Solo Female Travel: How to Lower Your Risk and Stay Safe
QUICK ANSWER Solo female travel is safer when approached with awareness, preparation, and strong situational instincts. Unfortunately, we can’t eliminate every risk, but we can try to keep ourselves on the lower side of the risk continuum. Women, we can travel with intention rather than anxiety. Move through the world as engaged observers, not targets. […]
What To Do If It Happens: Responding to Harassment in Public
Public harassment is disruptive because it violates something fundamental. It disrupts your autonomy.It disrupts your safety.It disrupts your right to move through the world without interference. What is public harassment? It can be a comment shouted from a passing car. A stranger who steps too close. Someone who refuses to take no for an answer. […]
Self-Defense Basics: What You Should Know Before Taking a Class
You Don’t Need to Be a Black Belt to Stay Safe As a crime writer and coroner’s daughter, I’ve spent more time than most peering into the dark corners of human behavior. I’ve studied it. I’ve written about it. I’ve watched how violence leaves ripples that never fully disappear. And sometimes, I’ll be honest, I […]
Your Personal Safety Checklist: Be Prepared, Not Scared
Because awareness isn’t paranoia, it’s power. Every year, thousands of women (and children and men, too!) become victims of violence, not just in dark alleyways, but in everyday places: parking garages, hotel hallways, rideshare cars. The risks we face are all too real. As the daughter of a medical examiner and a forensic storyteller, I’ve […]
What to Do If You Think You’re Being Followed: A Forensic Expert’s Guide
Let’s start with the truth:That feeling you get—that gut twinge when you sense someone is watching, tracking, or maybe even trailing you? It’s there for a reason. It’s called intuition. And it exists to protect you. As a forensic specialist and crime writer, I’ve studied many real-world cases where people ignored that early warning… and […]
Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda: 3 Nuggets of Non-Writing—Writing Advice Every Writer Needs to Hear
If I could go back in time and give my younger writer-self a pep talk, I’d skip advice on the craft lectures. Writing techniques, storytelling structure, and grammar—those things are learnable and easy to practice with some time and self-motivation. What I really wish I had known? The lessons about persistence, patience, and perspective […]
Travel Boldly, Travel Smart: A Crime Writer’s Guide to Staying Safe & Owning Your Power
I just returned from two months in France, with a quick stop in Milan where I had the incredible opportunity to teach a crime writing workshop to a class of masters level students at the Catholic University. This is the sixth time I’ve been taught at the school and it holds lovely memories of both […]
5 Everyday Habits to Stay Safe Without Feeling Scared
Let’s get real here. I’m not going to mince words, because it won’t do any of us any good. As women, we are prey. What I mean is that we are the primary victims of crime. And we do ourselves a disservice when we don’t face that fact. It’s the natural order of things since […]
