New Officers and Board Members for Sisters in Crime

Sisters in Crime—an international organization create to promote the ongoing advancement, recognition and professional development of women crime writers—elected a new slate of officers and directors at its annual meeting in Long Beach, California this past weekend.

President: Catriona McPherson
Catriona McPherson was born in Scotland, but moved to California in 2010. Catriona is the multi-award-winning author of the Dandy Gilver detective stories and acclaimed stand-alones. She served as SinC vice-president.

Vice President: Leslie Budewitz
Leslie Budewitz is a practicing trial attorney, the first Agatha winner for both fiction and non-fiction, and a regular inSinC columnist. She lives and writes in Montana.

Secretary: Susan Shea
Susan Shea spent more than two decades as a non-profit executive before beginning her best-selling mystery series featuring a professional fundraiser. Susan is currently the president of SinC-Northern California.

Treasurer/AC Representative (NonVoting): Lori Roy
Lori Roy won the Edgar Award for her first novel, Bent Road, and was nominated for Until She Comes Home. The former tax accountant is a native of Kansas who now lives in west central Florida with her family.

Chapter Liaison: Martha Reed
Martha Reed won a 2006 IPPY for Best Regional Fiction and The Choking Game is just out. She coordinates SinC's 50 chapters. She loves coffee, big jewelry, and the never-ending antics of her extended family.

Publicity: Simon Wood
Simon Wood is a California transplant from England. His former professions are often highlighted in his Anthony Award-winning thrillers. The One That Got Away is due out in April. He also writes horror as Simon Janus.

Library Liaison: Cari Dubiel
Cari Dubiel is the computer services manager at Twinsburg Public Library in Ohio. She coordinates the SinC presence at both the American Library Association's and the Public Library Association's national meetings. She is also writing a mystery.

Monitoring Coordinator, AC Survey Representative: Barbara Fister
Barbara Fister is an academic librarian, a regular columnist for Library Journal and Inside Higher Ed, and is the author of the Anni Koskinen PI series set in Chicago.

Bookstore Liaison: Clare O'Donohue
Clare O’Donohue is the author of seven novels in two series—The Someday Quilts Mysteries, the Kate Conway Mysteries—and two e-novellas. She is also a TV producer on the A&E show, “After The First 48.”

Member-at-Large: Frankie Bailey
Frankie Bailey is the author of the Hannah McCabe police procedurals and the Lizzie Stuart amateur sleuth series. She is a criminal justice professor at SUNY-Albany and a past president of SinC.

Member-at-Large: Julie Hennrikus
Julie Hennrikus is president of SinC-NE and serves on its Crime Bake committee. the executive director of StageSource, a service organization for theater artists and companies in the greater Boston area, has published several short mysteries.

Member-at-Large: G.M. Malliet
G. M. Malliet is the Agatha Award-winning author of the DCI St. Just and Father Max Tudor mysteries. She has been nominated for numerous other awards. A Fatal Summer arrives in October. She lives with her husband in the Washington DC area.

Member-at-Large: Hank Phillippi Ryan
Hank Phillippi Ryan is a Boston NBC affliate on-air investigative reporter. The former SinC president has won three Agatha, the Anthony, the Macavity, and the Mary Higgins Clark awards. Truth Be Told was out in October.

Immediate Past President: Laura DiSilverio
Laura DiSilverio turned from being an Air Force intelligence officer to writing mysteries with a good sprinkling of humor—under her own name and as Ella Barrick. After living around the world, she settled with her family to write in Colorado.

We also have five non-voting advisors and goal champions. The goal champions work with other members of the board towards specific core goals that were laid out in our strategic plan.

Non-Voting Library Advisor: Mary Boone
Mary Boone served as library liaison for many years. An Ohio librarian, she is happy to be paid to turn readers on to books—especially those by SinC members.

Non-Voting Membership Goal Champion: Kate Flora
Kate Flora has written numerous crime novels, is a founding member of New England Crime Bake, and is a former SinC president. She teaches writing and does manuscript critiques for Grub Street in Boston.

Non-Voting Education Goal Champion: Cathy Pickens
Cathy Pickens teaches: SinC-sponsored writing workshops and business at UNC-Charlotte. Another former SinC president, she won the St. Martin’s Press Malice Domestic Award for Best Traditional Mystery.

Non-Voting Education Goal Champion: Marcia Talley
Marcia Talley used her experiences with breast cancer as background for her award-winning Hannah Ives mystery series. The daughter of a career Marine, the former SinC president travelled the world with her military family and continues to do so as a SinC ambassador at mystery conferences and events.

Non-Voting Membership Goal Champion: Molly Weston
Molly Weston is our inSinC Quarterly editor. She reads about 200 mysteries a year and has been reviewing and lecturing about mysteries for nearly 25 years. She also is a media escort in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area and enjoys moderating crime fiction panels at panels across the country.

Photos of all our new board members and officers can be seen on the Sisters in Crime Board of Directors page. Please join us in welcoming our new officers!

Solving Mysteries Every Day

Today, Sisters in Crime's "Booksellers and Librarians Solve Mysteries Every Day" event is taking place in libraries and bookstores across the nation, from Livermore Falls, Maine, to Honolulu, Hawaii. 

To support the project, a group of 21 SinC members volunteered to go into bookstores and libraries between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. local time to help those on the front lines of crime fiction - the very important people who help get crime fiction into the hands of interested readers. 

            "In honor of the 25th anniversary of the founding of Sisters in Crime, we are very pleased to be able to thank some of the people who work the hardest on the front lines of publishing by rolling up our sleeves and working beside them," said Frankie Y. Bailey, President of Sisters in Crime.

 The participating authors, bookstores, and libraries include:

          Frankie Y. Bailey, at The Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza in Albany, NY

                      Gail M. Baugniet, at the Maikiki Community Library in Honolulu, HI

                      Charlotte Cohen, at the Santa Ana Public Library in Santa Ana, CA

                      Kathy Lynn Emerson, at the Treat Memorial Library in Livermore Falls, ME

          Barbara Fister, at Once Upon a Crime in Minneapolis, MN

                      Susan Froetschel, at the Takoma Park Neighborhood Library in Washington, DC

                      W.S. Gager at the Jackson District Library in Jackson, MI

                      Kathleen Heady at the Haverford Township Free Library in Havertown, PA

                      Lee Kelly at Barnes & Noble in Marietta, GA

                      Molly MacRae at the Jane Addams Book Shop in Champaign, IL

                      Robin Murphy at the Sharpsburg Library in Sharpsburg, MD

                      Chelle Martin, at the Sadie Pope Dowdell Public Library in South Amboy, NJ

                      Denise Osborne, at the Mid-Continent Public Library, Raytown branch, in Raytown, MO

                      Bernadette Pajer, at the Uppercase Bookshop in Snohomish, WA

                      Karen Pullen, at McIntyre’s Books in Pittsboro, NC    

                      C. L. (Cheryl) Shore, at Bookmamas in Indianapolis, IN

                      Mary Stanton/Claudia Bishop, at Murder on the Beach in Delray Beach, FL

                      Lane Stone, at the Charles E. Beatley, Jr. Central Library in Alexandria, VA

                      Susan Van Kirk, at the Warren County Public Library in Monmouth, IL

                      Kathryn R. Wall, at the Beaufort County Library, Hilton Head branch, in Hilton Head Island,

                           SC

                      Tina Whittle, at The Golden Bough in Macon, GA 

           “We know that, in their efforts to help readers find the right books at the right time, booksellers and librarians solve countless mysteries every day,” SinC member Jim Huang, the coordinator of the event and a former independent bookstore owner, said. “This is our opportunity to thank them in a tangible way—and to find out what the publishing world is like from their perspective.”

            Onsite reports are coming in throughout the day from SinC member authors working in bookstores and libraries. The information they send will be posted on Twitter, Facebook and blogs throughout the day. 

            SinC has a Facebook page for the event at www.facebook.com/SistersSolveMysteries. On Twitter, SinC is using the hashtag #sisterssolve.

            In addition, SinC's more than 3,000 members are gearing up to support the "Solving Mysteries Day" event by going into libraries and bookstores today to personally thank the booksellers and librarians they find working behind the counters and in the stacks. 

            We hope your Saturday errands today will include a stop at a bookstore or library. And, afterward, we hope that you'll let us know how the visit went.

 

                 

   

      

Arizona Celebrates 25 Years of SinC

By Kris Neri

When Sandy Parshall, Chapter Liaison for Sisters in Crime, asked me to host one of the SinC 25th anniversary parties at my bookstore, The Well Red Coyote in Sedona, Arizona, I jumped at the chance. Throughout my own writing and publishing career, I’ve owed such a debt of thanks to Sisters in Crime that the party seemed a good way to express that and to introduce the organization to our customers.

Joining us in hosting the party was the SinC Desert Sleuths chapter of Scottsdale, Arizona, which has also scheduled parties in other bookstores around the state including The Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale and Clues Unlimited in Tucson.

Appearing on a mystery panel at our event were L.C. Hayden from Texas, whose latest book is Bell Shaped Flowers, and Tom Griffith of California and Arizona, who has published The Burger Barn on Sunset. Also participating were Arizona authors and SinC members Shannon Baker, author of Ashes of the Red Heifer; R.P. Dahlke, author of A Dead Red Cadillac and A Dead Red Heart; Lori Hines, whose first mystery is The Ancient Ones, and Maria Grazia Swan, a published nonfiction author and a longtime SinC member in California and Arizona.

We received terrific raffle prizes from authors throughout the U.S., including Darrell James, who donated copies of his books Nazareth Child and Body Count and t-shirts; Sally Carpenter, who offered a copy of her book, The Baffled Beatlemaniac Caper; M.M. Gornel, who donated copies of her books, Reticence of Ravens and Death of a Perfect Man, as well as beautiful bookmarks and L.C. Hayden, author of the Harry Bronson series, who donated an adorable personal grooming gift basket. Our grand prize was a lovely vase donated by author and potter Bette Golden Lamb who, with her husband J.J. Lamb, wrote Sisters in Silence.

We had hoped the mild weather we’d been enjoying would hold a bit longer — we’d had another author’s reception on the patio outside our store just two days before. But a freak storm blew in, bringing the cold, and forcing us to move everything indoors. The store made for quite a cozy setting, filled as it was with so many sisters, brothers and customers. All came together quite nicely in toasting Sisters in Crime’s illustrious milestone and wishing the organization another 25 years.


Photos by Joe Neri.

Award-winning author Kris Neri is the owner and operator of The Well Red Coyote, a general interest bookstore voted "Best Bookstore in Sedona" for six years in a row. She is the author of the Lefty Award-nominated Magical Mystery series. The newest title in the series is the recently-released Magical Alienation.

Aiding and Abetting

By Julie Tollefson

One of the things I value about members of Sisters in Crime is their willingness to aid and abet -- not in a criminal way, but in many generous and unselfish ways that help others build careers.

As a beginning fiction writer, the best career decision I’ve made was to join Sisters in Crime and its Border Crimes and Guppies chapters. The opportunities to grow as a writer and the camaraderie of the members are outstanding.

The monthly meetings of the Border Crimes chapter, which draws members from both the Kansas and Missouri sides of the Kansas City area, feature a programming mix that serves the interests of both writers and readers. In the past year, we’ve had visiting authors and book signings, as well as discussions with a homicide detective, a financial crimes investigator and experts in the psychology of anger. If that’s not enough, the chapter offers something special the second Saturday of every month, when the fabulous Nancy Pickard leads a book dissection workshop for writers to explore the techniques and skills of mystery writing. So many benefits for the low, low price of SinC membership!

Not long ago, I read a post on the Escaping Mediocrity blog describing crabs trapped in a bucket dragging each other down every time one tried to climb out. The author of the piece, Sarah Robinson, imagined a different scenario in which helpful crabs came to the rescue of their trapped brethren, aiding their escape from captivity. She suggested that in our lives and careers, we should look for the helpful crabs, the individuals who have successfully traveled a path similar to the one we are on and who are willing to lend us a hand on our journey.

“Because they’ve tasted freedom and they know your struggle, they are putting energy into aiding and abetting your escape. I believe that for those of us determined to get out of the bucket, such a group exists,” she wrote. (Read the entire post here).

Without a doubt, Sisters in Crime is such a group.

William W. Warner borrowed the name of his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Beautiful Swimmers, from the translation of the Atlantic blue crab’s scientific name, Callinectes sapidus. (Callinectes = beautiful swimmer, sapidus = tasty.) The name also aptly describes the helpful members of Sisters in Crime. The established writers who willingly mentor others. The Sisters who commiserate and offer advice when the business of publishing seems overwhelming. The authors who volunteer information and guidance, swimming alongside colleagues through the challenges and joys of bringing a book to market. The result is a strong community that aids and abets all members in pursuit of their goals.

Sisters in Crime is a special group, and I feel unbelievably fortunate to be a member. I’ll wager every member has at least one story of a Sister (or Mister) who has gone above and beyond to lend a helping hand. Let’s show what great people belong to this organization. Give a shout out in the comments section to the good crabs, the beautiful swimmers, you’ve met through Sisters in Crime.


Julie Tollefson spends her days overseeing communications for an academic research center and her nights writing fiction. She can be found online at http://julietollefson.com.

Photo by David Gnojek.

New SinC Membership Options

by Elaine Will Sparber & Beth Groundwater

What gets you eight editions of inSinC, 24 editions of SinC Links, 24 editions of e-Book SinC Links, and two SinC Summit Reports? The new two-year membership option offered by SinC! Make all of those unlimited, add a spiffy lapel pin, and you’ve got the benefits of a lifetime membership.

Of course, both options, like the one-year membership, also offer a cornucopia of local chapters, a couple of online chapters, discounts to a variety of SinC events around the country, access to our book club database and networking and mentoring with fellow members, including an email discussion list.

The two new categories were unveiled this month for the 2012 membership year. Dues for the two-year option are $80/$70, professional and active respectively; the lifetime, $400/$350. One-year dues are unchanged.

With these choices, how do you decide which is right for you? Author Beth Groundwater, inSinC editor Molly Weston and aspiring fiction author Elaine Will Sparber sat down recently to figure that out.

Elaine Will Sparber (pictured at left): One thing to consider is how long you’ve already belonged to SinC. When did you first join? Where were you in your life?

Molly Weston: I first joined SinC nearly 20 years ago. I was then, as now, a voracious mystery reader and reviewer.

Beth Groundwater: I joined SinC in 2003, the local Rocky Mountain Chapter in 2004 (it disbanded at the end of 2009), and the Guppies online chapter in 2004. In 2003, I was an aspiring author with some unpublished short stories I was submitting to magazines, a practice novel-length manuscript that would never be published and one of many manuscript iterations for A Real Basket Case that I was starting to shop around.

EWS: I joined SinC in 2004. I was a writer and editor specializing in nonfiction, but my first love was always fiction and I hoped SinC would help me move in that direction. I also joined the New York/Tri-State Chapter and the Guppies. It took a while, but I learned to craft a novel-length piece of mystery fiction. Through SinC, I learned how to revise, pitch, promote and just generally slap my manuscript into shape and shove it out my door. How has your membership benefited you?

MW: Learning about what was going on in the mystery community—mystery conferences, Books in Print, and member contact information—was critical before the Internet. Networking among members has given me many opportunities to bring authors to my area.

Beth Groundwater (pictured at left): I’ve made personal contacts with many types of people who have helped me in my career: writers, readers, bloggers, librarians, bookstore owners, agents, editors, etc. Fellow Guppies helped me research agents and hone my query letter—through a Guppy contact I found my first agent. Local chapter meetings and workshops offered more help such as police, coroner and pi investigative techniques; how to plot, to develop characters, to promote and much more.

I attended the local Sheriff’s Department Citizen’s Academy with a group of Sisters. Then I branched out to mystery conferences where I met even more Sisters. I know that, without SinC, I would not be a published mystery author now and I would not have had the success that I’ve had to date.

EWS: Something else to consider when weighing dues options is where you see yourself in the next few years. I hope that in the coming year, I’ll finish one, if not both, of the fiction manuscripts I’ve been writing. In five years, I hope to see them published, and in 10 years, I hope to be publishing steadily.

BG: I will always be a mystery reader no matter what happens in my writing career. As for writing, I’ll have a book in each of two series released in 2012, two more are scheduled for 2013, and I hope to continue both series for many years. Five or 10 years down the road, who knows? I can dream of bestseller lists and other fantastic career goals, but I’ll continue to work hard on the manuscript for each book I write. I hope to never stop learning and improving, and SinC will help me in that.

MW: I suspect I’ll be reading mysteries as long as I can see—and I’m sure I’ll continue recommending those I like. I just hope that I’ll still be able to edit inSinC that long!

EWS: So, which dues option will you choose for 2012 and why?

MW: I’ll choose the lifetime or two-year option, mostly because I hate having to pay bills! I’m always looking for ways to simplify my life.

BG: I’m choosing the lifetime option because, no matter what happens with my writing career, I will always be a mystery reader. I will want to find out new-to-me mystery series and meet new-to-me mystery authors. And, as long as readers and publishers are interested in my mystery books, I expect to continue writing them. So, I plan to hang around with SinC for a long, long time.

EWS: I’ll most likely go with the two-year option. I’ve gotten so much from my SinC membership and I continue to learn things. One of these years, I’ll spring for the lifetime membership but, until I start earning money from my fiction, I’m trying to control my expenses.

BG: If you see yourself in 10 years still wanting to be a SinC member and still benefiting from that membership and you have the means to make that large commitment to the organization this year, then I suggest signing up for lifetime membership. You’ll be helping SinC build a reserve fund that will ensure the stability and strength of the organization in the future. Like the founding Sisters and past presidents, you’ll have raised your hand as someone who believes deeply in SinC and its goals and as someone who will rally ‘round the cause when needed. Plus you’ll get a snazzy pin to wear proudly, and you’ll never have to wonder again if you’ve sent in your membership!

For more information about the new dues options, see www.SistersInCrime.org.


Elaine Will Sparber, Beth Groundwater, and Molly Weston are members of the SinC Membership Committee.

New SinC Officers and Board Members

Sisters in Crime (SinC), an international organization supporting the professional development and advancement of women writing crime fiction, elected a new slate of officers and directors at its annual meeting, held in September in St. Louis, Mo.

The organization’s officers are:

• President – Frankie Y. Bailey of Albany, N.Y.
• Vice President and President-Elect – Hank Phillippi Ryan of Boston, Mass.
• Secretary – Laura DiSilverio of Colorado Springs, Colo.
• Treasurer – Kathryn Wall of Hilton Head, S.C.

The board of directors also includes three new board members:

• Chapter Liaison – Martha Reed of Pittsburgh, Pa.
• Publicity Chair – Stefanie Pintoff of New York, N.Y.
• Bookstore Liaison – Sally Brewster of Charlotte, N.C.
  

In addition, five members continue serving on the board:

• Library Liaison – Mary Boone of Bowling Green, Ohio
• Monitoring Coordinator – Barbara Fister of St. Peter, Minn
• Member-at-Large – Ellen Hart of Minneapolis, Minn.
• Member-at-Large – Val McDermid of the north of England
• Immediate Past President – Cathy Pickens of Charlotte, N.C.

Sisters in Crime is currently celebrating its 25th anniversary year. Today, the organization is made up of more than 3,000 members and 48 chapters worldwide—authors, readers, publishers, agents, booksellers, librarians and others who love mysteries. Sisters in Crime is online at www.sistersincrime.org.

Greetings from Bouchercon!

[Originally published at Literary Lunchbox, http://literarylunchbox.wordpress.com]

By Karen Burgess

I’m on a four-day literary extravaganza! Bouchercon is the annual fest for fans and writers of mystery, crime, thriller, suspense and related subgenres (graphic novels, anyone?). This is mostly a fan event. The numbers are not yet in for this year, but attendance in 2010 topped 1,600.

Although I know more writers than I did in the past, I’m still bowled over to be in the room with luminaries such as Val McDermid, Jan Burke, Parnell Hall, Jeremiah Healy, Charlaine Harris… the list goes on. And on.

Yesterday began with a 6 a.m. pickup from my friend Addy, chauffeur and roommate extraordinaire. (For which I am eternally grateful – she had to get up at 4:30 to make this happen!) We drove to St. Louis, checked in to the super-lovely Renaissance Grand Hotel, and then walked over to the ever-so-opposite Holiday Inn Select, where Sisters in Crime was holding its pre-conference workshop for writers. It was the only event specifically for writers, so I was pumped to go.

The event was an incredible value for the $50 registration fee. The speakers included:

• David Wilk, CEO, Booktrix, on the state of publishing

• Libby Fischer Hellmann, author (most recent book, Set the Night on Fire, a standalone thriller), on comparing traditional and e-publishing

• Cathy Pickens and Jim Huang (author and bookseller, respectively) on getting your book into print

• Marcia Talley and Ellen Hart, popular mystery authors with long backlists, on do-it-yourself publishing on Kindle

The most useful session for me? Do-it-yourself publishing on Kindle. Marcia and Ellen talked very knowledgeably about what to do, step by step. For published authors with a backlist of out-of-print books, this means new life – and new money – with this new channel that can introduce your fiction to new audiences. (Get your rights back!)

Personally, I have a super-fun book that I have given up on pitching – it’s not a mystery. I came away convinced that I can freshen this up (wrote it so many years ago that my popular references are sure to be dated), format it myself, get an ISBN number, get my ever-so-talented graphic designer husband to do me a cover, price it at $2.99 or $3.99, upload it to Amazon and let my employer know I’m about to retire. (Just kidding on that last one.)

The Sisters in Crime event included a banquet with a very amusing after-dinner speech by author Meg Gardiner. Meg writes the Evan Delaney series about a Santa Barbara attorney and the Jo Beckett series about a forensic psychiatrist. Her books were published worldwide, but not in the U.S., until Stephen King wrote an article about them in Entertainment Weekly. Fourteen publishers called the next day. I was drinking coffee and paper-and-penless during her speech, but I sent myself a series of emails so I could remember some key points.

Email #1: Meg’s blog is called Lying for a Living. She’s also on WordPress. Sister!

Email #2: Meg's first published book was China Lake. I bought it – and several others she authored – today in the Bouchercon book room because when she talked about China Lake, she commented that “a big, big story will expand your readership.” Now I want to see a big, big story. I fear mine are tiny, itsy-bitsy stories.

Email #3: ”Left Behind in the E-book Rapture.” Or at least that’s what my email was supposed to say. iPhone corrected it to “Left Behind in the Snook Rapture.” I love the phrase and the point she’s making – e-books are not going away. Not there? It’s not too late. And if you can focus on a big career, this is going to all come naturally.

So that’s it. I have a giant list of cool blogs, web sites, resources, and more – a bulging book bag full of new purchases and a Bouchercon tote bag full of books that I got FOR FREE repeat FOR FREE, several new friends and a few days to go. More later.


Karen Burgess writes fiction (novels and short stories), is a published author and is searching for an agent. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America. You can keep up with her online at her blog, Literary Lunchbox.

Photos courtesy of Karen Burgess.

The First SinC25 Blogging Challenge Roundup

By Barbara Fister


Jose Ignacio Escribano, who blogs from Spain at The Game’s Afoot, was the very first blogger to pick up the SinC 25th anniversary book blogging challenge, and has already posted twice. His posts are helping to remind me of several Spanish women whose work I keep meaning to read.

• Book Blogger’s Challenge (Spain) and Book Bloggers Challenge (Great Britain)

Bernadette in Oz, who writes insightful reviews at Reactions to Reading, has also started the challenge, focusing her first post on women writing in the PI tradition - Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton having been her original ticket to the genre. I’m looking forward to post #2, but since the deadline is “whenever,” I’ll be patient.

• Sisters in Crime Post #1: The PI novel

Also from Australia (or “Paradise,” as she prefers to call it), Kerrie Smith of Mysteries in Paradise completes the challenge with a roundup of women writers she has enjoyed reviewing recently, starting with Asa Larsson’s new book, which I am eager to read.

• Sisters in Crime Book Bloggers Challenge – the Easy Challenge completed

The director of the Goshen Public Library has also taken the challenge and posted about a library-related mystery. Scan her blog to read reviews of more women writers – and male writers, too.

• Goshendirector’s Weblog – Classified as Murder by Miranda James

Fictionista Katherine Tomlinson (Kat Parrish) has two posts about women authors at Kattomic Energy – love that name! – featuring Sharyn McCrumb’s Ballad mysteries, Kelli Stanley, Carol O’Connell, and more.

• In Praise of Women Crime Writers and More Praise for Women Crime Writers

If you want to play along, the rules (such as they are – I’m an anarchist at heart) are here. If you tag your posts with SinC25, I will be able to add them to the list.

Sisters in Crime is a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote the professional development and the advancement of women crime writers to achieve equality in the industry. And it’s 25 years old this year.

Barbara Fister is the author of the Anni Koskinen mysteries. The most recent title in the series is Through the Cracks. She is an academic librarian and serves on the SinC board as Secretary.

25th Birthday Bash at Bouchercon

Sisters in Crime celebrates its 25th birthday during Bouchercon with a breakfast party at the Roberts Mayfair, a Wyndham Hotel, on Friday, Sept. 16, 2011, at 7:30 a.m.

A full plated breakfast will be served. Guests are welcome.

The cost is $25 for SinC members and $45 for nonmembers.

The Roberts Mayfair is the located near the front door of the Renaissance St. Louis Grand Hotel.

The deadline for registrations sent by U.S. Postal Service mail is Sept. 9. The mailing address is: Sisters in Crime, P.O. Box 442124, Lawrence, KS 66044. Be sure to include an email address with your reservation to receive a receipt from SinC.

The online registration deadline is Sept. 12. Members can click here to register; nonmembers can click here to register.

The room location for the breakfast will be sent to attendees by email and will be posted on the Sisters in Crime website by Sept. 9.

California Crime Writers: A Writing Craft Report

By Jackie Houchin

[Originally published at jackiehouchin.com]

Although I don't actually write crime fiction (I read and review it), I took the Writing Craft workshops at the California Crime Writers Conference, all taught by an impressive lineup of top-notch writers.

"Grammar for Dummies, Part I," presented by author/copy editor June Casagrande, was a fact-filled session that tested our knowledge (in a 66-example quiz), surprised us by revealing many common errors and challenged us to use the best reference manuals (Chicago Manual of Style, Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, and Garner's Modern American Usage).

In "Part II," June explained basic sentence structures (simple, compound, complex), showed many examples of each and powered through 16 specific tips for improving our sentences.

"Cut back on commas!" she said. "I'd rather be in a room with a roaring drunk than see too many commas and semicolons."

Oh, that our elementary school teachers were so informative and fun!

"Crime writers are not expected to be perfect in grammar," she said, "but they do need to come off as professionals." Her workshops and "keeper" handouts will help both newbie and seasoned writers to do just that.

"What's the purpose of dialogue?" asked author Gary Phillips in his "How to Talk" workshop. He picked up a marker, held it poised over a pad clipped to a tripod and looked at his audience.

"To create characters," said one attendee, breaking the ice for further suggestions.

"To move the story along."

"To convey information."

As others spoke, Phillips distributed a handout with snippets of dialogue by several well-known authors.

"Who will volunteer to read the first page?" he asked.

Attendees read aloud paragraphs by Robert B. Parker, Laura Lippman and SJ Rozan, then discussed style, technique and ratio of dialogue to narration.

"There are two purposes for dialogue," Phillips stated,"... to service the plot (summing up information to speed the plot forward) and to reveal characters (the emotional stuff)."

He challenged us to write a scene "about two characters who were high school friends, an ex-prisoner and a college grad, meeting up again for some reason."

Some really good results were then read aloud and critiqued.

In a bit of humorous advice, SJ Rozan told attendees of her "How to Avoid the Sagging Middle" workshop to: "Write 40,000 words of beginning, then start writing the ending."

After the laughter subsided, she taught specifics on how to deal with that most important part of a story.

"What you do depends on the type of problem you have. Are you completely lost? Or have you 'hit a wall' with no place for your characters to go?

"If you are completely lost, you can ... kill someone or discuss your problem with your editor. Write a 'reverse outline' from where you are stuck back to the beginning to see what's missing. Or remember why you wanted to write this book (the theme).

"If you are up against a wall with your characters, you can - on Raymond Chandler's advice - 'Have a guy come in with a gun.' In other words, think outside the box, conjure up five of the most bizarre things that could happen that are not part of the plot (a UFO lands ... a dog runs through with something weird in its mouth ...).

"Trust your subconscious. Offer it some ideas to work out. Remember what your character knows (not you as writer) and think what she would logically do next."

And finally, "If you give up in the middle, you'll never get another one done."

Juliet Blackwell had us take a cold hard look at our commitment to writing in her "Get Over It" motivation workshop by asking, "How badly do you want to write? What is your true writing goal? To be published... make money... get famous? How important is that goal to you - and what are you willing to give up to get there?"

She showed us practical ways to stop sabotaging ourselves and encouraged us by saying, "Young adults are reading a lot right now. They'll be adults soon and they'll want to read your books."

Jan Burke's "Bad Guys and Side Kicks" was another session packed with helpful advice.

"Start with the villain," was her opening comment.

"Why? Well, consider what a mystery is – a whodunnit – a who done it?"

He's the source of tension and conflict. Figure out what he wants and why, and get him into the story quickly.

"Readers learn a lot about the protagonist from the villain."

The victim is also important - and not just a "dead body." Make sure you show the reason why the villain chose this victim. Consider the seven deadly sins. The kind of villain - and his means of killing - depends on the genre. Is it a cozy, a thriller, a classic detective? What drives the villain (revenge, notoriety, fear of discovery, unusual appetite)?

Run out of ways the killer can threaten? Ask what scares you. Brainstorm 50 scary things that don't necessarily cause death (a flushing toilet in the middle of the night).

Other characters need to be tied to the victim, too. Sidekicks can't solve the crime, but they can inform the sleuth, inform the reader, accidentally mislead, have a sense of humor and provide a person the sleuth can discuss the case with.

Burke's best writing advice was to "find three books you love and three books you hate. Study them to see how/why the bad ones failed and the subtle ways the good ones succeeded."

In a "Keynote Dialogue" with Denise Hamilton (Okay, I deviated from the craft tract one time because I was a little afraid of Dorothy Howell's "Love and Sex" workshop), SJ Rozan talked about writing rituals (she needs her mug of Queen Anne tea first), word count (she likes 750-1,000 words per day), brainstorming and spare writing.

"Words are powerful. You don't need that many of them," she said.

Rozan also candidly confessed, "Someday I want to write a James Michener epic with multiple POVs, maybe not even a crime novel."

The wildly entertaining Kerry Madden, in "Understanding the Story Arc," advised us to "get the memories down" and "write through the fear."

She also said, "Don't worry about plot, just write the story and the plot will take care of itself."

This made sense when I remembered SJ Rosen's description of plot. It's the "car" that takes your story to the end - how it all happens. Story is the "journey" of your characters - what the book is about. If the plot isn't working, get a new "car."

Too soon, the conference and the weekend were over. Other writers took the Business, Matters of Crime, and Nuts & Bolts tracks and went home just as determined to put what they'd learned into their writing. Many also left with promises from agents to read their work. All were encouraged by the talented authors who freely shared their knowledge.

"Writing should be a pleasure," said T. Jefferson Parker. "Read something wonderful, something that makes you happy and edifies you. Then go write."






Jackie Houchin is a freelance writer, book reviewer, and theatre critic. She’s a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America and California Writers Club.