Join us for a special showcase featuring ten Sisters in Crime authors! Each author will read for five minutes, followed by a few questions from the moderator, Robin Stuart. Don’t miss this unique chance to hear from a broad collection of authors writing in the mystery and thriller genres! To attend, please register via Crowdcast. (You will need to create a Crowdcast login if you don’t already have one.)
Participating authors are M.M. Chouinard, Linda Howe Steiger, Susan Kuchinskas, Deb McCaskey, Ann Parker, Priscilla Royal, Cindy Sample, Joseph Schneider, Kelli Stanley & CJ Verburg.
Priscilla Royal writes the Prioress Eleanor/Brother Thomas thirteenth century English mystery series. She can be found at plays, ruled by cats, and reading biographies of other crazy writers or fiction of greater and lesser violence. She’ll read from The Twice-Hanged Man: During the Autumn 1282 Welsh wars, Prioress Eleanor and her family flee raiders. Forced to stop in an English border town, the prioress is begged by the local abbot to resolve the murder of his priest. The killer was seen—but he’s the ghost of a man recently hanged for treason. When the killer strikes again, Prioress Eleanor, Brother Thomas, and Sister Anne struggle to separate truth from lies and the earthly from the supernatural.
Susan Kuchinskas is a technology and business journalist and the author of the Finder series, including Chimera Catalyst. She’ll read from Singularity Syndrome: Finder is a brilliant but misanthropic detective who works with the Parrot, a dog/bird chimera, and Altima, a human/baboon chimera who’s strong and relentless—although easily distracted by food. Thom Elliott is a venture capitalist with a mission: Create a new world order ruled by Sekai, the most powerful artificial intelligence ever created. His secret weapon is Glorp, a nutritional energy drink beloved by the tech community that includes genetically engineered microbes to transform human gut flora, making humans submissive to the AI. Will Finder be able to save humanity from subjugation?
Cindy Sample is the author of a national bestselling mystery series featuring single soccer mom Laurel McKay, a five-time finalist for the LEFTY Award for Best Humorous Mystery and a two-time finalist for the SILVER FALCHION award. She’ll read from Dying for a Double: Laurel McKay Hunter gets a gig as an extra in a movie—and she’s a dead ringer for the female lead. When the actress vanishes, the frantic director recruits Laurel to double for the missing woman while she uses her investigative talents to search for her. Laurel chases after clues from the historic Gold Country to sun-kissed Malibu beaches to the glamorous and sometimes seedy Hollywood scene.
Deb McCaskey is a former newspaper editor and author of stories featuring the people and movies of Hollywood’s Golden Age, spotlighting America’s Kid Sister, Frankie Franklin. Deb lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and their independent-minded rescue dog Mrs. Hudson. She’ll read from Stardusted: In 1935 Hollywood, movie star Frankie Franklin is a sassy heroine with all the answers. But can she solve a real-life mystery when a young actor is shot and almost dies on the set of her latest picture? The studio wants to sweep it all under the rug, but Frankie is driven to find out what happened, and with good reason: It was she who pulled the trigger.
Joseph Schneider lives with his wife and two children in California. His professional affiliations include The Magic Castle and the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing. His debut novel is One Day You’ll Burn: A body so badly burned it could be mistaken for a movie prop… except for the smell. And when Detective Tully Jarsdel is called to the scene, it’s clear to him something about the placement of the corpse is intentional, even ritualistic. Jarsdel’s former career in academia seems to be finally coming in handy, but nothing Jarsdel learned in school can prepare him for the deep evil behind this case, one that will drag him to the desperate, nightmarish fringes of Hollywood.
M.M. Chouinard‘s first fiction story was published in her local paper when she was eight, and she fell in love with Agatha Christie novels not long after. She’ll read from Her Daughter’s Cry: Someone wants Zoe dead, and she can’t remember why. Zoe is a wife and a mother, but a blow to her head wiped her memory clean. She was found stumbling out of the woods with her missing daughter’s blood on her shirt. Zoe fears her child is in desperate need of her help. When a man claiming to be her husband turns up looking for her, she knows she can’t trust him. Until she gets her memories back, she can’t trust anyone—not even herself.
CJ Verburg is an award-winning playwright and theater director, editor of two international literature collections, and the author of two crime-fiction series. Her friendship with artist Edward Gorey inspired her multimedia memoir Edward Gorey On Stage, her award-winning play Spin, or Twilight of the Bohemians, and her Edgar Rowdey Cape Cod mystery novels, starting with Croaked and Zapped. Upcoming releases include Scalped, or The Toastrack Enigma and her first Holmes and Watson story, “Scandal at the Savoy: The Monocle Murder” (Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #30). She also has stories in two recent anthologies: “Birdbrain” in Sisters in Crime NorCal’s Fault Lines, and “Peccata Mundy” in Seascape: Best New England Crime Stories of 2019, released November 2019.
Ann Parker is a science writer by day and fiction writer at night. Her award-winning Silver Rush mystery series features Inez Stannert, a woman with a mysterious past, a complicated present, and an uncertain future. She’ll read from Mortal Music: Inez must deal with dastardly doings in San Francisco’s opera world. When prima donna Theia Carrington Drake hears Inez play and demands she replace her accompanist, the 1881 holiday concert series is a golden opportunity if she is willing to step out from the shadows. Theia’s husband/manager Graham Drake offers to sweeten the pot, so Inez accepts—and trouble begins. When murder strikes, the stakes soar, secrets emerge, and passions flare. Someone wants the Golden Songbird silenced—but who?
Linda Howe Steiger is an Oakland-based teacher and author of the Morgan Kendall series. She’ll read from Terroir: Morgan Kendall, her college-age son, and her romantic partner—a retired cop known as “Kit” Carson—travel to California’s wine country. Someone’s trying to kill Jules Romano, patriarch of Buckthorn Estate. As family and friends gather for Jules’ wine-logged 80th birthday, conflicts of interest mix with hi-jinx and motives for murder. Family rivalries, rumors of wine fraud, changes in the wine industry, and her own feelings of jealousy—Morgan has much to sort through if she’s to find the culprit and keep Jules safe.
Kelli Stanley is the critically acclaimed and multiple-award winning bestselling author of the Miranda Corbie literary noir series set in 1940 San Francisco, historical mysteries set in Roman Britain and numerous short stories and essays. A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist, she was designated as a literary heir of Dashiell Hammett by his granddaughter in Publisher’s Weekly. She founded Nasty Woman Press in 2016. She’ll read from Shattering Glass, the first in a series of anthologies from Nasty Woman Press, containing a mixture of fiction from bestselling authors in multiple genres, fascinating articles and thought-provoking essays, conversations and interviews. Shattering Glass takes as its broad theme the empowerment of women, with all profits from the book donated to Planned Parenthood.