By Judy Penz Sheluk People often ask me where I get my ideas and I always tell them “from life.” That may sound trite, but it’s true. And while every author, and every book, follows a different path, I will tell you this secret: It all starts with a premise. Here’s another secret: there’s no […]
Congratulations to Dianne Casey! You’ve won the Clicking Our Heels prize of two books by Linda Rodriguez: Every Last Secret and Dark Sister. Please DM your mailing address through the Stiletto Gang Facebook page and we’ll send the books to you ASAP! Judy Penz Sheluk Let me start by saying I’m a terrible cook. I […]
Judy Penz Sheluk I’ll admit it. I love those impossibly cheesy holiday movies, the cheesier the better. In fact, I have a Holiday Movie Rating System (HMRS) that goes something like this (maximum 55 points): Paper-thin plot or wildly implausible plot: 5 points Female lead is either widowed, divorced, recently broken up with fiancé or can’t seem to […]
Judy Penz Sheluk My mother was raised in a time when you didn’t waste anything: scraps of fabric left over from sewing or hemming a pair of pants, odd buttons and pieces of lace or ribbon, these went to making clothes for my Barbie (actually I had a Midge, never have been a conformist, but […]
Judy Penz Sheluk I spent the better part of my teen and early-mid twenties reading everything Agatha Christie wrote (including the six books written under the pseudonym of Mary Westmacott. Recently, after the rather 2017 dismal remake of Murder on the Orient Express—sorry, Kevin Branagh, you are not a convincing Poirot (though perhaps no one […]
Judy Penz Sheluk Something you may not know about me: I was named after Judy Garland. In fact, my real name is Judy (not Judith). My mom, Anneliese, (who everyone called Ann) was a practical woman who determined that no one would shorten Judy. Of course, she was also the first person to call me […]
By Judy Penz Sheluk One of the most common questions I receive when I attend author events is “What did you do before you were an author?” And the truth is…quite a few different things, none remotely related to writing mystery novels. And yet…each one influenced me in some way. This month, I’m going to […]
I’ve never been big on New Year’s resolutions, being of the mindset that if I want to do something life-altering, I shouldn’t wait for January 1st to do it. But this year, I’m going to make not a resolution, exactly, but a pledge to myself. 1) WRITE EVERY DAY: Because how else will the muse […]
I don’t watch a lot of TV, I’m not particularly romantic or sentimental, and yet, every December I find myself inexplicably drawn to Christmas movies. Maybe it’s because as a kid, my mom and I would always watch White Christmas. I can remember dreaming of getting married in the red cape and dress that Vera […]
I’m beyond excited to join the regular cast of authors on The Stiletto Gang as your “first Monday of the month” author — although I’ll admit I was grateful to learn I didn’t actually have to wear stilettos to be part of the gang. Hopefully you know that I’m the author of two mystery series: […]