Oh, What a Tangled Web(site) We Weave

Though I’m unable to pinpoint the exact date, I created my first personal website sometime around the turn of the century as hidden pages on the website of a prepress company I managed, and I printed the URL on promotional material for books published in 2000 and 2001. You had to know the pages were there because there were no links to them from any page on the company’s website.

A printing company purchased the prepress company in January 2002 and eliminated the prepress company’s website, leaving me without a website. Shortly after that, I registered CrimeFictionWriter.com and created a slightly more sophisticated personal website.

I created and updated both versions of my website—the hidden one and the official one—using HTML, and I later redesigned it using Adobe’s Muse. A few years ago, Adobe stopped supporting Muse and I was no longer able to update my site. Luckily, I had been working with my website host—a designer I worked with on several company websites for almost three decades—took over site maintenance.

Last year, I decided my site needed a complete refresh and it needed to be mobile friendly. Unfortunately, my need to redo my site coincided with his desire to retire from website design and hosting.

Stacy Woodson recommended Xuni, Alan Orloff seconded the recommendation, and I saw that Xuni had designed sites for several other writers I knew.

Shortly after I settled on Xuni, my existing host set a deadline for transferring everything from his system. He was shutting down mid-2026.

So, in January, work began in earnest with Maderia James and Riley Mack of Xuni. Luckily, we weren’t reinventing the wheel. I already had a website, and my goal was to duplicate the basic structure and make the site more attractive, easier to navigate, and mobile-friendly.

I revised much of the text, collected new graphics (book covers, mostly), and uploaded everything to a shared Dropbox folder. Before long, Xuni presented a draft of the new site and we worked through some small tweaks (correcting my typos, adding new text, rearranging a few things).

Done. Simple as that.

Unfortunately, what wasn’t simple was transferring my email to a new host. I had been spoiled: For almost three decades, my website host had also been my email host, and I did not realize that was not the norm. Changing email hosts and migrating all my email to the new host was a headache of immense proportion.

But it’s done.

And I think everything turned out great.

So, check it out: www.CrimeFictionWriter.com.

* * *

“Wealth of Knowledge,” Kings River Life, March 14, 2026. 

“Death of an April Fool,” Black Cat Weekly 239, March 29, 2026.

“Hit or Miss,” KissMet Quarterly Spring 2026: Tiptoe Through the Tulips with Me 

The Derringer Award winning “The Downeaster ‘Alexa’” is reprinted in Hot Shots: Celebrating Thirty Years of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, which releases today, April 7, 2026.

Later this month, Temple and I will be at Malice Domestic. If you see us, say howdy!