Nancy Pickard
Nancy Pickard has authored sixteen critically acclaimed mystery novels and dozens of short stories. Her popular works have garnered Anthony Awards, a Shamus Award, Agatha Awards, Macavity Awards, and three Edgar nominations. A former president and founding member of Sisters in Crime, she has been a full-time professional writer for thirty-five years. Prior to writing fiction, she worked as a newspaper reporter and editor, a corporate writer, and a freelance writer. She lives in Prairie Village, Kansas.
The blank page, the impossible deadline, the exhilarating rush of inspiration, the perils of publication: There is no profession more maddening or more rewarding than being a writer. Yet surprisingly, all writers, no matter how famous or successful, pass through the same sequence of stages in the course of their careers. It was this remarkable insight that inspired veteran writers Nancy Pickard and Lynn Lott to pool their talents and write a book. The result is one of the wisest and liveliest guides to the literary life ever written--a volume of astonishing revelation, warm reassurance, brilliant encouragement, and welcome humor.
Drawing on their own experience as writers of fiction and nonfiction as well as the insights of scores of colleagues, Pickard and Lott follow the trajectory of the writer's life from the first time that inner voice whispers “I want to write” to the burst of accomplishment that comes when the book is finished, the vision expressed, the dream made real. No matter what you write or how much recognition you've received, if you're serious about writing as a profession, you are bound to pass through the seven steps on the writer's path. Pickard and Lott call these steps Unhappiness, Wanting, Commitment, Wavering, Letting Go, Immersion, and Fulfillment.
Are you sunk in a pit of loneliness and confusion, burdened by pressures you can neither name nor escape? Welcome to the stage of Unhappiness, what Pickard and Lott call the “precreative state.” Don't worry, Tolstoy and Stephen King have been there before you, and somehow they cleared the abyss of Wanting (desires you can't shake, jealousies that sting like bees) and climbed the ladder of Commitment.
Wavering is where you hit the wall, tread water, and succumb to the dread paralysis of writer's block and the abuse of unsympathetic editors and critics. E. B. White said a writer is like a surfer waiting for the perfect wave--and in the stage of Letting Go, that wave finally crests, releasing the torrent of creativity that carries you through the deeply satisfying stages of Immersion and Fulfillment.
Pickard and Lott are the buddies every writer dreams of-always there to light the way and lighten your mood, generous with advice and sympathy, and bold enough to give you the occasional kick in the pants. Whether you’re a “wannabe” writer or a published literary veteran, you’re bound to find this book a source of true delight, vital wisdom, and lasting inspiration.
The Truth Hurts ISBN: 0743412036 · 2002 Pocket Star
With The Whole Truth and Ring of Truth, award-winning author Nancy Pickard introduced the intrepid Marie Lightfoot, a gutsy and charismatic true-crime writer, and kicked oV a sensational new series that sealed her reputation as one of today's top practitioners of “chilling, fast-paced, and original thrillers” (Detroit Free Press). Now Marie Lightfoot faces an unusually challenging case because this time it's personal -- painfully so, as it concerns the central mystery of her life: her parents' disappearance.
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Ring of Truth ISBN: 0671887971 · 2001 Pocket Books
Sex, violence, evil, and betrayal -- the shocking murder case splashed across the Florida headlines has all the right elements for true-crime writer Marie Lightfoot's next bestseller. And tell the tale she does, in a book that reveals the secrets of a love affair gone fatally wrong. But there are disturbing twists, which leave Marie sensing in her gut that something does not jibe.
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The Whole Truth ISBN: 0671887955 · 2000 Pocket Star
With The Whole Truth, Nancy Pickard taps neatly into our national fascination with true crime in a daring novel that seems structurally and philosophically at odds with the conventional mystery story. We know, apparently, “who did it”--as do most true crime readers. How could these things have happened? What sort of monsters must such criminals be? Pickard's is just such an exploration: it opens with the conviction of one Raymond Raintree for the murder of six-year-old Natalie McCullen, a crime that has shocked South Florida. Marie Lightfoot is in attendance, waiting for the words that will bring to an end The Little Mermaid, the book she is writing about the McCullen case.
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Storm Warnings (Award-Winning Short Stories) ISBN: 155882040X · 2002 International Polygonics, Ltd.
Fans of mystery, crime, fantasy, and horror will love this collection of stories by internationally acclaimed mystery writer Nancy Pickard. From a never-before-published story sure to thrill readers to eight other award-winning cautionary tales, these nine stories are linked by signs of foreboding, paths that lead to unexpected places, and the craftiness of human nature-showing that men and women, when faced with the subtle portents of disaster, may ignore warnings at their own peril.
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Generous Death ISBN: 0671732641 · 1987 Pocket Books; Reissue edition
As director of the Port Frederick Civic Foundation, Jenny Cain is privy to the charitable intentions of the town's wealthiest citizens. And when some of these donors end up murdered, Jenny Cain must find the killer--especially since a rhyme placed at the crime scene states that Jenny will be the next victim. Reissue.
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RebeccasiReads.com
Nancy Pickard
The Truth Hurts
Ring of Truth
The Whole Truth
Storm Warnings (Award-Winning Short Stories)
Generous Death