Lea Wait's Blog, page 2

Weekend Update: August 23-24, 2025

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Sandra Neily (Monday), Kait Carson (Tuesday), Dick Cass (Thursday), and a group post on Friday.

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

Maureen Milliken and Kate Flora will have a table at the Designing Women Artisan Market from 9:30 to 4 p.m. today (Saturday, Aug. 23). It’s at Longfellow’s Greenhouses, 85 Puddledock Road, Manchester (just next to Augusta). The show has a lot of great artists and crafters, and the weather is expected to be gorgeous. Come on over and say hi!

Maureen Milliken will also be at the Inebri-Arts Pages & Pints Small Press Expo, 12-4 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 24, at Mayflower Brewing, Plymouth, Mass.

Matt Cost will be signing the release of The Not So Merry Adventures of Max Creed at BAM (Books-A-Million) in South Portland today (Saturday) from 1-3 PM. Details Here. 

On Thursday, August 28, at 6 PM, Jule Selbo and Matt Cost will be in conversation on their writing conventions with a focus on their recent books, 7 Days and Glow Trap, respectively. Selbo and Cost will dive into how they create and get into the head of the villains to create complex and sometimes vile human beings. This will dovetail into how creating well-developed backstories for the main characters and how other minor roles and the setting make for a more richly layered and resonant story. The authors will explore the necessity and how to of creating red herrings to keep the reader guessing and the use of action in their books to keep the pages flipping without overdoing it. Mysteries are stories that build to a final climax, mano a mano, when the protagonist and the villain have a final confrontation with all the marbles on the table. What are the steps to building to and writing that final showdown? Come see what Jule Selbo and Matt Cost have to say on that and other writing techniques. It promises to be a mysterious, illuminating, and good time. DETAILS HERE.

On Saturday, August 30, from 1-3 PM, Matt Cost will be celebrating the launch of his most recent, Glow Trap, in the town where the book is set. Port Essex is based on the town of Boothbay Harbor and Glow Trap is the sixth and final one in the series. Come to Shermans Maine Coast Bookshop in Boothbay Harbor and leave with a signed copy that will keep you turning pages late into the night. Details Here. 

 

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business, along with the very popular “Making a Mystery” with audience participation, and “Casting Call: How We Staff Our Mysteries.” We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora

Maine summer and writing and reading stuff

Not impressed with that title? Well, you can join the club. I had a bunch of great topics, and was going to choose at least one of them to write about today, but I went for a drive instead.

Don’t judge me.

Summer is almost over and I’ve barely noticed it started. I should have been, today, working on my book that’s in major danger of not making my editor’s deadline, working on the many articles I have due before the month is over for my day job, or if not that stuff, at least figuring out what the smell coming from the kitchen sink drain is.

But it is a lovely perfect summer day in Maine — and we don’t get a ton of those — and so around 9 a.m. I got in the car and drove. My drive took me through Waldo County, up to Frankfort, and back home by another route. By the time I stopped at the Hannaford in China to pick up some stuff (I forgot the cat food!), my head was almost clear.

Frankfort, Maine, and the north branch of the Marsh River on a beautiful August day.

When we talk about writing process and all that stuff, one thing we probably don’t talk about enough is giving everything a break once in a while. You often hear that you HAVE TO write every day, you HAVE TO write so many words, you HAVE TO blah blah blah. Well, the biggest HAVE TO is powering down and giving your brain some time off, even if you’re behind on things.

In fact, driving around aimlessly, besides being really enjoyable, also tends to generate ideas and get my book working in my head in a way that’s also much more productive than typing on a keyboard.

By the way, here are some of the things I was going to write about:

I read an op/ed in the Boston Sunday Globe a couple of weeks ago lamenting the fact that if men aren’t reading as much fiction as they used to, it’s because no one is publishing books men want to read. Yes, that’s a huge generalization of the piece, but it’s my overall takeaway. The author seemed to conflate increased marketing of books for and by people of color and women, and about social issues, as meaning there are no books being published for men anymore. He did suggest that you can still read Hemingway or whoever. I was going to write a thoughtful analysis for this post today, but my brain isn’t there and what little I have in it is reserved for the (non-manly) book I am writing. So all I can say about it is:

Are you efffing kidding me? OF COURSE there are books by and for men, and definitely for men who don’t want to read about social issues. The publishing and reviewing industry has notoriously favored male writers and their books, and if the pendulum is swinging the other way, it’s still not quite there yet. If you aren’t being spoon fed information about books by and for men at the rate you’re used to, do what the rest of us have been doing for centuries. Go to the bookstore or library, look at all the books, and when you find one that you like, take it home to read. Problem solved.

Another topic I’d thought of tackling:

I read an article this morning that people in general are reading less for pleasure than they used to. This includes audio books, digital, etc. There were some theories why (people are working too hard because of the economy. Yeah right). My theory is that we have so many options to stream, who the hell wants to sit down with a book? But the study didn’t ask people why, so we’re left to figure it out for ourselves.

Again, I don’t have the mental power to do any kind of thoughtful analysis. I will say that anecdotally, at almost every event where I have an author table, someone has to announce to me that they don’t read. So my bottom line on this topic is what I always say to those people: That’s too bad.

That’s all I can summon today. Summer in Maine is short. Go out and enjoy it.

Glow Trap. The Final Trap.

I currently have four crime series out in the world. Two contemporary Maine, one historical, and one thriller series. I have another series set to debut in October of 2026. And there is a sixth series being shopped around.

That is a serious amount of series. Sorry. But on August 13th, something new happened. While sequels have been piled on one after another in my mystery novels, for the first time, I have ended the sequence. Glow Trap, published eight days ago, is the Final Trap.

In an interview once, I was asked how I knew it was time to end a series. My answer at the time was that I have no idea, I have never done that. My reasoning now is that Clay Wolfe as we know him just plain seemed to have run his course. It was time to say goodbye to Port Essex, Baylee, Crystal, Westy, Murphy, and Cloutier.

 

Glow Trap ties together and unravels quite a few threads all at the same time. A documentary film crew wants to make a movie based on Baker & Wolfe Private Investigators. A man with an alias washes up on shore dead. A trio of suspects included a retired spy, a former gangbanger in the WITSEC program, and a wealthy art thief hiding out in Port Essex.

Order on Amazon. Or from Booshop.org. Or Ingram.

 

In a blast from the past, the idea is floated that the death of Clay’s father, mother, and grandmother when he was just a child was not just an accident. That a man who Mack Wolfe had put away for dealing drugs had reached out from prison and snuffed their lives in revenge.

 

 

The pharmaceutical billionaire that Clay built a case against in Wolfe Trap has the charges dismissed due to technicalities that most likely involve bribes and blackmail. Is he ready to let bygones be bygones or is he set on a path of retribution?

 

 

Goodbyes are always difficult. But it is time to say goodbye to Port Essex.

The fireworks are so explosive, the action so packed, and the suspense so tight—it only seemed right to cap the climax and call it complete.

Glow Trap. The Final Trap. Or is it?

About the Author

Matt Cost was a history major at Trinity College. He owned a mystery bookstore, a video store, and a gym, before serving a ten-year sentence as a junior high school teacher. In 2014 he was released and began writing. And that’s what he does. He writes histories and mysteries.

Cost has published six books in the Mainely Mystery series, starting with Mainely Power. He has also published five books in the Clay Wolfe Trap series, starting with Wolfe Trap. And finally, there are two books in the Brooklyn 8 Ballo series, starting with Velma Gone Awry. For historical novels, Cost has published At Every Hazard and its sequel, Love in a Time of Hate, as well as I am Cuba. The Not So Merry Adventures of Max Creed began a new series this past April. Glow Trap is his eighteenth published book.

Cost now lives in Brunswick, Maine, with his wife, Harper. There are four grown children: Brittany, Pearson, Miranda, and Ryan. They have been replaced in the home with four dogs. Cost now spends his days at the computer, writing.

When Are You Going to Write a Real Book?

Kate Flora: When we’re not at our desks, writers spend a lot of time in bookstores and libraries talking about our books and the writing process. Over the years, there have been some questions that are on repeat and some that are real surprises. I think the topic of this post, when am I going to write a real book, might be the biggest surprise.

I tried not to snarl when the question was asked. (I think this one was in an email, not face-to-face.) Instead, I described my ten years in the unpublished writer’s corner, where I refined both my craft and my cover letter, to get where I am today. I said that I believe I DO write real books, books that explore the nature of evil, the development of character, the relationship between setting and story, that create the balance between solving the story arc in each individual book and continue to develop the character arc over the course of the series. I don’t know if the person who posed the question was satisfied. There are certainly many other there—writers and readers alike—who believe that only literary fiction has value and genre fiction does not.

These people are not happy when I say that “literary fiction” is merely another genre.

One question that I’ve gotten with some frequency over the years was whether, given the tense relationship between Thea and her mother, Thea’s mother was based on my own mother. The first time it was asked, I was shocked. I said no, definitely not, that my mother was one of my heroes. The follow-up question was: then where does she come from? It’s always interesting to hear what readers focus on, isn’t it? Anyway, I pondered on the question and decided that much of Thea’s mother’s difficult character was a blend of my two grandmothers. One was a witch; the other, superficially sweet, was an accomplished manipulator who had to have her way.

A similar question was: Is Thea based on me? I said look. Am I nearly six feet tall, with wild, dark curly hair and an impressive chest? Am I as brave as a barrel full of bears? No, I said. I am the mother of two boys. I always wanted a daughter, and I expect, had I had one, she would have been as courageous and headstrong as Thea. There have definitely been times over the course of the books when she’s gone off to do something against my advice (our characters absolutely do that) and I worried until she was out of danger.

I was asked the “real book” question before I took that detour into writing nonfiction. Sometimes I wonder whether the questioner would consider Finding Amy: A True Story of Murder in Maine, a real book. What about Death Dealer: How Cops and Cadaver Dogs Brought a Killer to Justice. And certainly my cowritten nonfiction about police shootings from the police point of view, Shots Fired, is a real book, even if it isn’t literary fiction. For those books, there are questions like whether my co-writer, Joe Loughlin, had a thing for Amy’s mother. And my all time favorite (NOT) from a question asked when I was speaking at the Unitarian church about Shots Fired. After explaining that the book was about actual experiences by police officers in tense shooting situations, and the consequent effects on them psychologically as well as on their careers, one woman said, “Wouldn’t the book be better if it included the black point of view?”

One of those moments when I realized I had several great answers a few hours later. And she never did get that some of the officers involved in those shootings were black.

There will always be great questions, weird questions, annoying questions, and questions that teach us about our writing. One of my favorites was the reader who asked, about one of my Joe Burgess police procedurals,  what I expected my readers to take away from the book. Probably I should have, but I’d never thought of it before. I was wrapped up in storytelling, and craft, and character. But of course, when I look at any book, or look at the arc of a series, I can see a lot of questions woven throughout the narratives. At bottom, they are about the contest between good and evil and who will fight for good. And about the ripple impacts of crime not only on the victim but on the others around that victim.

Cameos

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here. The other day I was watching Iron Man 2 (2010) for the umpteenth time (yes, I look for sheer escapism in my streaming choices) when I saw something I’d never noticed in any of my previous viewings. There, in an early party scene, the character of Tony Stark spots someone he knows and greets him by name—Elon. Yep, that Elon. They exchange a tiny bit of dialog before the action moves on.

I don’t know why this surprised me. Have you ever noticed how many movies Donald Trump has had cameos in? Strange, for a guy who continually badmouths the liberal leanings of Hollywood. And then, of course, there is the brief appearance of his late ex-wife, Ivana, in The First Wives Club (1996), in which she delivers the immortal line: “Ladies, you have to be strong and independent, and remember, don’t get mad, get everything.”

There are obviously lots of cameos in films. Many use real newspeople if they need to have a character interviewed—The First Wives Club again, with Kathie Lee Gifford.  Both Alfred Hitchcock and Stan Lee made a habit of appearing somewhere in many of the movies they were associated with, Hitchcock as director and Lee as the face of Marvel Comics.

One classic film that went overboard in celebrity appearances was The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), in which numerous members of Hollywood royalty appear, heavily disguised, and unmask at the end of the movie. There are also many films were celebs appear but are not credited, making it a challenge to spot them. I remember getting a kick out of seeing Noelle Niell, the first Lois Lane (from the 1950s TV series), make a brief appearance in Superman, the Movie. If you blinked, you missed it.

 

But what does any of that have to do with books, let alone mysteries? Or with Maine, for that matter? Real people sometimes appear in novels, too, and not just historical tomes or when the author has fictionalized a real person to make them the detective. Scotched (2011), Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries #5 (written as Kaitlyn Dunnett) takes place at the fictional Maine Cozy-Con, attended by both real Maine mystery writers and a couple I made up. I also wrote myself in as an attendee. I’m the local writer whose name Liss can never remember.

What examples of walk-on roles for celebrities, in books or movies, spring to your mind? Share, please. The comment section is just below.

Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty-four books traditionally published and has self published others. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. In 2023 she won the Lea Wait Award for “excellence and achievement” from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. She is currently working on creating new editions of her backlist titles. Her website is www.KathyLynnEmerson.com.

 

Weekend Update: August 16-17, 2025

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Monday), Kate Flora (Tuesday), Matt Cost (Thursday), and Maureen Milliken (Friday).

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

Matt Cost: Glow Trap is now out!  Order it HERE. Check out this interview on Big Blend Radio about Glow Trap. Here. 

MAINE CRIME WAVE – New format and fun.  NOIR AT THE BAR, an evening event, September 26 at NOVEL BOOKSTORE/BAR/COFFEESHOP on Congress Street in Portland.  Come hear crime writers read from their work and win prizes!   Then September 27, an all day event at historic MECHANICS HALL on Congress Street in Portland.  Lots of roundtables where small groups will discuss tips, craft, the business of writing crime, publishing, finding a publisher or representative and more with published authors and those who are now finding their way.  Registration is NOW OPEN.

2-4 pm TODAY. TODAY, August 16, is “come read and get feedback” on your work at mystery writer/Sisters in Crime member  Jule Selbo’s home on Munjoy Hill in Portland.  This is organized by mystery writer (short story fiend and Sisters in Crime planner ) Gabriela Stiteler.  Not too late to “drop in” today. Just email Jule at   juleselbo@gmail.com

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business, along with the very popular “Making a Mystery” with audience participation, and “Casting Call: How We Staff Our Mysteries.” We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora

Brevity and Velocity

Rob Kelley here, musing this week on short books that pack a punch.

One of the things I really like about The Writer’s Hotel writing conference is the “Major Workshop,” a critique and craft group led by a senior writer. I was lucky enough to be in one led by Jeffrey Ford, who is an amazing writer and a great coach. I also had the opportunity to read and be read by seven other talented writers, some published multiple times, some (like me) about to debut, and some earlier in their writing journey. Because this a conference that participants must apply for, we were guaranteed high quality engagement with fellow authors, and Jeff’s Major Workshop delivered.

It was my critique work of other authors that raised the concept of brevity. In two of my critiques I was making a point about tightening prose to move the action along, and the example that popped into my head unbidden was Ursula LeGuin’s 1968 novel A Wizard of Earthsea.

This is the cover my copy has, which is from a Bantam Books printing from 1973 (which I bought used for 75¢ at a used bookstore. Those were the days!). I probably read it for the first time in early high school in the late ’70s. I reread it multiple times in the following years then put it away as my tastes expanded and evolved. But it came to mind as I was doing my critiques as an example of a masterclass in brevity. 

In 56,000 words, LeGuin builds a world, gives us its history, introduces us to a boy who grows into a man who must face the consequences of using his considerable power in a vain and foolish youthful act that threatens him and those around him. In the meantime, we learn the geography of the Earthsea archipelago (the included maps are fabulous), a bit of the old tongue that gives a wizards their power, all while following the wizard on multiple adventures to previously uncharted land. That’s a lot in 56,000 words.

How is she able to do so much in so few words? Specificity. Everything is grounded in detail. Each sentence works extra hard to build the world, set the tone, give a voice to the protagonist. Now this is fantasy novel, which has certain conventions that make this easier, but I could just as easily used as an example from the crime and thriller canon.

That example (those examples) would be the Parker novels by Richard Stark, a.k.a. Donald E. Westlake. (Huge shoutout to fellow Maine thriller writer Chris Holm for introducing me to Parker in his “Unputdownable” master class!)

Number 20 in the series, Firebreak, opens with what I think is the single best line in any crime fiction, anywhere:

When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man.

Now that’s an opening. It tells you a lot about Parker, a lot about the situation we’re in, or about to be in. And in the 40,000 words that follow we get everything we expect from Parker: heists, plans gone wrong, betrayals, and revenge. Across 24 books we see a hard man do sometimes unspeakable things and we’re holding on for dear life as we follow along. Extremely brief, and again, very specific. The immediacy. The phone. The garage. The killing. Our only conclusion: it’s about to get worse.

Both LeGuin and Westlake were masterful writers, ones I try hard to emulate: the brevity, the specificity, and most importantly for thriller writers, the velocity.

What’s your favorite opening line that kicks off a real barn burner of a book?

 

Currently reading: Never Flinch, Stephen King, 2025.

Next from the TBR list: Oligarch’s Daughter, Joseph Finder, 2025.

Four Things

Here are a four things that I’ve been thinking about.

Two Books

I recently finished reading two books. Megan Abbott’s EL DORADO DRIVE and William Boyle’s SAINT OF THE NARROW STREET.

Abbott weaves forward and backward timelines from 2008 stretching back to the childhood of the three sisters in Grosse Pointe, MI. While not overtly historical feeling, there is a certain nostalgia and tenderness to an otherwise ugly and complex situation involving a pyramid scheme, betrayal, and ultimately murder.  Abbott goes deep and stays there. As with her other writing, she explores the bonds between women, a sense of connectedness and isolation, and a world where nobody comes out ahead.

In Boyle’s story, also set in the near historical and stretching forward in time, two sisters commit a murder and spend the rest of the novel trying to keep it buried. Like Abbott, Boyle respects his characters enough to allow them to develop in complex, flawed ways. The setting, time, and place felt familiar, reminding me of people I might have known at one point.

I highly recommend both books.

Pittsburgh and the Brentwood Heist of 1982

These books made me feel oddly nostalgic for the edges of my childhood in Pittsburgh  during the 1980s. Which led me to looking at old family pictures of my grandparents and my parents and even older relatives I don’t really remember. Which let me to listening to 1980s Pittsburgh punk bands. Which led me to looking up old dive bars and music venues. Which led me to learning about the Brentwood Heist of 1982, during which two men dressed as FBI agents and stole 2.8 million from a Purolator armored truck terminal and disappeared.

Poof.

Which made me think, man would that make a good story.

So I’ve been drinking deep from the heist well – movies, short stories, and books. I have some stellar recommendations and might organize a post about this at a later time.

The Great State of Maine

On Tuesday, my older son had his last summer ball game. He pitched well had a few solid hits, and really enjoyed himself. For those of you familiar with Portland, his home field is the one at Payson with views of Back Cove. Behind the field, the Friends of Payson Park organized a concert by the FLUKES (Fun-Loving-Ukulelele-Society). High schoolers were playing softball on the adjacent field. The pickleball court was popping. The ultimate frisbee people were making the rounds drinking things in cans with coozees. And the people dressed in medieval armor were sword fighting.

I was walking back thinking a little about how nice that moment was, how nice it is that we have a big green park by our house. How nice it is that a high school kid volunteers to coach a middle school summer ball team. How nice it is that people volunteer their time to organize concerts in the park. How nice it is that the parks put in those frisbee baskets for people. How nice the parent behind me was for saying things like, “Wow. He’s really throwing well this game.”

My Writing

I have four stories out since my last post:

“The Usual Reasons” in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (July/August) Available in Barnes and Nobels and Books a Millions and maybe your local bookstores.

“For Laura” in Stone’s Throw (July). Available for free HERE.

“Beautiful, Dangerous Things” in Dark Yonder (available end of August).

“A Hard Night’s Sleep” In Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (September/October).

Until next time,

Gabi

 

I Rode Through The Desert On A Horse With A Name (But I forget what it was)

John Clark making up for last week. Those of you who are regular MCW readers might remember that we took our oldest granddaughter, Piper, on a Road Scholar trip to Chincoteague in Virginia last summer. We all enjoyed that so much, we decided to go on a different trip through the same organization this summer. I want to give my wife, Beth full credit for doing a thorough and careful job of planning everything.

This time, we went to White Stallion Ranch just outside Tucson, AZ. I must say that I had some reservations about spending a week where temperatures would be over 100 degrees. We flew from Portland to Atlanta, then to Tucson where we spent a night in a hotel. The ranch picked us up in a van early the next day and we were off on our week of ranching adventures.

Piper, now eleven, has her own pony, but riding on desert trails is a whole different experience. It was rewarding to watch her blossom, gain confidence, and bond with two girls, one from Virginia, the other from Washington State. They were inseparable all week, whether in the pool, on horseback, or at the indoor activities.

Each day started with an opportunity to help groom horses (Beth and Piper took advantage, I did not), followed by a hearty breakfast. All our meals were plentiful and tasty. I particularly liked having an abundance of fresh fruit for each meal. Activities were varied and took into consideration the heat, with riding and other outdoor stuff early in the day or late in the afternoon.

Oh Ra, Oh Ra, is that your horse?

I had not planned on getting on a horse, having never done so, but changed my mind. I ended up on three slow trail rides, one of them when the temperature hit 110 degrees. All three were a pretty comfortable experience, although I suspect they assigned me horses with molasses instead of blood as they consistently lagged the others.

Piper took advantage of daily lessons on horsemanship, then passed a test so she could go on a couple fast trail rides. It was most satisfying to see her comfort level and confidence level grow daily. She and her new friends enjoyed a couple team events, cattle sorting and team penning (four riders rounding up and moving three steers into an adjacent pen.

The start of a leather keychain

In addition, there were hands on classes in acrylic and watercolor painting, as well as leatherwork. I enjoyed letting my inner creative persona loose for all three.

Can you guess who painted what?

We also had the following activities to enjoy. There was a trip to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, a place I went to fifty years ago. It’s larger and has a lot more exhibits now, well worth visiting if you’re in the area.

We had a couple other afternoon sessions of note. Doris Evans, a docent at the desert museum, has been filming wildlife coming to her back yard on the outskirts of Tucson for years. She keeps a water basin filled, as well as varied snacks like cut up oranges for visitors. She showed us some of them from owls and lizards, to javelinas and coyotes.

Great Horned Owl dancing

Diego Dunn, who graduated from Arizona State a year after I did, developed a nice side gig after a career in aerospace engineering. He packages and sells edible items made from, desert plants. They include a great syrup made from prickly Pear, as well as candy and lip balm from the same plant. I chatted extensively with him both during the presentation and at social hour afterward.

Some of Diego’s products

Phil Garcia is the Arizona equivalent of Maine’s Mr. Drew. Both have a dedication to care for injured critters as well as enjoying exhibiting them in a way that decreases peoples’ irrational fears. He brought an array of snakes, lizards, a tarantula, a scorpion, a desert tortoise, and a chinchilla. Everyone got a chance to hold and/or pet them.

I took advantage of target shooting, hitting on 26 of 27 shots between a lever action rifle and a revolver.

Each evening we had a chance to enjoy a different activity. Line dancing, star watching, rope tricks, and an old fashioned cowboy sing-along around a campfire were the ones that happened while we were there.

When our stay was over on Friday, we were dropped off at the airport where we picked up a rental car and headed for Tempe where I went to college. I hadn’t visited since 1975, but have kept up with changes and developments through the alumni magazine. It now has multiple campuses with 100,000 students enrolled. ASU is consistently ranked in the top three in innovation and research, ahead of such schools as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford.

I had a bit of a nostalgic sense as we strolled down the main area that was a roadway during my first year there in 1966. It is very nicely landscaped and even has a wild parrot population. Hayden Library now stretches under the pedestrian area and has a sunken garden two floors below where we walked. Three new skyscrapers are in the process of being built north of the main campus area and the number of buildings housing programs that weren’t even thought of in my undergraduate days is impressive.

We had a great meal at a Palestinian deli. The beef was perhaps the best I’ve ever had, and I got a kick out of reading that the Palestine Cola I drank was made in Sweden.

On our last day, we headed east so I could show Beth and Piper Roosevelt Lake and some of the Pueblo ruins nearby. The heat made hiking up to the ruins impossible, but we were able to see them through a viewer at a pullout. The scars of a fire that burned 80% of the area in 2019 are most apparent when driving south from Globe. The east side of the road is lush with greenery, the west, little more than dead trees and stunted cacti. The temp. reached 117 as we headed back to Tucson

Dinner with my best friend from ASU, the illustrious M. Thomas Carollo, was last on our list. We’ve remained friends through a lot of stuff I dare not go into, and I was thrilled when I learned he was moving from Arlington Texas to Green Valley, AZ just before our trip.

The stories we could tell!

I suspect we’ll go on another Road Scholar adventure in 2026, bodies willing.

No, he can’t whistle

WHAT IS SEO?

Vaughn C. Hardacker

Recently, I contracted with Melissa Gerety of MCG Creative in Orono to develop a new webpage for me (https://www.vaughnhardacker.com). I had another firm do my old one (I won’t mention their name), but was not only dissatisfied with their work, but I became irritated by their incessant attempts to sell me stuff and services that I had no use for. I met Melissa at the Bangor Author’s Book Fair & Literary Festival (https://bangorpubliclibrary.org/programs-and-events/bangor-area-maine-authors-book-fair-literary-festival/), where I shared a table with one of her clients. What has developed is possibly the best working relationship I’ve ever had with a website developer (hint: she has also been acting as a publicist and gotten me on WABI television and booked me into several appearances in southern Maine (which means everything below Caribou–or, as I call it, the United States). Now that the site is live, it’s time for me to get serious. I don’t have to tell most writers that we love the writing, but (most of us) hate the actual work in our business, to wit, SALES and PROMOTION. The first thing Melissa told me was that she does not create sites with WordPress; she uses WIX (As I go on, I will reveal why I believe she made the correct decision).

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization ( henceforth known as SEO) is a strategy to help your website rise to the top of the search engine results pages on Google, Bing, and other search engines. Currently, the worldwide market share of the most popular search engines is: Google – 89.57%, Bing – 4.02%, Yandex – 2.19%, Yahoo – 1.49%, DuckDuckGo – 0.95%, and Baidu – 0.72%. You don’t have to be a statistician to see why the name Google has become a standard descriptor for doing a search. How often have we said: I’ll Google it,” or something along those lines? The tactics set forth in this first of several blogs on SEO will concentrate on Google. (Spoiler Alert) SEO is a lot of work, and it must be done for a while before you will see meaningful changes to your search ranking. Note: SEO brings in Organic Search Traffic. Organic Search traffic is the result of free traffic, not paid advertising.

CORE ELEMENTS OF SEO.

On-Page SEO 

On-Page deals with all the activities you perform on your website and its pages to increase its ranking on the Search Engine Results Page (hereafter called SERP). This involves regularly writing high-quality (updating) content, incorporating good keywords into the content, as well as ensuring your meta and title tags are also keyword-rich and are well written. It is for this reason that unless you are an experienced web designer, it is best to have your site developed by a professional, experienced designer.

Off-Page SEO

Optimization of your website’s pages, such as building links back to your site from other websites, social media platforms, etc. In short, your ability to build relationships that will allow you to gain those links and post high-quality content that others will want to share with their followers.

BLACK HAT SEO vs WHITE HAT SEO

Black Hat SEO is when someone circumvents Google’s requirements in order to rank a website. AKA hit-and-run for quick gains and then on to some other thing in the shortest possible time. It’s kind of a used car salesman strategy in which link scraping and keyword stuffing content and pages. This will allow them to rank higher and faster than other websites. It may work for a short time. However, the folks at Google are getting smarter daily; if caught, their websites end up being penalized and de-ranked on the SERPs. Moral of the story? Play by Google’s rules. It takes longer, but the results will pay off in the long term and build a long-lasting business.

Black Hat Strategies:

Duplicate Content, invisible text and stuffed keywords, cloaking or redirectingthe user to another site or page, and links to non-related content

White Hat Strategies:

Relevant content, well-labeled images, relevant links and references, complete sentences with correct spelling and good grammar, standard-compliant HTML, and unique and relevant title pages.

How To Avoid Black Hat SEO

Keyword Research and Selection: The main way Google understands what your site is about and serves your site accordingly. There are tools like Ubersuggest to help find keywords that will help your rank on Google. Make sure you don’t force them into a role where they don’t belong. Creating quality content is most important above all else.

HTML: title tags, meta descriptions, alt texts, and headers are crucial elements of SEO that apply to your on-page SEO. These help tell Google about your content and what readers can expect from your site.

Site Architecture: deals with how your site was coded and built. This is about the design and functionality of your entire site. Is navigation through your site easy? What is your site’s speed? (Nothing will make a visitor leave any faster than a slow site.) Does your site comply with Google guidelines? Google wants its customers to have the best experience, so make your site such that people who land on it will be happy with what they see.

Trust: Crucial if you are selling books on your site. Features like SSL certificates and HTTPS are now the industry standard. Google expects this from all websites to rank.

Links (off-page SEO): Part of showing legitimacy to Google is a vote of confidence from other sites by linking to your pages. It is best if you build your links manually and not use a program that promises millions of links in two days, as this ensures the relevance of your links.

Personal” Fulfill the needs of your customers once they land on your page. Google sees how long a visitor stays on a page.

Social: Social media platforms are crucial. They work hand-in-hand with SEO and show Google that you’re in it for the long-term and willing to do whatever it takes.

EAT (Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness): Your content should reflect your dedication to sourcing quality information on the topic. Your content should help you build your reputation and earn the trust of your customers. (Kind of like telling a literary agent why you wrote the book in a query letter.)

SEO and Google Algorithm Updates: An algorithm is a series of operations a search engine uses to calculate and rank websites based on the relevance of a search query. The purpose of algorithms is to weed out those people using Black Hat SEO.

Still with me? I know that this is a lengthy blog. You are also saying: “I don’t design my site, so why should I care about this?” There are thousands (or millions) of people in the world who want to sell you something and are looking to take advantage of you. I have always said: If there is anything more important than knowing what you know, it is knowing what you don’t know–and knowing where to get the answers. If you are thinking of designing a website for your writing, or hiring someone to do it for you, wouldn’t it help to know what questions to ask?

In my next blog, I’ll discuss how search engines work.