The Man of Twists and Turns

When you sit on a stage to do a book reading or to discuss writing with other authors, you might think it natural to slip into a script. Improvisation might make you look hesitant in comparison with the polished stories you’ve told many times before. But you’d be surprised – well, I’m surprised – at [...]

BETHLEHEM, West Bank — The good news is that the West Bank is normal — kind of — and that people are content — sort of. The bad news, the Palestine Liberation Organization thinks it’s responsible for the good news.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who’s also the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) chief, has decided to stamp [...]

If there’s one thing that authoring a series of novels will teach you, it’s that you can’t wait for inspiration. But you can prompt it, give it little electric shocks that’ll keep it bubbling within you. Here are a few methods I use to do that.
I go to the places I’m writing about. I talk [...]

Since 9/11, journalists and writers have tried to understand the extremists committed to the destruction of the West and, often, that of their own societies in the Middle East. Writers have mostly done this by “going inside” the world of those extremists, giving us the inner life of suicide bombers or of the “American Taliban.”
It’s [...]

The dead man’s mother raged and cried as she told me how she’d discovered her son’s body, in the cabbage patch outside her home. She’d gone down on her knees, she said, touched his blood and wiped her fingers on her face and called out that God is most great.
As the winter wind came cold [...]

Crime writer J. Sydney Jones has a new blog called Scene of the Crime. He aims to interview writers about the impact on their writing of the location and sense of place in their novels — usually from far-flung countries. This week he features me on my Palestinian crime novels. Read on, for the full [...]

In the current Library Journal, my new Palestinian crime novel, THE FOURTH ASSASSIN (out Feb. 1) gets a good review that highlights the themes and implications beyond the resolution of the mystery. For those who don’t have a copy of the magazine (in which case you’ll have missed the award for Librarian of the Year [...]

The best thing about moving from journalism to fiction writing is that people show you more respect.
As a journalist covering a contentious issue like the Israel-Palestinian conflict, I was often subject to rather nasty verbal attacks during public speaking engagements. For a partisan of either side, I seemed a fine target for their generalized contempt—they [...]

Scott Pack, controversial publishing guru and self-declared big mouth (I can tell you he’s rather more charming in person than such a description would imply), recommends my debut novel THE BETHLEHEM MURDERS (US title THE COLLABORATOR OF BETHLEHEM)for a Christmas gift on his blog. Writes Scott, as he roasts his chestnuts over an open fire at his [...]

Rain on the streets of Bethlehem can’t cool simmering tension. By Matt Beynon Rees – GlobalPost
BETHLEHEM, West Bank — A writer seeks the surprise of a “man bites dog” story. The most violent times of the Second Intifada, which took place under the leaden winter skies of early 2002, gave me mine. I wrote about [...]