Good stories conjure up images, but sometimes they’re even better with a soundtrack. Here’s a short playlist that pairs well with Starfish. (Chapter: Bed Time) One Night Stands Gwen Levey and the Breakdown Nashville knows how to build a track that holds softness and power simultaneously — strings underneath, an anthemic vocal on top, and a pulse that doesn’t quit. And Gwen Levey knows exactly what she’s doing with both. This is the Elaine Ionello the Directorate never reached

Toward the end of Starfish the chapter, “Evaluation” ends with this: Tali looked at the window. Her thumb and index finger spread beneath her clavicle, feeling for an invisible dark pearl necklace. “Donna’s boys,” she said. “The older one wants to study marine biology.” No one needed to ask how she knew that. This is Donna’s side story. The Saturday morning Tali arrived, Donna was already on her second coffee, standing at the kitchen counter with a highlighter in her hand and

This is a four-movement partita featuring Britt Cole. In early drafts of Starfish, Britt’s journey was over ten chapters. To streamline the story, it got cut. But it’s a darn good story and condensed here in Britt’s own words. Movement One: Allemande The salon was quiet at this hour — the kind of quiet cool the marble floors held from the August Washington heat. The quiet settling in after midnight when the last town cars and Ubers had gone, and the girls were upstairs or gon

Starfish takes place in Eagle County, Washington D.C., and New York City. Right near here, I imagined William Pierce having conversations with Ben Taggart (TwinStar) Manhattan is a backdrop for meetings with Victor Armor and Peter Appleton in TwinStar and also in Watershed. Hudson Yards. The home of Gant Capital and Eric Gant's condominium. (Watershed)

GW Canyon is a Western Colorado native. It's been said, "write about what you know," and living in Eagle County for over twenty years (home of the Vail and Beaver Creek ski areas), this was our backyard. The top three photos are of the Lake Creek area. Homes and interiors are from friends' homes. (Click on a picture to expand and view the entire collection.)

Early in Starfish, in the “Dinner Guests” chapter, GW Canyon and Ben Taggart share a laugh about a book they read as teens. A young male fantasy that becomes prophecy. *Excerpt from THE RISE OF THE SERENES by N.V. Holland Chapter Eleven: The Choosing Klosvan saw it happen from the quad steps, and afterward he would tell it a hundred different ways, none of them true to the few seconds it actually took. The Tribunes came through the academy gates on the first warm day of the t