Author, teacher, “book coach” and Idyllwild resident Eduardo Santiago smiled and shook his head as he recounted how his popular series began. “When you look back, what is odd is that I started this series just two months after buying the house in Idyllwild,” he said. He recalled starting without funding simply because he wanted…

Short-story writer Ben Loory begins at the beginning and ends at the end, with no preconceived notion of what’s in between. He said he is fully and happily in the moment when he writes. “I just write beginning to end, with no idea how it’s going to turn out,” he noted. “It’s very organic, somewhat…