Biography

To comfort friends discouraged by their writing pace, you could offer them this:  Read more

When T. Jefferson Parker heard that the argument was going to be made in this article that he is the quintessential California crime fiction writer, he gave a quiet laugh and said, "No pressure. Well, you know, I'll graciously accept that compliment and note that we would get push back on behalf of certain other writers that we know and love for that title.  Read more

There is more than one devastating murder in my debut novel One Night, New York. It would, of course, ruin the book to reveal who dies at whose hand, but what I want to do here is poke around a little bit in the who and the when and the how of writing these murder scenes.  Read more

As a historian of literacy, I coined the phrase "the literacy myth" to identify, explain, and criticize the former consensus that reading and writing (and sometimes arithmetic) are sufficient in themselves, regardless of degree of proficiency or social context, to transform the lives of individuals and their societies.  Read more

Julia Donaldson pictured above has extended her seemingly unstoppable record-setting run of earning eight figures through Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market. The £14.1m that the Gruffalo co-creator chalked up in 2021 is the 12th year on the trot she has eclipsed £10m, as she claimed the bestselling author in Britain crown for the second year in a row.  Read more