Trust but Verify

  “These are the times that try men’s souls,” so said Thomas Paine in The American Crisis,” circa 1776. Now, we jump 244 years to another trying time, 2020, the year of the worldwide pandemic. But rather than “cry wolf,” or do a Chicken Little with “The sky is falling,” I opt to say “Change is not pleasant, but change is positive. Only when we change and grow, we’ll see a world we never know,” from the Wisdom of the Orange Woodpecker . And that is what we shall do – encounter change, grow, and be positive. Something I learned decades ago was to find a new world in books. Read. Then read some more. Whatever your genre of choice, a world awaits you in books. The genre in which I write is founded on my career in the criminal justice field. From the depths of street crime to the white-collar criminals found in the ivory towers, I worked and learned, always moving forward, and never bowing down to what could be perceived as a never-ending series of crooks and crimes. After a care...

Why Do I Write? A Conversation with Myself Thomas J. Nichols, Award Winning Author and Former Chief of Police After being a cop for 50 years and suddenly becoming an award-winning author, two questions arise persistently. Why do you write, and how do you write? My responses are simple yet complex: like writing a straight line with crooked letters. Let’s take the first part—why do you write? I write for the joy of writing and the pleasure of telling a story. “Wait a minute,” you reply. “That’s just saying the same thing twice.” “Nope,” I retort. If we were here together I would show you, but you aren’t here so just follow along. At this point I would hold up my favorite 1921 Silver Dollar—Lady Liberty on one side, and the American Eagle on the other. The two sides are separate but equal—without either side, there would not be a complete coin, and so it is with the joy of writing and the pleasure of telling a story. I find tremendous joy in creating a...