Ernie Wood

It's scary enough sending a novel out to publications for review, telling the world about it on social media and knowing that readers are posting their own reviews on amazon.com. But sending a novel to a former writing teacher, now that’s scary.

Or at least it was until I got a long e-mail back with a reference right near the top to “your wonderful novel.” And as quickly...

I traveled across space and time to my high school reunion a couple of weeks ago. The school was gone. The people were both different and the same.

This is exactly what Eddy McBride discovers in One Red Thread. He learns a lot about the effects of time when he physically travels into the past. But he learns more by interacting with his family and friends in the present.

Y...

It may seem strange that a discussion of science fiction would bring up William Faulkner. But it happened.

I was on a panel on Southern Gothic Fiction at ArmadilloCon, the big science fiction convention last weekend in Austin, when we naturally came to Faulkner’s famous dictum: “The past is never dead. It's not even past.”

Such a perfect segue into time travel.

This...

Those who know me can recognize places from my personal history in One Red Thread. But what about the places I made up? Is there any similarity between what was in my mind as I was writing and what is in readers' minds as they navigate the world of my story?

Sometimes, as it turns out, there is. And when that happens, the results can be strange and wonderful.

Readers who...

Years ago, when I started in this writing game, I heard a story I couldn’t believe. It seems there was a newspaper copy editor who kept two typewriters (years ago, remember?).

One, he used for his newspaper work. The other, he placed on the floor by his desk. And when breaks came between editions, he’d push his work to one side, pick his typewriter up from the floor, and...

What does an author do on book-launch day? Champagne?

Me, I spent November 3, the official publication date for One Red Thread, on jury duty. How appropriate is that for an author whose publisher specializes in crime, mystery and literary fiction?

Especially for a book that mixes all three styles—and places a crime deep in the story? Way back, as my protagonist Eddy McBri...

I don’t want to suggest that I wrote a novel after many years in non-fiction simply because I thought I could do it all by myself. But with a demanding day job, I didn’t really have the time and resources to take on the research and travel that non-fiction requires. A novel just comes out of the writer’s head, doesn’t it?

Shows what I knew.

Now, aside from library re...

I once heard author David Sedaris do an amazing thing. At a bookstore event, he interrupted reading his own work to read off a list of other books he’d liked and wanted his audience to know about.

I thought it was extraordinarily generous for a writer to share the limelight that way. I always wanted to do the same thing. So here goes.

During the course of writing One Red...