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Hi - nice to have you stop by! K.B. Owen, Historical Mystery Author …Chasing the Cozy Thrill If you're here, I'm assuming you want to know a little more about me. I have a Ph.D. in 19th century British literature and used to teach college lit and writing courses. These days, I'm a historical mystery writer, and just finished the first two books in a series that I'm really excited about. The series is set in a nineteenth-century women’s college in Hartford, Connecticut - world filled with quirky and beguiling characters and mischief mixed with murder. Why Hartford? I fell in love with Hartford and its history while I was at Uconn (one of the top 7 party schools at the time – I got some work done, really!) Why a women's college in the 19th century? Well, you know what they say: go with what you know (and like!). My years teaching college literature and writing provided some interesting classroom experiences. Who can resist such good material? Thankfully, unlike my main character, Professor Concordia Wells, I didn’t have to lecture in a bustle and full skirts. Besides writing and blogging, I read as much as I have the time for (especially mysteries, my first love), and share a house with a husband, three sons, and an assortment of small, furry pets. Chat with me on Twitter! @kbowenwriter

   
Happy Monday, everyone! Those of us north of latitude 32 or so have been longing for the end to the snow/sleet/freezing rain and the dreary gray-brown landscape. The gardeners among us have been deluged with seed catalogs and Pinterest prompts that have us dreaming of the lush backyards we delude ourselves each year into thinking…

   
Hello! Six weeks ago, I announced a flash fiction giveaway offer (described in the link below), based on the last line of an 1891 newspaper article: If you meet a party of eight young men with a barber pole, don’t arrest them. They own it. The challenge was to write a short-short account of what…

   
Hi, all! Today is the first day of a 14-day “fast draft” that several writers and I are doing together. What is fast draft, you ask? The original concept by romance author Candace Havens is a breathless writing pace: 20 pages per day for 14 days, no excuses. By the end, the writer has a complete…

   
With stories in the news lately about hackers from China breaking into corporate computers and stealing proprietary software and information (for example, this 60 Minutes’ feature: The Great Brain Robbery), here’s a little historical gem about Robert Fortune (1812-1880) who accomplished the reverse. The low-tech version. From 1845-1848, this Scottish botanist managed to acquire China’s closely-guarded…

   
Tomorrow night’s State of the Union address will be President Barack Obama’s last, during an election year already rife with divisive and derisive rhetoric. So, how about we have some fun instead? Below is a post from 2015 that surveyed social media responses to that year’s SOTU. It reaffirms my faith in mankind’s intrinsic smart-a$$ery,…