tales from the autumn creek land

Yamabuki travels from the Taka compound to the capital of Heian-kyo.

Hazard Sensei used to say that archery was the prefered method of fighting in old Japan. Swords were too personal. Too in close. Too involved with the opponent. Archery was “better.” In fact, the old Japanese root word for “war” is said to come from something approximate to “archery exchange.” As I draw to a close in my work on Cold Heart, I draw inspiration from a very nice video that resonates....

House of the Seven Gables. Library of Congress image. Cold Saké The novella that became Cold Saké is rooted in a dark November evening in New England as the sun was setting—a scene out of Washington Irving. I had taken on the project of writing a short story for a contest and Yamabuki, who turned out to be the story’s protagonist, was still forming in my consciousness. It was especially dark, a night of the new moon, as I headed out of the office and, on what turned out to be a particularly lonely evening, drove down the two lane tree lined road toward Boston....

The paperback edition of <em>Cold Blood</em> has been released this morning on Amazon, which is currently filling pre-orders and taking new orders. I am delighted that the Toot Sweet team was able to get the book out for the holidays. We at Toot Sweet Ink will be celebrating in the coming days like most other people, except I will be working on Cold Heart and Laura will be getting out our first hardback, Cold Sake, with its new cover, sans the excerpt from Haru....

Without realizing it, I had made a big deal out of Yamabuki’s armor.