by Kristin A. Oakley | Aug 1, 2026 | Books and Movies, For Readers, For Writers, Newsletter
This month’s book club goes back in time to late 1700s Maine and Ariel Lawhon’s novel The Frozen River. Lawhon based her historical murder mystery upon the journal entries of real life midwife Martha Ballard. Martha delivered over 800 babies and was called...
by Kristin A. Oakley | Jul 6, 2026 | Conferences, For Writers, Newsletter
Last year, Deborah King asked me to be one of the two All-Genre instructors at the amazing Novel-in-Progress Bookcamp. Years before, I had presented a workshop on characters and sat on a publishing panel. But being an instructor meant teaching an eighty-minute...
by Kristin A. Oakley | Jun 14, 2026 | Books and Movies, For Readers, For Writers, Newsletter, Writer's Book Club
Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister is my favorite book of 2026 (so far), and one of the best books I’ve read in the last decade. I listened to the audio book version of this psychological thriller twice, narrated by Leslie Sharp who did an excellent...
by Kristin A. Oakley | May 31, 2026 | Books and Movies, Creativity & Craft, For Readers, For Writers, Newsletter
Opposable thumbs? When I attended elementary school, my teachers asked, “What makes us human? What separates us from the beasts?” They then posited the opposable thumb theory—we’re human because, unlike animals, we have opposable thumbs. That theory...
by Kristin A. Oakley | May 17, 2026 | Books and Movies, For Readers, For Writers, Newsletter, Writer's Book Club
It’s been a while since I’ve read one of Robert Crais’ Elvis Cole/Joe Pike books, and I’d forgotten how much I love them—the humor, the smart, competent characters, the twists. His latest novel, The Big Empty, doesn’t disappoint. Ex-con...
by Kristin A. Oakley | May 4, 2026 | Creativity & Craft, For Readers, For Writers, Newsletter, Writing Life
In November, I’ll attend Author Nation in Las Vegas. With 2,000 attendees, it’s one of the largest writers’ conferences in the world. This year, they’re producing three anthologies, including a sci-fi one with Andy Weir (the author of The...
