Tag Archive for: Sisters in Crime

Unifying Themes – Seven Sinister Sisters Tour

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We’re the Seven Sinister Sisters and we’re on a mission:
Seven mystery authors; seven new releases; seven answers to a central question
at each stop on our tour. The Stiletto Gang is our second stop and our question
this week is…

Is
there a theme underlying or unifying your books?

Cathy
Perkins’ Holly Price mystery series revolves around family and loyalty.
After her father cliches a midlife brain-fart and absconds with his yoga
instructor, Holly agrees to temporarily return to her hometown in order to keep
the family business afloat. Clients can do the damnedest things, however,
making her question all relationships.
With the next book in the series, In It
For The Money, Holly’s cousin is the catalyst for her involvement in
another murder investigation. Refusing to believe the rumors flying around the
extreme sport circuit about his alleged treachery, she follows the money –
another consistent theme – to find the actual villain.   

Sue
Star
also writes about families in chaos. Nell Letterly is a menopausal single
mom, trying to raise her teenage daughter, as well as fielding well-intended
interference from the rest of the family, including Gramps and Nell’s
fashionista, soon-to-be ex sister-in-law. They all disagree how a teenager
should be raised, but as a family they have a special bond. In Murder by
Moose, Nell tries to protect her family from a killer on the loose while
she teaches a self-defense class at a dude ranch in the mountains. But when the
going gets tough, the family always comes together to help Nell solve the
mystery.  

In Biscuits and
Slashed Browns—as in the series as a whole—Edith Maxwell (writing as Maddie
Day) expands this family theme to community. How do friends and family
rally ’round when someone is at risk or wrongly accused? How does a country
store breakfast-and-lunch restaurant serve as a focal point for the community,
a gathering place? In this particular book, the father of one of her
protagonist’s employees is accused of murder. This motivates Robbie Jordan and
others in the small town of South Lick, Indiana to work together to find out
who is the killer.

As with all murder mysteries, Leslie Karst’s Sally Solari culinary series
concerns issues of truth and justice. Equally important, however, are themes of
family and the food movement, and how the two create a conflict between
Sally and her father. The Solaris are descended from one of the original
Italian fishermen who arrived in Santa Cruz in the 1890s, and Sally’s dad is
fiercely proud of the family’s traditional Italian seafood restaurant on the
historic wharf.  When Sally inherits her
aunt’s trendy restaurant, Gauguin, her father—hurt
that Sally no longer wants to work at Solari’s—becomes convinced she now looks
down on her family heritage.

Becky
Clark takes a different tack in her new series, the Mystery
Writer’s Mysteries series. Officially, all the books are set in the world of a
mystery author, so with Fiction Can Be
Murder, she pulls back that curtain for her readers. Unofficially, her
books always have the same underlying current, that of the reluctant hero. It
seems she likes to explore characters who are going about their boring, normal
lives when — BLAMMO — something bizarre happens to them. They’re way out of
their comfort zone and flounder for a while before forcing themselves to pull
up their big-girl undies and fix whatever the problem is.

Returning to our recurring family theme, a few things
always show up in Shawn McGuire’s work.
First, relationships – whether between family members, romance, best friends,
parent and child, co-workers, etc. – are a prime element to the story. Second,
there’s always humor of some kind because even in the most intense situations,
humor helps. Third, an element of truth or finding your path in life often
shows up. Then with each book, a theme unique to that story or series will
appear. With her Whispering Pines series, while she hadn’t originally planned
it, religion turned out to be a strong theme.

In the first two books in the Cole & Callahan PI
series, Pat Hale says religion plays
an underlying role. In The Church of
the Holy Child, (September 2017) the serial killer torments a priest
with information on the murders, knowing he’s bound by his holy orders not to
reveal what’s heard in the confessional. In Durable Goods, (April 15, 2018) young girls are drawn into a
sex trade organization under the guise of coming to a religious refuge for
indigent women. The sub-theme of both books considers the confines and
constructs found within religious doctrine and their use for good and
evil. 

Thanks so much to The Stiletto Gang and all their
readers for joining our tour. We’re happy to address any comments or questions.
And feel free to contact any of us through our websites. Our next stop
will be January 25th with MJB Reviewers. See you there!
http://www.cperkinswrites.com
http://www.rebeccawriter.blogspot.com
To
celebrate our new releases, the Seven Sinister Sisters are having a giveaway!
Seven
lucky winners will receive an ebook from one of us.
One
GRAND PRIZE winner will receive a signed copy from each of us!
Enter to win by leaving a comment below. Our tour runs from January 6th to
April 30th and we’re answering a different question at each blog.
Leave a comment at each blog for more entries! We’ll draw the winner from all
the combined comments at the end of our tour.

Watch
our Facebook page for the next stop on the tour.

The Stiletto Connection (with Sisters in Crime)

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by Paula Gail Benson

Diane Vallere


What
do stilettos have in common with Sisters in Crime (SinC)? They are both significant
factors in current national SinC President Diane Vallere’s writing life.
For
example, her first manuscript, Just
Kidding, won the RWA Get Your Stiletto in the Door contest, then became Designer Dirty Laundry, the first novel
in her Samantha Kidd series. Her upcoming release in that series will be titled
Cement Stilettos. The hashtag in the
header for her website is #shoescluesclothes. (I’m thinking Diane should feel
completely at home here at The Stiletto
Gang.)
When
she visited by Skype with the SinC Palmetto Chapter (Columbia, S.C.) this past weekend, Diane
said that she attributed her writing success to membership in Sisters in Crime.
She joined SinC after she left a lucrative job in the fashion industry to write
mysteries. Her first publication was a short story in the SinC Guppy Chapter’s anthology,
Fish Tales.
Diane with SinC Seal
This
year, it seems particularly appropriate that a person who credits SinC with
helping her to attain her goals should be SinC’s national President as that
organization celebrates its 30th anniversary. For thirty years, SinC
has been bringing media attention to all crime writers’ efforts, as well as
providing grants to libraries and book stores to encourage mystery collections.
Now, Diane continues that legacy of support and encouragement by emphasizing
that SinC does not differentiate in manner of publication, but celebrates the
different journeys of all authors in the mystery community.
The
fact that she takes her own advice seriously is in clear evidence when you
consider her body of work. She currently writes four series: Samantha Kidd (a
designer shoe buyer who returns to the town where she grew up), Madison Night
(an interior decorator who resembles and dresses like Doris Day), Material
Witness (a business woman who inherits the fabric store where she was born), and
Costume Shop mysteries (a former magician’s assistant who returns home to run
her family’s costume shop–the first novel, A
Disguise to Die For, has been nominated as Best Humorous novel at this year’s
Left Coast Crime Conference in Honolulu, Hawaii).
Diane
began her own press in 2011. Without her knowing, her novel had been given to
an editor at Penguin. She turned down an offer to publish that novel with
Penguin and went the indie route, then wrote a new series Penguin bought.
She
continues to self-publish her Samantha Kidd books, while Penguin issues two
of her series (Material Witness and Costume Shop) and Henery Press releases her
Madison Night mysteries.  
One
of the questions Diane received from the Palmetto Chapter members was about the
following sentences found on her website:
She is also a
firm believer in not just following your dreams, but in creating a roadmap of
goals, tasks, and benchmarks to keep on track. She claims that being a textbook
Capricorn accounts for her drive, though she’s never been a big fan of being
told there’s something she can’t do.
Diane
laughed as soon as she heard the quote, because she had recently spoken to
another group that had asked her about it. She said the most important thing
about being a writer was finding ways to move forward and make writing a
priority, because writing will be as important as you want it to be.
Another
of Diane’s great talents is her ability to pack for a writing conference. Here’s
a photo of her outfits for last September’s Bouchercon in New Orleans.
Diane’s Bouchercon wardrobe
Don’t you think her next project should be a coffee table book on how to pack fashionably?
Thanks, Diane, for writing excellent mysteries that also feature good
fashion. And, thanks for your support of the mystery writing community,
particularly in this special anniversary year for Sisters in Crime.

A Weekend in Atlanta Talking Short Stories

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by Paula Gail Benson

Robert Mangeot, Fran Stewart, and PGB (Photo by Charlie Burton)


My
membership in Sisters in Crime has afforded me many benefits, including
information, encouragement, and camaraderie. I’m particularly grateful to have had
the opportunity to participate in a recent short story workshop sponsored by
the Atlanta Chapter and organized by its President Lisa Malice and Debra
Goldstein. The event took place at the Decatur Public Library, a marvelous
facility with well-equipped auditorium and a patio where those attending could
have lunch and talk with the presenters. It was a true privilege for me to be
on the program with three short story writers I greatly admire, Debra, Kaye
George, and Robert Mangeot.

We
set an ambitious goal to provide a comprehensive overview of the short story craft
and submission process. While we concentrated on mysteries, we were delighted
to have writers of literary fiction and other genres participating.

Debra Goldstein (Photo by Robert Mangeot)

Debra
got us started with a description of the short story and an extremely effective
analysis of how to develop conflict through phrasing and action. Robert brilliantly
covered setting, character, and dialogue in a single segment that incorporated the
use of Gone with the Wind to
illustrate his points. Kaye and I took on the challenge of jointly teaching plotting
strategies and discovered that our approaches and preferred structural models offered
some interesting alternatives for putting together a story.

After
lunch, Kaye explained how revision and editing were essential in developing a
marketable manuscript. I followed up with some exercises to get the creative
juices flowing. I’m pleased to report that the group left with almost everyone
having written a six-word story a la
Ernest Hemingway’s “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.” Robert finished up the
day with a wonderful method for pursuing publication and left us all with the
inspirational question: “What is your dream?” By telling us about his own
writing journey and encouraging us to consider what we truly wished to achieve,
he sent us forth excited about the possibilities.
PGB and Kaye George (Photo by Robert Mangeot)

Our
participants were so enthusiastic, it became infectious. We exchanged a lot of very
helpful information.

I am
particularly grateful to Lisa Malice and her husband Lou for their generous
hospitality. Kaye and I were fortunate enough to stay with them for the
weekend. Not only did we get to enjoy Lisa and Lou’s lovely home, fabulous
food, and great conversations, but also we had a terrific time practicing our
presentation and catching up.

Thank you to the
Atlanta Chapter for taking the time to focus on the short story. I appreciate
my fellow presenters so very much. I always learn from each of you and I value
our friendships. Finally, many thanks to all those who attended. May you find
the success in writing that you are seeking!

Doing the Right Thing

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by Linda Rodriguez


Sisters
in Crime recently published this important document, Report for
Change: The 2016 SinC Publishing Summit Report on Diversity, Equity,
and Inclusion in the Mystery Community, that I was privileged to
be a part of.


I
have been so proud of SinC for this work that they initiated
themselves without us “diversity” folks having to scream
and beat our heads against the wall. And they’re immediately putting
it into action. See this year’s SinC into Great Writing workshop at
Bouchercon–all about writing authentically about a diverse world and
people (details at the end of this post).

Most
of my adult life, I have been one of the few outliers in
predominantly white (and often also predominantly male) institutions
and organizations–I was the director of a university women’s center
for decades. I have usually had to be the only voice for diversity at
the table, reminding of other cultures and needs, often to
patronizing remarks of “There’s our Linda with her diversity
again.” As a writer who came to the mystery field through poetry
and literary prose, I was and still am active in AWP, where I have
chaired the Indigenous Caucus and am a member of the Latino Caucus
and the Disability Caucus and where our fight for any kind of
representation or access is often bitter and too often denied.

In
the mystery field, although it’s almost entirely white, I found the
writers and their organizations welcoming and truly open and
encouraging to the “Other.” Publishing is, of course,
another matter.

I
can’t tell you how delighted I was when the board of SinC came to me
and said, “We want to do this study. Will you be one of the
people who helps us–and helps us find others and resources about
this, as well?” To my knowledge, none of the few of us “diverse”
folks in SinC were beating this drum or taking them to task. And now,
they’re actually beginning to implement their own recommendations
from the study. I’m so thrilled to see this happen.

I
would hope that everyone who writes, reads, or publishes crime
fiction would read The Report for Change and take its
recommendations and suggested first steps to heart. At the end of the
document is a list of good specific steps that we as crime fiction
publishing, Sisters in Crime national, local SinC chapters, and
individual writers and readers can take to make a real difference in
this important regard.

Now,
for that first important step that SinC is taking. If you’re planning
on attending Bouchercon in NOLA 9/15-18, come a day earlier (Wed.,
9/14) and attend SinC Into Great Writing, “Writing Our
Differences–Doing Diversity Right,” where the fantastic Walter
Mosley will keynote and workshops dealing with creating authentic
diversity in dialogue, character, plotting, and setting will be
taught by Frankie Bailey, Greg Herren, Cindy
Brown,
and me. At the end of the afternoon, all five of us will gather in a
panel with other diverse writers for a freewheeling, wide-ranging Q&A
session.


This
is a great opportunity, and I’m so grateful to Sisters in Crime for
offering it and for doing the work of The
Report for Change,
to which this workshop is a first response. So come join in! As
always, SinC makes this easily affordable–and if you’re a college
student, there are reduced fees.

The Devil and The Devil’s Pawn

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The Devil and The Devil’s Pawn by Debra H. Goldstein

What happens when you’re excitedly preparing for the launch of your Young Adult horror book, The Devil’s Pawn, and your doctor calls to tell you your test results were bad?  You’ve been so tired that you’ve occasionally wondered how you were going to cram in the public appearances, blogs, interviews, and emails necessary to promote your new book, but this crazy schedule is part of being a writer so forget the fatigue and keep on moving. Or, at least you tell yourself that until your doctor adds the words “lymphoma” and “heavy chemo protocol” and your world, as Marilyn Levinson’s did, stops.

Stops except for the drip, drip, drip…..and knowing that the doctor added “treatable” and “curable.”

But wait, what about The Devil’s Pawn?  Fifteen year old Simon Porte is depending upon you to publicize his story and you want to.  You worked hard on this book and you need people to know: after fifteen-year-old Simon Porte’s family is killed in an automobile crash, his father’s brother, whom he’s never met, brings Simon to live with him and his wife in upstate New York. Simon doesn’t trust Uncle Raymond, and for good reason. Raymond is dying and using his powers to take over Simon’s body. Simon and his allies—his dotty great-aunt Lucinda, his sister whom he finds living with another relative, and a pair of odd twins—wage war against the evil Raymond and his cronies.

Drip, drip, drip …. So many days in the hospital, so many days at home.  Try to minimize public contact during the treatments.

The book is getting great reviews, but you’re fretting because your plans to promote it are in disarray. Frustrated, you tell a few of your friends (Guppies – members of The Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime) who you’ve met at conferences and online and a wonderful thing happens.  Your friends tell

you to work on getting better and let them help out with telling people about The Devil’s Pawn.  Not a problem they say, it’s a good book so it is easy to talk about.

Drip, drip, drip … will this stuff make you need to buy a wig? Blonde, brunette, or maybe red?  That and getting well should be your biggest worries because your fellow mystery writers have closed ranks around Simon and you.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Marilyn Levinson
Marilyn Levinson is doing well with her treatments.  The Devil’s Pawn, a young adult horror novel,is available for purchase from:

Rejuevenating by Going to Sisters in Crime meeting

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This is Ashley who attends the meetings with her mom and grandma–but spends most of her time reading. She’s been coming to the SinC meetings since she was a little girl and often helps out. (She’s much younger and prettier than the rest of us.)

I’m one of the founding members of the San Joaquin chapter of Sisters in Crime (Fresno). We’ve met in many places, usually a restaurant, which is where we meet now.

I don’t live close to Fresno, it takes at least 1 3/4 hours to get to the meeting spot from our home in the foothills–but I do try to go to as many meetings as possible. Hubby likes to go too and we took along another Sister. Traffic was horrendous because of the holiday weekend.

We have lots of interesting speakers, some from the law enforcement fields and some are authors who come and talk about their books or give writing tips. (I’ve been a speaker several times over the years.)

This day Simon Wood and Camille Minichino drove down from the Bay area (San Francisco) to be our guests.

Here are some of the fascinating things they had to say.

Camile loves and thinks in terms of numbers. She knows exactly what % she is in her writing. She displayed a graph that showed exactly where she is now. She creates her characters as a scientist might.

Simon talked about technology and how it can either confine or liberate. He reminded us that a cell phone can do 1000 different things. He recently updated his older books and said it was quite a chore.

He also told us if there is a major event our cell phones will no longer work. He also asked “What happens when all the power goes away?”

Camille talked about Sue Grafton never aging her character or updating technology. Camille also talked about research and finding out how to do things like hacking into email for a plot point. She reminded us that a young character would have the newest “stuff.”

She confessed she went into physics because there was nothing to memorize.

Simon said his best friend is Google Earth. He also told us Congress is killing off all the science experiments. The only big one left is the fusion project.

Simon Wood speaking.

It was a most interesting meeting and despite the drive, I was revved up and anxious to get back to my own writing.

How many of you belong to Sisters in Crime?

Marilyn

Cop, Gangster and Me

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Actually, the cop is retired police officer Denny Griffin who is better known these days as the author of Cullotta, the Story of a Chicago Criminal and Las Vegas Gangster. I met Denny right after 9/11 when hubby and I flew back to Orlando for what was then called the Police Writers Club Conference. (Now Public Safety Writers Association.) Everyone was surprised we were brave enough to fly, but we knew it was safer then than at any other time. Denny’s wife had come with him. The conference was small enough that all of us went out to dinner together. We sat with the Griffins and became great friends. Denny’s wife, Faith, has since become one of the biggest fans of my Deputy Tempe Crabtree series.

The gangster is Henry Hill of Good Fellas fame (the movie with Ray Liotta was about him). I sat next to and visited with him over lunch. (He’s the one with the beard.)

The occasion was the San Joaquin Sisters in Crime meeting. Because I know Denny, I was asked to introduce him and somehow I ended up next to Henry. He is reformed, obviously, and regrets many of the things he’s done. Actually, he’s quite a charming fellow. He has quite a story to tell, from growing up in New York, wanting to be like the gangsters he saw around him, seeing some of his friends and fellow gang members being wiped out and knowing he was going to be next, becoming an informant, going into the witness protecting program, all the moving and name changes and how hard it was on his family, his marriage failure, and lots of tidbits about organized crime that still exists today.

This is not the kind of stuff I will ever write about, but it was one Sisters in Crime meeting that I drug my husband to that he really enjoyed.

Marilyn a.k.a. F. M. Meredith who is not in the witness protection program nor ever will be.

Now that I Know, What Should I Do?

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My mother used to say, “just because everyone is jumping off the bridge, you don’t have to.” Actually, my mom, the original Evelyn, never said that. She would just give me her patented stare, which was far more effective and conveyed the same sentiment. I always got the message loud and clear, or to put it another way, “my momma didn’t raise no fool.”

My point?

I plunged into despair when I read the Sisters in Crime report of the Publishers’ Summit (and btw, everyone, and I mean everyone, should join Sisters in Crime, whether you’re a writer or a female). Yes, I can be a drama queen, but I confess to a bit of a moment when I read that one publisher had firmly pronounced that the cozy mystery was dead (pun intended).

This same publisher also opined that thrillers and paranormal books were flying off the shelves.

So after I finished weeping and wailing, gnashing my teeth, and checking the wants ads to see if there were any jobs for cozy mystery writers, I took a deep breath and tried to figure out what to do next. And then I recalled a second adage. My mom didn’t say this one either, but I’m pretty sure she would have given me another of her Evelyn looks which translated to mean, “duh, of course that’s right.” (Needless to say, at no time in my mother’s life did she ever say, duh.). In any case this pithy bit of truth is from Christopher Columbus Kraft, NASA’s first flight director. He said, “If you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything.”

How does this apply to the current authors of Murder Off the Books, and the forthcoming Murder Takes the Cake (and hopefully even more in the Sullivan Investigation Series)? It means that just because someone believes that the cozy mystery has passed its expiration date doesn’t mean that I have to change what I write. Look, as I said, my momma didn’t raise no fools. So of course I think it’s important to understand the current marketing trends. But if I start writing to the fad, rather than writing what I do best, then it will please no one.

As it happens, the Southern half of Evelyn David and I have been kicking around a story for more than two years that features a sleuth who talks to ghosts. But, and here’s the kernel of truth that I’ve learned, it’s all about the characters. If they’re believable, you can capture an audience. If they’re not, then it doesn’t matter if they talk to your mother, you won’t buy the concept.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, “reports of the cozy mystery death have been greatly exaggerated.” I’m not ready to don any sackcloth and ashes just yet.

Evelyn David
www.evelyndavid.com