The completed third draft of the 4,000-page, 10-book (1.3 million-word) teen epic.
Another Draft Bites the Dust
A month ago, I finished the third draft of what I’m calling my “teen epic.” Between December 2023 and the end of April 2024, I…
Aloneness
Lately, more than ever, I’ve been thinking about a quote by the late, great playwright Sam Shepard: “Aloneness is a condition of writing. You look…
The Post-Social Media Novelist
It’s only been a week since I “deactivated” my personal Facebook account and already I feel like a great weight has been lifted off my…
Chris Orcutt’s Favorite Short Stories
Two weeks ago, I wrote about the backstory of my short story collection The Man, The Myth, The Legend, explaining what was happening in my…
Backstory: The Story Behind Chris Orcutt’s The Man, The Myth, The Legend
Between 2010 and 2011, I wrote over thirty short stories, many of which appeared in The Man, The Myth, The Legend or as chapters of…
Backstory: The Story Behind the Second Dakota Stevens mystery, The Rich Are Different — Part 2
Last week, in Part 1 of the story behind The Rich Are Different, I described my experiences during 9/11 in Manhattan and the months following, and…
Entering the movie, a movie I've waited two years to see.
The Awesomeness that is Bond Day
For about the past 30 years—or ever since I got my driver’s license—my best friend Jason Scott and I have attended the opening of the…
A Written Interview with Authors in the Spotlight with Lucie Dunn
In my blog post yesterday, I mentioned my upcoming internet radio interview with Pam Stack, host of Authors on the Air, on Wed., April 30…
Storytime: Chris Orcutt Reads “The Magnificent Murphy,” His Homage to The Great Gatsby
Recently I did a radio interview with Stephen Campbell, the terrific host of “Murders, Mysteries and Mayhem” on the Authors on the Air Global Radio…
The Adventure of the Sherlock Holmes Aficionado
Thanks to the thousands of readers of my Dakota Stevens mysteries, in the past 18 months I’ve been able to fulfill two lifelong dreams. The…
My Favorite Books: Nabokov’s LOLITA
Whenever I’m in the middle of rereading it, the novel Lolita casts such a spell on me that I often forget I have it on…
My Favorite Books: Hemingway’s A MOVEABLE FEAST
You know a book is a favorite of yours when you have multiple copies of it, and you find some of those copies in the…