R. E. Conary

I think that each of us is unique and yet we are the distillation of everything that has come before. So it is with writing also, and mine owes as much to Aristophanes as it does to J. A. Jance; to Aesop as much as to Ray Bradbury; to the Grimm Brothers as to John D. MacDonald; to Shakespeare as to Raymond Chandler; to the nameless bards who sang of Cú Chulainn and Conaire Mor and the nameless scribes who later wrote down their words as to Homer who gave us Achilles and Odysseus, and Edmond Rostand and Miguel de Cervantes who immortalized Cyrano and Don Quixote, and Fritz Leiber who gave us Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

Andre Norton, Anne McCaffrey, Fredric Brown, Phillip José Farmer, Ian Fleming, Zane Grey, J. R. R. Tolkien, A. A. Milne, James Thurber, Mark Twain, Robert W. Service, John Steinbeck, Hemingway, Ayn Rand, Solzhenitsyn, Checkov, Pasternak, John Donne, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Sappho, Ben Hecht, Emil Petaja, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Beatrix Potter, Ogden Nash, Heinlein, Clarke, Azimov, Ellison, Silverberg, Dick, Simak, Vonnegut, Verne, Dumas, Hugo, Chesterton, Conan Doyle, Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine, Alice Walker, Elmore Leonard, the list goes on and on ad infinitum.

Every author, whether I've read his or her works or not, whether I liked his or her works or not; every writer, scribe who ever typed, penned, incised a word, a line, are as much a part of me, my DNA, as the Conarys, Dames, Longs, Fullers, Cousins, Chilton on back to that first amoeba that tweaked to life in the long forgotten primordial ooze.

Website: http://www.rachelcord.net

http://www.amazon.com/Lifes-Bitch-Rachel-Cord-P-I/dp/1432731432

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• Are You Still Submitting Your Work to a Traditional Publisher? on Nov. 12, 2009
  
  Before making the leap into the POD/self-published world, read this book. Patterson walks you through the process using his own experiences and gives a lot of useful advice. You might still go another way, but at least you won't be stumbling in the dark.
  
• Dynamite Fishermen on Jan. 16, 2012
  
  Described as "in the classic tradition of Graham Greene, Eric Ambler, and John Le Carré" to which I would agree and would add author Anthony Price ("The Labyrinth Makers") as well, Preston Fleming writes with the assurance of one who has "been there, done that." This is no "James Bond" or "Jason Bourne" over-the-top thriller, but instead is a down-to-earth, the way-it-is story of a dedicated CIA case officer caught between the need to further his career or become a HQ's basement analyst, and his moral commitment to those who trust him. It is an Interesting depiction of espionage and day-to-living in war-torn Beirut of the early '80s that could as easily describe what's happening today in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other parts of the Middle East. Rich in detail of time and place, as well as development and motivation of protagonist and antagonist alike, DYNAMITE FISHERMEN is right up there with THE RUSSIA HOUSE, THE THIRD MAN and A COFFIN FOR DIMITRIOS. I've already bought the second book, BRIDE OF A BYGONE WAR.