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Lately I’ve been using ChatGPT (an artificial intelligence program) to research some technical issues for my new Thorn novel. (Almost finished.) It’s very good at answering questions about coding and servers and matters having to do with programming. (At least I think it’s good because I know very little about all that stuff.) Back in […]

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the book that started my love affair with literature and writing. I’m pretty sure Moms For Liberty (those do-gooders who are spearheading much of the book-banning nationally) would have ripped that book from the shelf of my youth and thrown it on the smut pile. And if I’d

Back in May of 2018, I wrote a blog post on Artificial Intelligence after reading a fascinating article in The New Yorker. That blog post is here. I’ve had an interest in AI for decades, and have watched with curiosity and a certain amount of dread as long ago prophesies about the future of AI

Remembering one of my favorites. I’d published two Thorn novels (Under Cover of Daylight and Tropical Freeze) with W.W. Norton in the late 80’s and I was ready to give Thorn a break. I frankly wasn’t sure if a recluse like Thorn was cut out to be a long-term series character. He wasn’t exactly anti-social,

The following 10 commandments are Elmore Leonard’s famous advice. I mostly agree with them, though I do like to write about weather, and creating brief descriptions of characters (especially those things which are choices the characters make about their appearance, like dress, grooming, etc.) seems perfectly okay to me. The one thing that jumps out

Okay, so the movie isn’t great art. Rotten Tomatoes gives it only three stars. And I don’t want to quibble about that. However, the McGuffin (the plot device that drives the story) is so memorable that I find myself using the movie’s title as shorthand for so many watershed events in my own life. I

I’ll explain this image in a bit. But please notice that for at least a day or two, Tropical Freeze, my second Thorn novel, topped the Amazon bestseller list. However, it’s only fair to point out that this is the bestseller list of Free Books. Does this call for a celebration? Well, yeah, it does.

POET SINKS TO CRIME (The following is an updated excerpt that first appeared in my collection of essays, Hot Damn!) A couple of weeks after my first novel was accepted, my new publisher sent me a twenty-five-page questionnaire. Every question was really a version of the same question: Is there anything, no matter how small

Two Years of Living Dangerously—Trickster It was March, 2020 when the WHO declared Covid-19 a pandemic.  By then most everyone already knew this virus was deadly and mysterious.  By that time in March, I’d finished Bad Axe (Thorn’s 15th outing) and was beginning the next novel.  Though I did not have Covid in mind as

Goodreads Book Giveaway Trickster by James W. Hall Giveaway ends July 14, 2022. See the giveaway details at Goodreads. Enter Giveaway YOU CAN ENTER BOTH IF YOU LIKE Click on the Link and Enter the Contest LitRing https://litring.com/giveaway/trickster-new-release-giveaway/