Sunny Frazier's Page

You've heard the phrase “If I only knew then what I know now.” This doesn't apply in the writing world. Everything I thought I knew about writing has changed in the last 20 years. Oh, not the basic rules of grammar and punctuation, that's still in place even if sometimes ignored. But how I write, and more importantly, how I publish has come out of the dark ages.

I knew I wanted to be a writer from age 13. I had good teachers, learned what I needed to know to put sentences together and got encou… Continue

Remember when the day ended with a bedtime story?

I remember my mother reading a picture book I already knew by heart. When he was home from sea duty, my father would spin stories of his childhood in the South. Sometimes he'd recite scenes from “Gone With the Wind,” changing his voice to fit each character. Okay, that may have been a little over the top. Does an eight-year-old really need to go to sleep with Scarlett's “As God is my witness” speech ringing in her dreams?

As I grew older, there… Continue

The Public Safety Writers Conference 2010 will be held from June 17 through June 20 in Las Vegas at the Orleans Hotel and Convention Center in Las Vegas.

Our headliner this year is the wonderful crime fiction and horror writer, Simon Wood. is going to talk about Creating Suspense. Michael A. Black will give us a lesson in putting together a plot in an hour. Forensic expert, Steve Scarborough, is returning, and I'm going to speak on “How Much Sex Is Too Much?” in the mystery genre. Next year's c… Continue

When I worked for the Sheriff's Department in Fresno, I created a saying and put it on a rolling banner as a screen saver: “A Writer Reinvents the Truth.”

This was never more accurate than when I wrote my first book, FOOLS RUSH IN. I took the first case I worked as a secretary for an undercover narcotics team and fictionalized it to include a kidnapping, two murders and a budding romance.

On August 13, I was invited to speak to a book club three hours away on the Pacific coast. Summer means 10… Continue

One of the curses of being a writer is when people say “I've had a fascinating life. You should write about me.”

I've had a fascinating life myself. I caused a small riot in a train station in Hanover, Germany, and another riot in a marketplace in Haiti. International misunderstandings can happen when you're 23 and clueless. Seventeen years working in law enforcement gave me plenty of plots.

According to a New York Times survey, 81% of Americans feel they have a book in them and that they shou… Continue