Connie Lacy's Blog

I  I recently learned that at least two of my books were pirated and used by Anthropic PBC to train large language models for use by its Claude chatbot. A class action lawsuit was filed last year against Anthropic for copyright infringement by three authors. In a settlement reached this fall Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle the lawsuit. Yes, $1.5 BILLION! Experts say if the company had not settled, it might very well have been put out of business paying multiple billions of...

We’re all under attack. Easy access to Artificial Intelligence has fueled the proliferation of scams, including scams targeting authors...

10-year-old Connie Libraries played an important role in my relationship with books from an early age. Especially since I couldn’t afford...

by Connie Lacy

I’m used to doing research when I write my books. For some of my previous novels, I've done interviews with "experts" on various subjects, including such things as the behavior of horses and 19th century trains. Because the main character of my forthcoming time travel novel is a female rock musician, I decided I needed to interview active musicians to give me insight into what my character's life would be like. I interviewed four working musicians about the creative process, wh...

 

If you’ve read The October That Changed Everything, you know who that lesbian character is. If you have yet to read it, I will not include spoilers here. But suffice it to say that this character has a good reason for keeping her secret.

 

The story takes place at a pivotal moment in American history. Besides being the autumn when the threat of nuclear war hung over our collective heads, 1962 was a year when huge changes were underway in American society. Amo...

I’m nearly finished with the first draft of my next novel. (High fiving myself.) It’s a time travel story partly set in the year 2054. Because the main character is a musician and singer/songwriter, one aspect of the story deals with how popular music has changed. In this fictional take on the future, AI has become a major influence in music. So much so, that listeners seek out live shows to try to avoid the “synthetic” sound of a lot of recorded music.

 

We’ve already experienced a developmen...

I'm thrilled with the review of The October That Changed Everything from The Prairies Book Review! See for yourself.

"Authentic, compelling... A stunner."

"Set against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis... Lacy’s latest novel follows one woman’s journey as she navigates love, friendship, and personal challenges amidst the looming threat of nuclear war. Autumn of ’62. Love blooms between Cheryl Donovan and a dashing Army pilot. But amidst the giddy haze of romance, dark clouds loom on ...

(My latest novel, The October That Changed Everything, is available in eBook for pre-order through April 1, 2024 on Amazon. It’ll be delivered to your Kindle device on April 2. Pre-order price just $0.99. The price goes up April 3, 2024.)

 

It’s the closest the world has come to nuclear war. It was October of 1962. The US discovered the Soviet Union was building missile bases in Cuba where nuclear warheads could be fired at the United States or any other nation in the Western Hemisphere. Preside...

A picture of me, (2nd from left,) and my sister Susan, (3rd from left,) along with two friends when I was in 2nd grade and my sister was in 1st grade.

What was it like for an elementary school girl the year my forthcoming novel takes place? For one thing, she froze her legs off every winter.

 

Imagine you’re an eight-year-old girl on a frigid winter morning in 1962. You’re shivering as you get dressed to go to school., knowing what it’ll be like waiting at the bus stop. The cold wind will whist...

One of my most popular blog posts was originally published six years ago as I prepared to release A Daffodil for Angie , my young adult novel set in 1966-67. Now, as I revise my latest novel, which is set in the early 1960s, it’s time to revisit what life was like back then.

When you look at images of the 1960s, it doesn’t look all that different from the present. Well, clothing and hairstyles look kind of weird. But there are cars - funny looking, BIG cars - highways, TVs, telephones, refriger...