15 Best Places for Writers to Retire
What writer wouldn’t want to live on “Ernest Heming Way”? We love the irony or whatever it is. Nobody really knows what irony means. Anyway, as I approach the official […]
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Die different.
“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.” —Jack Kerouac, “The Dharma Bums” A long time ago, in another life, I sat with Jan Kerouac, the […]
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A crime. A boy. A teacher. And a hundred books.
“Up ahead they’s a thousand lives we might live, but when it comes, it’ll on’y be one.” The Grapes of Wrath Fourteen years ago, a couple Southeast Texas high school kids just […]
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Cry later.
Not long ago, I stood with my wife Mary at the Houston grave of murderous Texas mother Andrea Yates’ five children, whom she drowned in her bathtub. I was writing […]
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Let me tell you about my first time
I started reading young. I fell in crazy-mad love with books, or at least became addicted to the way they made me feel. I began to wish that I could […]
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Tour dates for new true crime book ‘Alice & Gerald’
Now you can meet Ron Franscell, the Edgar-nominated author of “Alice & Gerald: A Homicidal Love Story”—a new true-crime book ripped from Wyoming headlines—at readings, Q&A, and free book signings […]
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Dead Man Talking: Killers’ last words can be humorous … and monstrous
As it does fairly regularly, Texas executed a killer on Tuesday. Christopher Young, 34, shot a San Antonio convenience store clerk to death in 2004. The victim’s family had begged […]
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A father, a son, and the longest day
Excerpted from “The Sourtoe Cocktail Club,” by Ron Franscell (Globe Pequot Press, 2011). While Matt sleeps, I watch the subtly changing sky as the sun circles around to the north […]
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A modest proposal to relieve the burden of immigrant kids
It is a sad thing to those who walk through this great country, when they see the streets crowded with immigrants followed by three, four, or six children. Instead of […]
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Is true crime as entertainment morally defensible?
I’ve been writing true crime for 10 years. I confess to occasional pangs that I am reopening wounds for a few people, but the old-school journalist in me rationalizes that […]
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20 years ago today, ‘Angel Fire’ was published
On this day—June 4—in 1998, a tiny publisher in an Alabama small town released a little book, a first novel by an unknown writer in Wyoming. It didn’t change the world but it changed the writer’s life. The little book was titled “Angel Fire.” And the author was me.
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Canadian producer developing TV series on MORGUE
Pixcom, an international production company based in Montreal, has optioned our book MORGUE: A LIFE IN DEATH—co-authored with world-renowned medical examiner Dr. Vincent Di Maio—for a true-crime TV series, the […]
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Just hanging out at the library
In my hometown of Casper WY, the Natrona County Public Library is celebrating local authors such as CJ Box, Craig Johnson … and me … with colorful banners along the […]
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For writers, endings are beginnings
“I hate writing; I love having written.” —Dorothy Parker Once upon a time, early-day typesetters recognized the end of a newspaper story when they saw “XXX” at the bottom of […]
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DARKEST NIGHT among 10 Most Underrated TC books, says website
A popular crime website and podcast has rated THE DARKEST NIGHT one of the 10 Most Underrated modern true-crime books. TheLineUp.com put the story of the horrendous 1973 abduction, rape, […]
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Broken Windows: One thing we can do tomorrow about school shootings
We are engaged—again—in a great, uncivil war. Another mass murder, this one a school shooting, fuels a debate that often seems to threaten to rip the fabric of our American […]
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Was the genius artist Vincent van Gogh murdered?
The feverish life and curious death of Vincent van Gogh have become a kind of myth, partly true and partly what we wish to be true. His disappointments, his genius, […]
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The Black Dahlia dissected again
Today, it’s been 71 years since Elizabeth Short’s grisly parts were discovered in a vacant Los Angeles subdivision, sliced cleanly in half and posed lasciviously. This obscure waitress suddenly became far […]
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New earthy, Wyoming true crime by Ron Franscell is in the pipeline
The good news is, I have just signed the contract for a new true crime book with Prometheus Books of New York. It will be published in Spring 2019 and […]
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Before Vegas and Orlando, there was Luby’s Cafeteria
The entire restaurant was eerily silent, except for the pop-pop-pop of George Hennard’s guns and his profane ranting. Frightened diners hid the best they could, sometimes protected by nothing more […]
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The flags of our killers
In the last couple football seasons, Americans have exhausted a lot of very personal energy arguing about our flag. What it stands for. Whether it’s bigger than us. What respect […]
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How pioneer rocker Gram Parsons went up in flames
One night, Gram told his friend Phil Kaufman that when he died, he wanted to be cremated and his ashes sprinkled over the Cap Rock outcropping in the park. Kaufman took it as a solemn responsibility.
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Waxing Brazilian … a new edition
Ponder the enigma of a writer who can’t read the words he’s strung together. No, I’m not having a stroke. I simply cannot speak, read, or write Portuguese. And that’s […]
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