What If? Guest Post by Larry & Rosemary Mild

As authors, all of us resort to brainstorming at one time or another, looking for our next great plot. We unshackle our minds and freely fantasize. One day, delighting in our high-rise view of the Pacific Ocean, we wondered…What if we pursued some of our most ridiculous ideas that gave us a smile and a snicker before we discarded them? 

What if Adam, the first man, had erectile disfunction. Where would the rest of us be? Or not be? Would some other being step up, some master intelligence, and become the top being on Earth? Don’t pooh-pooh too quickly. Some prize-winning authors have already run away with intelligent animals.

What if Eve, the first lady, resisted the evil snake and didn’t partake of the apple of knowledge? Would we still be a bunch of goody-two-feet running around with fig leaves? Why did Adam and Eve wear fig leaves when they were the only ones around? How much does a fig leaf cover, anyway? Were fig leaves plentiful, or were they wash-and-dry reusable? Do you properly wear them stem up or stem down?

What if the Tower of Babel construction was halted mid-height by lack of oxygen instead of language diversity? Would there have been mass unemployment of the workers? Did they receive unemployment compensation? What was the existing portion of the building used for afterward? 

What if Noah cheated on the length of the cubit and built his ark too small? Which animals would he have to leave behind? Would he feel guilty about them? Would he have to build a second ark to accommodate all the animals? Did Noah’s wife nag him about leaving some behind? Did he brood about it every one of the forty days and nights of rain? 

What if Joseph, who wore the snazzy jacket of many colors, was never kidnapped by his brothers and sold into slavery in Egypt? Who would have built all those pyramids? Would he still be able to predict fourteen years into the future from his dreams? 

What if Moses hadn’t killed the cruel guard with the loose whip? Would he have remained a prince of Egypt and one day become Pharaoh? Would today’s Promised Land be located in Egypt? How much rewriting of the holy books would this cause?   

What if David, the kid with a slingshot, missed Goliath altogether with his last rock? Is that why we are overrun by so many Philistine-types today? Did he at least look around for more rocks? Would Dave be in the market for a sports trainer or did he really need an optometrist for a new pair of glasses? 

What if Daniel of the Lion’s Den fame was actually eaten by the lions? Did the lions get indigestion? Was he tasty or did he need seasoning? Can you blame the lions for disobeying menu orders from Upstairs when they were confined to a den?

What if Solomon couldn’t pass the third-grade intelligence or logic tests? Would he have become king? Would he have become confused when he needed to make decisions? Which of the two women claiming to be the mother would he have awarded the child? 

What if there was only one universal language in the world? How would parents keep secrets from their kids? Would we lose all the idioms, double-meanings, and hard-to-pronounce words? What would we do with all our extra books and videos? What would become of language teachers and translators?     

What if the Messiah actually came, but took one look at the chaos on Planet Earth, turned around, and went home? 
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Not all of our fantasies focus on the biblical domain. What if George Somebody, trying to assemble Junior’s bicycle, grumbled, “I need an extra hand.” And he received one. What would he do with it afterward? Which hand would he use to zip his trousers? 
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Back to reality in our condo as we watch ships enter and leave Honolulu Harbor. What if we unleash our lovable golden retriever and welcome back her owner, our disabled ex-cop-turned-PI? Yes, indeed. We’re writing the sequel to Copper and Goldie, 13 Tails of Mystery and Suspense in Hawaii (2019). Sam Nahoe will continue to hobble on his two canes as he stalks criminals and orders Goldie to chase them down. 

Our newest novel is Kauai Spies and Bald-faced Lies—sequel to Kent & Katcha: Espionage, Spycraft, Romance. Check us out at www.magicile.com.  

Pushing the Keyboard Past Ninety: Guest Post by Larry and Rosemary Mild

Is there any limit to when an author’s creativity declines or even shuts down? The fully alert writing team of Larry and Rosemary Mild is still cranking out fiction, even though they have become young nonagenarians. He’s ninety-three and she’s ninety, and yet together they have just published their fourth Paco and Molly Mystery, The Moaning Lisa (Five stars according to Readers’ Favorite). And that’s not all. Since they married in 1967, they have published eight mysteries, three adventure-thrillers, one historical thriller, a spy novel, four short-story collections, and one sci-fi novella (plus four memoirs). Many of their books have received five-star reviews plus awards.

Are they done yet? Of course not. While Rosemary puts her finishing touches on their second spy novel, Kauai Spies and Other Lies, Larry is busy writing stories for a fifth collection. Larry insists that he will stick with writing short stories from now on. “I like to complete what I start,” he says, “and who knows what the future in my nineties holds?” Larry is wheelchair-bound, tied to a permanent catheter, and sees out of one eye—but he remains optimistic. Rosemary is his loving caregiver. They wake up every morning knowing they have their writing to do. But she also takes time to do her Jazzercise classes on Zoom: “They satisfy my suppressed desire to be a Rockette.”

Larry says he’s more devious than Rosemary, so he generally comes up with the story ideas and plots. When a “Hey-that’s-neat-idea” strikes, he mulls over it for a day or two, then sits down and writes a five- to ten-page statement of work for a novel. He discusses it with her and then commits to writing the first and sometimes the second draft. Then he hands the manuscript over to Rosemary, who fleshes out the characters and streamlines passages to increase suspense. She calls it “judicious pruning,” an expression she learned as an assistant editor at Harper’s Magazine. Originally, Larry would reply, “It’s slash and burn—I worked hours on those paragraphs!” Rosemary would remind him what Stephen King once said: “To write is human, to edit is divine.”

 
The Milds use their personal experience as a touchstone for much of their fiction. In Cry Ohana, Adventure and Suspense in Hawai‘i, they have the killer chasing young Kekoa in Chinatown on Chinese New Year—where they themselves used to slog through the spent firecracker papers. In Copper and Goldie, 13 Tails of Mystery and Suspense in Hawai‘i, Sam Nahoe is a disabled ex-cop-turned-cabbie and private eye. Larry gave him his own disability. Sam has to ski walk with two canes. His Auntie Momi asks him, “You still walkin’ wit’ dem giant chopsticks?” Goldie is based on a friend’s golden retriever. She rides shotgun and chases down villains. Death Steals a Holy Book is based on a rare Yiddish volume that Larry inherited. Hot Grudge Sunday is a tour the Milds took through the national parks out West. They injected a harrowing event at each site and reversed their itinerary to have the heart-stopping climax at the Grand Canyon. 

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Larry and Rosemary Mild have recently been named recipients of the 2024 Elliot Cades Award for Literature, the state of Hawai‘i’s most prestigious literary honor. They were named co-recipients of the award for established writers. A second award was given for emerging writer at the November 1^st, 2025 ceremony held at the Hawai‘i State Library.