There's No Place Like Home (for Writing)

There's a reason Stephen King sets so many of his books in Maine. He lives there. He knows it well. And it gives him a leg up with setting in his stories.

(There are other areas where authors mine their own experiences. If you read King's 11/22/63, it sure seemed like he nailed the feel of the sixties, it felt so real. I mean he's an amazing writer, but the fact that he lived through the sixties undoubtedly helped).

It makes sense, doesn't it? When you're making stuff up, it helps to have a solid foundation of things that you know well.

This is why I write so many stories in Arizona.

Well... that's part of it. I happen to love Arizona, it is a large, beautiful, and varied state. And the fact that the Grand Canyon is here (one of my favorite places in the world) doesn't hurt. I also think that Arizona, being such a fabulous part of the country, deserves more love in fiction.

There is one more reason why I write in Arizona a lot, and that is I find creating a convincing experience of setting to be hard work. Let me write dialog all day, and my fingers will fly, but when it comes to setting I need to focus, and writing stories in my backyard helps a lot.

To celebrate our anniversary, my wife and I were recently up at the Grand Canyon on the South Rim staying at the Thunderbird Lodge in a room with an amazing view:

There's quite a bit of roof there, but what a view! And so inspiring.

My short story "Dog People" (available in a couple of anthologies) was mostly written at the South Rim in January a few years ago after a huge snow storm left the Canyon clothed in glorious white. That short story led directly to the novel Where the Past Belongs: An Angelica and Ash Time Travel Adventure, all because I was at the Canyon for that snow storm and couldn't help but be inspired.

(BTW, both that story and the novel feature a corgi based off an adorable pup we met that day as she doggedly trailed her person with her very short legs across the hard-packed snow).

That glorious morning we broke new ground through the snow to get to the rim. How could I not use that in a story?

With this in mind, I thought I would summarize my books and series that take place in Arizona:

Woody and June versus the Apocalypse

This is my most Arizona series. It takes place in and around the Grand Canyon, and is, in part, a travelogue and ode to the spectacular beauty of Northern Arizona. The land itself is a character in these stories of love, friendship, and survival. One of the fun parts of these stories has been returning to locations after I drafted the books and making sure I got the setting just right. I mean, who doesn't want to drive up to the Canyon or Meteor Crater or over to Williams to make sure the descriptions of setting are spot on?

Shuffled Off: A Ghost's Memoir, Book 1 (and many of the books in the series)

Shuffled Off was my first novel and setting it close by was important. Not all of the action take place in Arizona, but lots of it does. It's home base.

To Be a Fool has several scenes at the Grand Canyon, seeing it the way only ghosts can. JJ Lynch is from Globe, Arizona where I did a lot of growing up and some scenes take place there.

Carterville Mysteries

The idea for this series of books came to me in Las Vegas, of all places, but the idea was directly inspired by Stephen King. If he can make up fictional towns in Maine, why can't I make up a fictional town in Arizona?

Carterville is located on the northern slopes of the San Francisco Peaks not far from Flagstaff with stunning views of the volcano field and the desert beyond. Grounding these stories about a police chief dealing with folks with quirky powers (that only work in and around Carterville) in a small mountain town near my own home helped bring it to life.

Neutrinoman and Lightningirl: A Love Story

Who doesn't want Arizona-based superheroes? I needed a nuclear reactor for Neutrinoman and Palo Verde in Phoenix is a massive one. Action is not limited to Arizona (or the planet for that matter) but, again, Arizona is home base.

Conner Bright Mysteries

Conner Bright is a Phoenix-based private detective in this series of hard-boiled detective stories (Conner is also from Globe, AZ). If you haven't read any, these are contemporary mysteries, but Conner gets all the weird cases that appear like something supernatural might be going on (Purple Unicorns, Chupacabras, etc.)

I love my Arizona home and all its many moods, its seasons, and its many faces, so it's quite natural that I write a lot of stories that take place in Arizona.

There really is no place like home for writing.