When I wrote my first amateur-sleuth mystery, The Prairie Grass Murders , I chose central Illinois for a large part of my story. I grew up there, was familiar with the terrain, and felt I could make setting important enough to the story that it would almost qualify as a character. To accomplish that goal, I made an element of the native flora and its environmental issue a key part of the plot. The tallgrass prairies have slowly disappeared under the onslaught of farms and towns, factories and parking lots. Attempts to recreate stands of tallgrass prairie and invite the living creatures that inhabit those fields to return have been quite successful. Apparently the land does not forget its past. My father was interested in the land’s history and worked on community projects and committees to restore natural areas wherever possible. The Harry L. Swartz Campground is part of the Middle Fork River Forest Preserve in east central Illinois. From the website: The campground was named ...

This month I'm exploring names and their uses in writing. Today, in particular, I'd like to focus on names of places.  Whether you realize it or not, what an author chooses to call the name of a place does have an effect. It can be a way to steer a reader to or from a particular genre. Kat and the U.S. Marshal  by Celia Yeary is one example of a Western romance, accurately set in Old San Antonio, Texas. Of course, there are exceptions to any rule and any genre. What comes to mind is the movie, Cowboys and Aliens , a surprising, yet successful combination of Western and science fiction, set in the 1873 Arizona Territory, yet featuring a strange combination of aliens, spaceships, Apaches, outlaws, a gold mine, and more. For the most part, though, you want to stick with the name of a location that makes sense. For example, it wouldn't do to name a city Chicago, when the story actually takes place in England, or in a time period before America was even discovered.  The...