SCREAM (film) — Hilariously, this was my first date. It didn’t go well, because the guy in question thought I needed hand-holding, when I was in fact enthralled with and delighted by Kevin Williamson’s post-postmodern take on how horror had nothing new left to say,...

My Six Favorite Novels Set in Detroit (or near Detroit) 1. THE DOLLMAKER, Harriet Arnow (1954) an immediate popular and critical success, THE DOLLMAKER tells the devastating story of a Kentucky family that moves north to reap the riches of the factories going up in...

ALIENS (1986)  Where the first Alien movie was pure SF horror, the second was a straight-up military SF action flick. It was probably the most seminal influence on my teenage brain when it came to storytelling and how to do human drama and action beats. You had a...

Five Movies that have Influenced My Writing Die Hard (1988) – This was the first movie I watched while reading the script. The exercise was assigned as homework for one of the many on-line classes I took in my quest for better writing skills. Immediately...

5 Books That Changed My Life By Reece Hirsch Here are five books that had a huge impact on me and my writing: Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone. I first read Robert Stone’s novel about a heroin deal gone very wrong for the first time when I was a teenager but I reread...

FIVE THINGS DUMB CRIMINALS DO ONLINE (A THRILLER WRITER’S GUIDE)   While conducting research for my novel, The Advocate’s Daughter (St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur, March 22, 2016), I came across several reports about criminals who were caught because of their...