Robert J. McCarter

There's No Place Like Home (for Writing)

2026-09-15T16:00:00Z

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:

A room with a 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).

Snow at the Grand Canyon

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.

An AI Cast of Thousands

2026-09-10T16:00:00Z

I’ve published a lot of books at this point, and every once in a while my mind turns to audiobooks.

I haven’t gone there because the level of effort (and, potentially, financial commitment) is high. That is until now.

What I had been thinking of doing is cloning my voice and letting an AI take the wheel and do the narration of my books, but as I dove back in recently, I stumbled on Spoken.press.

This site does full-cast audio narrations using AI and it does it for a reasonable price. Far, far less than what you would pay humans. And it’s pretty smart. It analyzes your story, does the preliminary casting of the voices, and lets you act as a director of the production and tweak things here and there.

It’s got quirks (like getting it to pronounce some words correctly, looking at you “aikido”), and it’s not perfect, but it’s surprisingly good.

They also advertise this as ethical AI, which helps on the moral side.

As an aside: I suspect “ethical AI” is similar to “free range eggs” and “green energy” in that it is a step in the right direction, but not perfect, and you are best off with third party certification (flawed though it may be). I don’t think there is such a thing for AI, but I appreciate that Spoken is making the effort and the narrators they used to train are getting compensated.

The Story

I’m starting small with a short story for financial and time reasons. I want to see this work, see what other people think. I’m starting up my Story of the Month program and tried it out on the first story, “Shogun Dreams.”

The Process

Using Spoken was actually quite fun at first. It did a thorough analysis of the story, came up with the genre, a blurb, keywords, found all the different characters, and create a lexicon of words it wasn’t sure how to pronounce.

Then came casting where you can review the selections that AI made for your characters. Here you can change, tweak, or find other narrators.

Next comes the “directing” part. Here you listen to the audio with the full cast of characters and tweak away. I found a couple of small problems in the text, and wrestled with getting pronunciation right on some Japanese words used in the story.

It should be noted that it took a while to wrestle with the 5% the AI did not do a good job of. Quite a while. It’s not like you can just throw your text in and have an audiobook a few minutes later. It has to be reviewed, changes are going to be needed. It is still a time commitment.

On top of that there were some bugs in the UI and a learning curve to take on, some random “pops” that kept occurring in the audio, and a few other annoyances. My 25 minute short story took 6 or 8 hours.

To be fair, I picked a hard story to start with and was new to the system, but I would expect this to take several times the length of the audio in a best-case scenario (so an 8 hour audiobook of a novel would take around 15 to 20 hours to create with Spoken).

Is it Any Good?

The short answer is, yes. It’s quite good.

The longer answer is similar to most any use of AI I’ve done: it’s good most of the time, but sometimes it’s pretty terrible.

Getting it to pronounce “aikido” correctly and the same way throughout was a real chore, and there is one passage with high emotion I just couldn’t get what I wanted out of it.

It’s not perfect, but pretty amazing.

But… But… What About the Moral Implications?

If we push aside the general AI concerns (address in this post), what we are left with is the fact that this technology will take work away from human narrators. And it will. I can’t see how it won’t.

But it will do something else. It will allow many stories to get a full-cast audio treatment that wouldn’t have it otherwise.

Let’s take “Shogun Dreams,” for example. This is a 3,600 word short story, and without AI there wouldn’t be a full-cast audio version of it, ever. There wouldn’t even be a single-narrator version either. It just wouldn’t happen.

And, at my level, none of my books would get a full-cast treatment, it just wasn’t economically viable before this. That doesn’t hold for the big names, but it does for most of us.

AI is, clearly, a disruptive technology, and as such it will take work away and also enable things that just wouldn’t happen before.

I think honesty is important here. If the narration is done by AI, that should be clear. That will drive some people away and attract others.

What’s Next?

For me, audio is untapped, and another way to reach “readers.” How far or how deep I will go into it, I just don’t know yet.

For now, I’m not at the level where I can justify spending weeks of my time and lots of funds to narrate one of my novels the traditional way, but I can probably justify a day or two to get a full-cast AI narration with a clone of my voice as the narrator.

I think I’ll do a few more short stories and see what that feels like. I’ll be posting the audio version of “Shogun Dreams” here soon. Stay tuned.

Update The full-cast audio version of “Shogun Dreams” is now available now on Patreon.

The Ghosts Are Coming!

2026-09-05T16:00:00Z

I've got a Kickstarter campaign coming soon for my next three books!! I could say a lot about it, but instead I'll let this video I made for it speak for me (btw, this video was a blast to create):

Go over to Kickstarter and get notified when the project launches.

Wednesdays in the Grove

2026-09-02T08:00:00Z

There are a few moments in the writing process that rise above the rest:

The moment when you realize a story actually works
The moment when an editor gives you an enthusiastic "yes!"
The moment when that story finally makes it out into the world.

Today is the third moment. I am thrilled to announce that my story, "Wednesdays in the Grove" is part of Romance for all Seasons: Festive Fall.

For anyone keeping track (besides me, that is) this is the fourth issue of Romance for All Seasons and the fourth time I've had a story appear in its pages. I am, frankly, delighted but blown away. I'm the geeky sci-fi type, and yet I've had contemporary romance stories appear in this publication for the last year! I guess I am also a big-ole-romantic too.

"Wednesdays in the Grove" is a story that takes place in the same location over many, many years as our couple meet, part, and dance the dance of romance. The location is a gloriously dense aspen grove on the San Francisco Peaks during fall's peak leaf season, a perfect place to fall in love.

This is a very romantic story. The editors in their acceptance said, "This one brought tears to our eyes."

Here's the blurb:

Whether you call it Fall or Autumn, the end of the summer season is a great time for romance! Shorter days mean longer nights as sticky summer heat and humidity give way to crisp, cool breezes filled with the possibility of new love in the air. Not to mention a hint of magic!

That’s right. We said magic! For our Festive Fall issue, Romance for All Seasons is excited to include stories that mix magic and romance along with stories whose heroes and heroines have their feet firmly planted in the real world.

Penned by a group of amazing short story writers, each of these tales will leave you believing in true love and happily-ever-afters!

“A Wolf By Any Other Name” by Annie Reed

“The Last House on the Hill” by Charley Marsh

“The Autumn Fox” by Jessi Hammond

“Apples and Other Sweet Surprises” by Jason A. Adams

“The Golden Valley Homecoming Kings” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

“Trick and Treat” by Rebecca M. Senese

“Always Remember September” by Rei Rosenquist

“In the Shoulder Season” by Dory Crowe

“A Real Human Connection” by Johanna Rothman

“Magic’s Distant Spark” by Lisa Silverthorne

“Trick or Treat Triathlon” by David H. Hendrickson

“Wednesdays in the Grove” by Robert J. McCarter

I'm very happy with this story and delighted to have it appearing alongside such other fabulous writers. Be sure to check it out!

Story of the Month: With All My Hearts

2026-08-28T08:00:00Z

My new Story of the Month is, "With All My Hearts." It is free to read here on my website until 9/7/2026. For Patreon McMuse tier members, the ebook will be available until the end of October.

I am delighted to get this story out to a wider audience (it was previously in a private, limited-edition collection)

This is a sweet and quirky romance about alien love.

Here's the blurb:

Modern master of multiple genres, Robert J. McCarter captivates readers with stories featuring stunning settings, relatable characters (even aliens), and fascinating plots.

When Tef, a two-hearted alien anthropologist equipped with the latest "skinsuit" technology, falls for April, a human journalist, everything changes. True intimacy requires honesty, but what will April do if she sees the true Tef?

This quirky romance of alien love will touch your hearts and put a smile on your face.

Here are you links:

What ChatGPT Thinks of Me

2026-08-21T16:00:00Z

I recently got a marketing email that suggested that I put this prompt into ChatGPT:

Tell me about author Robert J. McCarter. What do they write? Who are their books for? What themes come up in their work, and what are readers saying about them?

The intent of the email was to sell me a service to manage my social media, which I am not active on at all (and really don't want to be, Patreon works for me, but traditional social media doesn't). The question, though was interesting. What does the internet think about my writing? Is there enough there to give an AI something to work with?

The result is below. It's a fairly surreal experience and my feelings on it are mixed. I mean, it got a lot right and I'm glad there is enough on the internet so ChatGPT can produce the equivalent of a Wikipedia page, but it's also a little uncomfortable given how introverted I am.

That said, it's a pretty good overview of my writing and is just focused on my writing (or I wouldn't be posting it).

Here it is:

Robert J. McCarter is an independent novelist best known for writing genre-blending fiction that mixes science fiction, fantasy, paranormal elements, mysteries, superheroes, and character-driven drama. Rather than staying in one genre, he has built several interconnected series alongside standalone novels and short story collections. (Robert J. McCarter)

What does he write?

His catalog spans several styles:

Science fiction – Stories exploring AI, space travel, technology, and the future, such as Seeing Forever, The Last Flight of the Acurus, and The Turing Test Will Be Televised.
Paranormal fiction – Ghost-centered novels like the A Ghost's Memoir series and Drawing the Dead.
Mystery – Detective fiction with unusual twists, including the Conner Bright Mysteries and the Walter Anchor Ghost Detective series, where the detective is himself a ghost trying to solve his own murder.
Superhero fiction – The Neutrinoman and Lightningirl books combine superhero action with romance.
Fantasy and adventure – Including Hollow Earth stories and collections featuring mythical creatures.
Short story collections – Books such as Anomalous Readings, Life After, Creatures Featured, and Winter Wonders showcase a mix of speculative genres. (Robert J. McCarter)

Who are the books for?

McCarter's books are generally aimed at adult readers, though many are accessible to older teens because they emphasize adventure and relationships over graphic content.

They tend to appeal to readers who enjoy:

speculative fiction with emotional depth
mysteries with paranormal or supernatural twists
optimistic science fiction
serialized characters and connected universes
books that mix humor, romance, suspense, and philosophical questions

His writing isn't primarily "hard sci-fi" or horror. Instead, it leans toward character-focused speculative fiction where unusual premises support emotional stories. (Robert J. McCarter)

Common themes

Across his many series, several recurring ideas appear:

Life, death, and what comes after. Ghosts, the afterlife, unfinished business, and grief are central to several novels.
Identity. Characters often wrestle with who they are after dramatic changes—becoming a ghost, gaining powers, or living alongside advanced technology.
Love and relationships. Romantic partnerships are frequently as important as the action, especially in the Neutrinoman and Lightningirl books.
Hope and redemption. Many protagonists are flawed people seeking second chances rather than traditional heroes.
Community and family. Small-town settings and close relationships appear repeatedly, particularly in the Carterville stories.
Science alongside humanity. Even when exploring AI or futuristic technology, the emotional consequences remain the focus. (Robert J. McCarter)

What are readers saying?

While McCarter isn't a household-name bestseller, readers who discover his work tend to respond positively. His books on Goodreads average around 4.1 stars overall, with several individual titles scoring even higher, though many have relatively modest numbers of ratings compared with mainstream authors. (Goodreads)

Common praise includes:

memorable, likable characters
creative genre mashups
inventive supernatural and science-fiction concepts
emotionally satisfying stories
engaging mystery plots

Some readers also note that:

the books often prioritize character relationships over fast-paced action
the blend of genres may not suit readers looking for pure mystery, pure science fiction, or pure horror
as an independent author, his books have a smaller readership and less mainstream visibility than comparable traditionally published series. (Goodreads)

Where to start

Depending on your interests:

For paranormal mystery: Shuffled Off (the beginning of A Ghost's Memoir)
For detective fiction: Detecting Haley (Walter Anchor Ghost Detective)
For science fiction: Seeing Forever
For superhero romance: Neutrinoman and Lightningirl: Season 1
For a sampling of his style: Anomalous Readings or Life After. (Robert J. McCarter)

Overall, Robert J. McCarter's work is characterized by its willingness to cross genre boundaries while keeping the focus on ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances. Readers who enjoy speculative fiction with strong emotional and relational threads are the audience most likely to connect with his novels.

The above image was created by ChatGPT to specifically go with its summary of my writing. It should be noted: that the man in the picture is not me, but he is close in age; none of those books covers you see in the image are correct; but overall it's pretty cool.

See my posts on AI in Creativity for more thoughts on images like this.

A Few Thoughts on AI and Fiction Writing

2026-07-29T16:00:00Z

I recently submitted a new story to Romance for All Seasons, a publication I’ve been very happy to have stories appear in lately. Today I want to talk a little about the story I submitted (no spoilers, of course) and how I used AI for this story.

For those not in the writing community, AI is a rather hot topic in terms of how it is used, what the moral implications are, and what it is useful for. As you can imagine, there are a wide range of reactions to AI in this realm, just like in every other one. This is quite understandable, and in thinking about how I used AI for this story, I’ve figured out a way to frame it that works for me.

But first off, let me be clear, AI did not write one single word of this story (or any of my stories). Not one. I will go into the whys of that shortly.

What AI did was serve as a research assistant. This story is a historical western/romance that takes place in 1899 near Bisbee in the Arizona Territory, and as such needed plenty of research. By using AI, I was able to do a lot more and a lot better research than I would have otherwise, grounding the story in a very satisfying way.

In short, AI contributed to the quality of this story without writing any of it.

Why not let AI write for me?

The first answer to that is a question: why would I? The first draft is the fun part for me, why would I let a computer have all the fun, let it do what I love most when it comes to writing?

A deeper answer is: because it would remove what is most important about my stories, and that is me and my voice. If a reader likes my stories, what they like is what is unique about what I bring to my stories. My perspective. My way of assembling words. My worldview.

And, maybe, I could train an AI using millions of words of fiction that I have written and ask it to spit out a story that matches the rest of my body of work using some of my characters, but that would shift the focus of this adventure, and leave me putting out stories that aren’t mine.

I want to emphasis this: If the AI wrote the story, even after consuming my full backlog, it would not be mine. I would be a reader of the story but not the writer.

I write because I love it, because I have to, outsourcing that makes zero sense to me.

Writing is art, and I think the human component is crucial (this certainly could be debated, but I’ll leave it at that for now).

Am I saying there won’t be a market for AI written fiction, that people aren’t already reading AI written fiction they think a human wrote? No, of course not. There may even be an audience for AI fiction branded as AI fiction. What I’m saying is it’s not for me. What I am saying is that the human component means something here, and that human component is valuable.

Research and AI

Research is one of the sweet spots of AI today. It is very good at assembling data from various sources, compiling it, and answering questions. It is much faster and much better at this than I am.

But, you might be thinking, AI makes mistakes. To that I have two things to say:

· Of course it does, humans make mistakes too. AIs tend to be more confident in their mistakes than humans, which can be so annoying, but it’s not fundamentally different. AI can use bad sources of information for their research just like a human.

· I’m writing fiction, so I have the luxury of not having everything be 100% factual (even with a historical story like this one). This tolerance for mistakes makes AI even better suited for this use.

How I Frame AI Usage

For me, I’ve come up with a way to understand if AI might make sense for a particular task and it is this:

Would I pay someone to do this task?

It’s that simple (and let’s ignore affordability for this exercise). If AI can do it and I would pay someone else to do the task, it just might make sense.

Would I pay someone to write my stories (i.e. a ghostwriter)? Hell no!

Would I pay someone to do research for me on a story? Oh yeah!

With the currently generous free tiers of the AI chatbots (don’t expect that to last forever), I didn’t have to pay for all this research, which is nice, but the essential fact is that it is a part of the process that I’m okay with outsourcing, so I’m okay with outsourcing it to AI.

There are some areas where this question might get you into trouble. I’m thinking of creating cover art for books, which might seem like it’s an easy “yes,” but there are some copyright issues there which I won’t go into today.

Overall, I think this question is a good place to start. When it comes to creative endeavors, if you wouldn’t outsource to a human, than you certainly shouldn’t outsource to an AI.

But… But… What About the Moral Implications?

In terms of morality, AI is a sticky wicket, to be sure. The AI bots scraped the entirety of the internet, took everything they could find without permission of the creators, stole material in certain cases, and used that to train their models. There is an argument to be made that using AIs at all is morally questionable if not downright egregious, not to mention the environmental issues around AI data centers.

On the other side of that, AI is pretty much unavoidable at this time, and for me personally, as a life-long geek, I can’t not use something this technology advanced, at least a little.

(As an aside, when I was in my first software development job in my twenties, I ended up attending a conference on neural networks with a colleague. This was very, very early and the math was a bit much for me, but since LLMs (Large Language Models) are really neural networks, I was on the sidelines at the beginning of this which just adds to my curiosity).

I don’t have any good answers to the moral question. AI is new, and like most new technologies it feels very unbalanced right now, certainly overhyped. Maybe AI should be in the same category as alcohol and social media: use it deliberately and sparingly.

This question, obviously, deserves more time, and maybe I’ll dive into it in the future.

Bottom Line

The bottom line for today is to ask this question before using AI for something it is capable of: Would I pay someone to do this task?

If you would, maybe AI is worth considering. If you wouldn’t, keep that task for yourself, the human component will continue to be important.

The above image was created by AI with all the complicated moral questions that surround it. This was done with Gemini with a single prompt, looks amazing, and took almost no time. This of course, makes not taking advantage of AI for this very, very hard.

Story of the Month: Shogun Dreams

2026-07-24T16:00:00Z

My Story of the Month program has launched!

Here's the deal: once a month I'll post a short story of mine for free here on my website. The catch? It will only be available in its entirety for one week, so be sure to subscribe to my email newsletter so you know as soon as they are posted.

This month's short story is "Shogun Dreams".

Here's the blurb:

Modern master of multiple genres, Robert J. McCarter captivates readers with stories featuring stunning settings, relatable characters, and fascinating plots.

Jeffery Smith is a wholly unremarkable man, until his cancer diagnosis forces him to face his mortality and learn how to really live.

This touching, near-future science fiction story of fears faced and dreams realized will stick with you long after the last page.

Enjoy!

Live with Happiness

2026-06-08T08:00:45Z

Looks like I did it again! I commited romance, contemporary romance. My story, "Live with Happiness" is out in Romance for All Seasons: Sunkissed Summer.

This beach read of a story is about a heart broken romance writer who can't finish his beach read novel, The Girl of Summer (yes, it gets a bit meta, there is a story within a story).

This story takes place in the town of Kihei on the island of Maui and, yes, much of it takes place on the beach. It is, ultimately, a story about two people who have been through some tough times relationship-wise trying to find a way to trust again.

So lots of sun, summer, beach time, and romantic complications in Hawaii. Kihei is one of my favorite places in the world, and while I haven't been there in a while, I draw on those warm, summery memories for this story.

Here's the blurb for the book:

Summer. What a great time for romance! Beach holidays. Vacations to faraway places. Even a simple weekend getaway can lead to the kind of romance that will last long after that first breathless kiss in the summer sun or beneath a starry midnight sky.

Romance for All Seasons is proud to present a terrific lineup of stories sure to leave you with that wonderful ah! feeling romance readers live for! Fall in love with these all too human heroines and heroes who meet cute, meet silly, and meet again as they discover happily-ever-afters can be found when and where they least expect it.

Penned by a group of amazing short story writers, each of these tales will leave you believing in true love and happily-ever-afters!

“Campers Passing in the Night” by Thea Hutcheson

“All the Stars in the Sea” by Alexandra Brandt

“Live with Happiness” by Robert J. McCarter

“The Sun is Trying to Kill Me” by Dayle A. Dermatis

“The Sweetness of Summer in January” by Kari Kilgore

“Rehearsal Space” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

“Mondays at the Rock” by Terry Hayman

“South of the Border” by Christy Fifield

“Backyard Bramble” by Meyari McFarland

“The Mona Pizza and the Johnny Pesky Wannabe” by David H. Hendrickson

“Getting Away From It All” by Annie Reed

Be sure to check back with us in September for our next issue, Festive Fall!

Want something to read at the beach, or something that lets you feel like you are at the beach? Be sure to check this one out.

Woody and June Merch!

2026-04-20T08:14:59Z

Back when Volume 3 of Woody and June versus the Apocalypse came out, I did a Kickstarter that had some Woody and June merchandise that was only available through that Kickstarter.

Well, to make a long story short, the print-on-demand vendor, Printful, has made it easy to set up a little store, so the Woody and June merch is now available again at woody-and-june.printful.me!

Very fun! Pictured is the stainless steel water bottle, which I use all the time, and I'm happy to report is holding up very well.

Also available is a coffee mug and a mouse pad (my wife uses this all the time).

If you want a Woody and June memento, well, here you go. And if you have ideas for other merch, reach out.

If you are unfamiliar with the series, there is more information over here. And if you'd like to give it a try, the first episode, "Woody and June versus the Wannabe Warlord" is free to my newsletter subscribers (along with a bunch of other stories in a massive ebook).

2025: The Year in Stories

2026-03-22T16:19:58Z

Looking at the 2024 version of this post and reflecting on 2025, a theme is emerging: life is unpredictable and this has an effect on my ability to get stories out to you all.

I'm in the middle of a huge transition (which I will leave at that for now) which explains why it's so deep into the year before I got to this post.

In any case, here are the stories of mine, short and long, that came out in 2025. You can see all the previous years here .

March

Return to Carterville

I might have gotten a late start to 2025, but started out with not only a full novel, but with the wild end (for now) to the Carterville Mystery Series. So much fun! Read more.

May

Haunted by the Past: A Conner Bright Mystery

From Henry Carter in Carterville we jump to Phoenix private detective Conner Bright with the short story “Haunted by the Past.” In this mystery, Conner must face his past. Read more.

August

Writing Until the End

Another appearance in Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, this one with a reprint of "Writing Until the End." This is a curious story about a writer whose characters really want him to do something for them (something, I can relate to). Read More.

The Devil You Know: A Conner Bright Mystery

With The Devil You Know, we wrap up Conner Bright's story (at least for now, that is). Conner is a truly interesting character, and this is the story where it all pays off. Read more.

September

I Am Conner Bright: Four Essential Conner Bright Mysteries

This is not a new Conner Bright story, but a collection all the Conner Bright stories. Together they form a novel-length story of one of my most interesting characters. Read More.

October

The Ghosts and Hauntings Bundle

Always fun to be in a book bundle. This time it was my first novel, Shuffled Off: A Ghost's Memoir, Book 1, taking its place beside a bunch of other great ghost stories!. Read more.

November

Winter Wonders: Twelve Magical Holiday Stories

After years of writing holiday stories, I finally got my own collection of them out, even in time for the season! Read more.

December

A Major Christmas Eve

But I was just getting started on the holiday season. “A Major Christmas Eve” appeared in Romance for All Seasons: Winter Warmth. Read More.

What it Takes to Make it In Hollywood

And finally, a different kind of holiday story, one that is dark and dangerous. “What it Takes to Make it In Hollywood” appeared in A Dark and Stormy Holiday. Read More.

Well that was 2025 and here we are already well into 2026. I better get busy with those publishings plans because I have a bunch more stories in the pipeline for you!

Charly with a Y and Wendi with an I

2026-03-09T08:05:23Z

Spring is almost here! And along with it, Romance for All Seasons: Spring Fling, an anthology of spring romances including my story "Charly with a Y and Wendi with an I."

Just like with the last issue of Romance of All Seasons, I'm delighted to have landed a contemporary romance story alongside a bunch of amazing writers!

This story, as you might be able to tell from the title, is all about the characters, Charly and Wendi. These two quirky best friends are getting ready to graduate college and go their separate ways, but might there be something more there for them as they experience spring in Phoenix, Arizona and reminisce about their past?

Here's the blurb for the book:

Springtime. A time for new love, new romance, and discovering that special someone who just might change your life in the best possible way.

Romance for All Seasons is proud to present a stellar lineup of stories of sweet springtime romance sure to leave you with that wonderful ah! feeling romance readers live for! Fall in love with these all too human heroines and heroes as they meet cute, meet silly, and meet again during that magical time of year when the world shakes off the ice and snow and cold of winter and turns its face to the warmth of the springtime sun.

Penned by a group of amazing short story writers, each of these tales will leave you believing in true love and happily-ever-afters!

“White Nun and Rocket Red” by Meyari McFarland

“Senioritis” by Annie Reed

“Lady Liberty” by Dory Crowe

“Playing for All the Marbles at the Frozen Four” by David H. Hendrickson

“Close Encounters of the Best Kind” by Dayle A. Dermatis

“Love Takes Flight” by Lisa Silverthorne

“Gnome Buddy Knows” by Christy Fifield

“Rise Creek” by Karen L. Abrahamson

“Heading for Extra Innings” by Kari Kilgore

“Charly with a Y and Wendi with an I” by Robert J. McCarter

Need something to thaw you out from winter, go take a look!!

What it Takes to Make it In Hollywood

2025-12-21T23:26:00Z

Today, a very different kind of holiday anthology came out. A Dark and Stormy Holiday features my story "What it Takes to Make it In Hollywood."

Lyn Worthen, the editor of the book, said "What it Takes to Make it In Hollywood" is a "deliciously convoluted tale."

And it is. It's about a man waking up in a snowstorm not knowing where he is, followed by the discovery of a dead body and his arrest. Things just get more complicated from there.

It's a crime story, a mystery, and has a hat tip to the Knives Out series of movies.

Yup, it was a fun one to write. If you want a different view on the holiday season, one that is a little darker and a little more dangerous, do check out A Dark and Stormy Holiday.

Here's the blurb for the book:

This holiday season, the wind whistles around the windows and a chill creeps down your spine. It’s winter noir — moody and pensive, in the Gothic tradition of "something's not quite right."

A Dark and Stormy Holiday offers twelve contemporary tales where ordinary people come face to face with the darker undercurrents of the season, from broken promises to desperate gambits that put everything at stake. Festive facades hide secrets, the falling snow conceals hidden risks. Sometimes touching, sometimes suspenseful, these stories take us over the river and through the dark woods into unsettling situations in stark contrast to the usual festivities.

And yet, they celebrate anyway...

Contains stories by Annie Reed, Lauryn Christopher, Dayle Dermatis, Brenda Carre, Karen Abrahamson, B.A. Paul, Meyari McFarland, K.M. Rockwood, Merrilee Robson, L.J. Hilse, Robert J. McCarter, and Fulvio Gatti. Edited by Lyn Worthen

A Major Christmas Eve

2025-12-01T08:04:56Z

I've written a lot of holiday stories over the last five years and this year I've got a bunch of them for you. Not only did my holiday collection, Winter Wonders: Twelve Magical Holiday Stories, get released, but now my short story "A Major Christmas Eve" has been published in Romance for All Seasons: Winter Warmth.

I must say I'm pretty delighted to be in this anthology for a bunch of reasons, but mainly because this is a contemporary romance anthology, so no ghosts, no spaceships, no elves. Given my scifi geek background, I'm just so pleased to have written a straight up romance that was good enough to land in this anthology with all these other amazing writers.

"A Major Christmas Eve" is a sweet second-chance romance between two older people that have been through a lot and think that love is done with them. It takes place in a lovely mountain town and features a bookstore called Major Books. It's a bit nostalgic, a bit sweet, and examines how finding the right person matters at any age.

If you are looking for some stories to warm up your winter this is a great choice!

Here's the blurb:

In this supersized inaugural issue, Romance for All Seasons is proud to present a stellar lineup of sixteen stories of sweet wintertime romance sure to warm your heart on the coldest, darkest nights of the year. Fall in love with these all too human heroines and heroes as they slip and fall, stumble and bumble, trip and even faceplant their way to happiness together.

Penned by a group of amazing short story writers, each of these tales will leave you with that wonderful “ah” feeling romance readers live for!

“The Idiot and the Odyssey” by Ron Collins

“The Four Dog Night” by Susan J. Kroupa

“A Waste of Cycles” by David H. Hendrickson

“Blue Christmas at the Starlight Lounge” by Stephannie Tallent

“Reindeer Heart Collision” by Dayle A. Dermatis

“Christmas Baggage” by Lisa Silverthorne

“The One-Hit Wonder of Mulberry Court” by Annie Reed

“Deerly Undeparted” by Robert Jeschonek

“The Nice Capades” by Melissa Yi

“Under Cover of Night” by Cate Martin

“A New Saturnalia” by Alexandra Brandt

“Chicken Dance” by Johanna Rothman

“It Takes Two” by Karen L. Abrahamson

“The Queen of Light and the Perfect Elf” by Tina Back

“The Baron and the Hanukkah Miracle” by C. S. Stein

“A Major Christmas Eve” by Robert J. McCarter

Be sure to check this one out!

Winter Wonders

2025-11-14T05:10:00Z

I love to write short stories, especially for a themed anthology. The restrictions (theme, content, length, and time) all funnel the creative energy in lovely ways.

But that's not the best part. The best part is the needs of the anthology pushes my writing in new directions and I end up with stories I would never have otherwise.

My new collection, Winter Wonders: Twelve Magical Holiday Stories is case in point.

This anthology only exists because back in late 2018, I started writing for the WMG Holiday Spectacular. This innovative holiday advent calendar of stories ran from five years (2019-2024) and I was lucky enough to land several stories in it and the following anthologies.

This collection is a direct result and has a bunch of great stories, some stand-alone and quite a few from my series:

The Magical Carterville Christmas Lights (A Carterville Mystery)
Emily Loves Christmas, Emily Loves Murder (A Walter Anchor Mystery)
Meet Cute: The Musical
Dealing Seconds
The Tinkerer’s Last Gift
A Grave Kind of Love (Takes place in my ghost world)
A Ghost in Time
A Hollow Earth Thanksgiving (A Hollow Earth Adventure)
Ghosted (Takes place in my ghost world)
Line Dancing with Vampires (A Conner Bright Mystery)
A More Adventurous Afterlife (Takes place in my ghost world)
The Great Turkey Heist

Here's the blurb:

The winter holiday season is full of wonders, represented beautifully by this collection of short stories by Robert J. McCarter.

It’s all here: from romance to mystery to time travel to action and adventure; from a musical to a period journey in the hollow earth; from Thanksgiving all the way through Valentine’s Day.

Each story provides a unique look on the wonders of our winter holidays, including:

Meet Cute: The Musical: A daring prose musical complete with the lyrics of five original songs
A Hollow Earth Thanksgiving: A rousing adventure in the hollow earth in 1899
Ghosted: A tender ghostly romance
The Great Turkey Heist: A nostalgic adventure where stealing a turkey means everything to three kids and their family
Line Dancing with Vampires: A action-packed crime story featuring Phoenix detective Conner Bright

If you love the winter holidays, curl up with Winter Wonders for a unique and unforgettable experience of the holiday season.

Go get your copy today!

Find out more about the WMG Holiday Spectacular.

The Ghosts and Hauntings Bundle

2025-10-04T12:44:38Z

Welcome to the spooky season! Fall is here and along with it one of the best holidays of the year, Halloween! This year, I get to celebrate it by being in a story bundle (this is where a group of similarly themed ebooks are bundled together for a low price)!

My novel Shuffled Off: A Ghost's Memoir, Book 1 is part of The Ghosts and Hauntings Bundle. For those of you not familiar, Shuffled Off is a first-person ghost story (yes, the ghost tells his own story) complete with this ghost perpetrating a haunting, coming to terms with his own death, watching ghosts perform Shakespeare's plays in the graveyard at midnight, and much more.

Here's a review of Shuffled Off

“The wry humor and raw emotional truth of JJ’s journey will have readers rooting for him from death to eternity.” Kirkus Reviews

And here's what Kristine Kathryn Rusch, award winning author and editor and curator of this bundle had to say about Shuffled Off

Robert J. McCarter writes about ghosts a lot, always with a surprising point of view. Here, the surprise is the science fiction edge to what is already a unique story. This novel, with its warmth, will touch your heart. – Kristine Kathryn Rusch

There are nine other books by some great authors (I know most of them personally and they are amazing writers; I'm proud to be included along with them) plus one of the anthologies in the bundle, Ghosts Among Us, includes a short story of mine called "Death by Vodka." This story takes place in the same world as Shuffled Off.

There's a few things that make this a wonderful offering:

The great stories, of course!
You get to set the price. You get 3 ebooks starting at $5 and 10 starting at $25
A portion of the proceeds goes to World Central Kitchen. They do amazing things feeding people and my wife and I regularly donate to them.

Check out of The Ghosts and Hauntings Bundle!

I Am Conner Bright

2025-09-19T07:08:17Z

Conner Bright is a fun character to write. He's my version of a classic private detective with the obligatory troubled past and problem with alcohol, he's also another one of my Arizona-based characters, but there's quite a bit more to Conner.

He's an Arizona native but looks like and talks like he's from the Australian Outback hiding in plain sight from his traumatic past. And although these stories are all contemporary mysteries, Conner catches the the kinds of cases that look like they are anything but (purple unicorns, chupacabras, hauntings).

With today's release of I Am Conner Bright: Four Essential Conner Bright Mysteries his story is finally all in one place.

If you've been reading Conner's stories over the years, there's nothing new here besides a little backstory on the character, but if you haven't, this is it! Inside this volume are:

While each story is stand aloner, together they weave a longer tale of Conner's struggles with sobriety and coming to grips with his past.

Fun fact: I took the cover photo at Pinacle Peak which is a very Phoenix kind of location. It's this craggy desert formation rising out of the sea of humanity that is the Valley of the Sun. I couldn't help but think of Conner as I hiked the trail.

You can find out about all the Conner Bright stories here.

Here's the blurb for this book:

Private investigator and Arizona native Conner Bright tries to hide from his past with a b-movie quality Australian accent, alligator skin boots, and a bowie knife strapped to his side, but it always seems to catch up to him.

This collection contains four essential Conner Bright Mysteries:

The Case of the Purple Unicorn
Chupacabra
Haunted by the Past
The Devil You Know

While each story is stand-alone, together they comprise a larger novel-length story arc in which Conner wrestles with the demos of his past, tries to keep his addictions at bay, and does his best to do a little good along the way.

From Robert J. McCarter, the author of Out of a Christmas Sky: A Carterville Mystery, comes a private investigator and four cases like no other.

Get your copy of I Am Conner Bright: Four Essential Conner Bright Mysteries today!

The Devil You Know: A Conner Bright Mystery

2025-08-15T07:00:00Z

Today is a big day for my Arizona private detective, Conner Bright! With the release of The Devil You Know, the promise of this crazy character really pays off!

Conner is my version of your classic private detective. He's got a troubled past, no money, a problem with alcohol, and the world never seems to give him a break. But there's more. Conner hides in plain sight in his native Arizona by running around looking like Crocodile Dundee and pretending he's from Australia.

Not only is this the toughest, most personal case Conner has taken on to date, it's the longest Conner Bright Mystery by far!

I love this story because it surprised me. A lot! I just had an idea for a fun opening and didn't think it would turn into a 170 pages of twisty mystery with a large dash of romance that is really a story of betrayal and redemption. For me this is the fun in the way I write since I go along for the ride too. That's right, I write mysteries like without knowing how it's all going to turn out!

Chronologically, it takes place a few months after “Haunted by the Past”.

This is a fun one, but if you haven't tried out Conner Bright yet, his first story, "The Case of the Purple Unicorn", is free to my newsletter subscribers!

You can find out about all the Conner Bright stories here.

Here's the blurb for this story:

When Conner investigates an apparent haunting at a Tempe bar called “The Devil You Know”, his past really catches up with him. One person already died after hearing a malevolent voice that no one else can hear. Can Conner get to the truth before anyone else dies? Can he confront his past and keep ahold of his tentative sobriety?

From Robert J. McCarter, the author of Out of a Christmas Sky: A Carterville Mystery, comes a private investigator and a case like no other.

Get your copy of The Devil You Know today!

Writing Until the End (reprint)

2025-08-10T08:08:21Z

My story, "Writing Until the End," is making its second appearance in Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, Issue #39

I sure do love it when a story of mine gets reprinted!

Why? Well, when more than one editor says "yes" to a story and then writes you a check to publish it, that has weight, especially with a story that is as weirdly personal as this one.

If you read "Writing Until the End" you won't learn a ton about me, the "personal" part is the experience the protagonist is going through. I don't want to give away anything, but when I wrote this story, I was experiencing the same thing the protagonist is, just not literally.

Okay, to say just a little bit about the story, it is about a writer and his relationship to the characters he has created. It asks the question (the one I was asking myself): what does a writer owe those characters?

Interested? Check out Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, Issue #39 or read my initial blog post when this story was published in Gilded Glass: Twisted Myths and Shattered Fairy Tales:

/2022/07/writing-until-the-end/

Haunted by the Past: A Conner Bright Mystery

2025-05-09T07:15:00Z

Today my story "Haunted by the Past" is out!

This is one of my Conner Bright stories and the first of three Conner Bright releases this year (or four if you count the collection another story will appear in). That makes this the year of Conner Bright. I've been writing about Conner for over ten years so it's about time he got some focus.

"Haunted by the Past" is a short story and cronologically takes place after "Chupacabra."

If you haven't tried out Conner Bright yet, his first story, "The Case of the Purple Unicorn", is free to my newsletter subscribers!

You can find out about all the Conner Bright stories here.

Here's the blurb for this story:

Investigating an apparent haunting inside the deserted Metrocenter Mall, a place he loved in his youth, Conner will face much more than he bargained for in this creepy, abandoned building. When this bizarre case takes a personal turn, can Conner keep from falling into his old, bad habits? Can he survive?

From Robert J. McCarter, the author of Unfinished Business: The Cases of Walter Anchor, Ghost Detective, comes a private investigator and a case like no other.

Get your copy of "Haunted by the Past" today!