over