Author Archives: jamesdmacdonald

Originally posted on Dr. Doyle's Blog:
All good stories need a villain, or, more properly, an antagonist.  (“Villain” is so judgmental, really — not to mention classist, since its origins lie in the Anglo-French and Old French vilain “peasant, farmer, commoner, churl, yokel” (12c.), from Medieval Latin villanus “farmhand,” from Latin villa “country house,…

Originally posted on Dr. Doyle's Blog:
This is one of those questions, like “Where do you get your ideas?”, that people will keep asking writers – and like the question about ideas, it’s one that doesn’t have an answer, or at least not the kind of answer the questioner is looking for. Even before…

Originally posted on Dr. Doyle's Blog:
Jim Macdonald and I have a reading at 1 PM in Griffin, here in the Westin hotel, and we’re going to be reading a brand-new, just-finished short story . . . one that we’ve been mulling over for a long time, that finally came together in this past…

Originally posted on Dr. Doyle's Blog:
If you’re driving into Boston from out of town, you have to get lost at least once on Massachusetts Avenue. Normally, our GPS navigator saves us from this, but the rules caught up with us this trip, because the navigator went toes-up on us shortly before departure.  Fortunately,…