Picture taken by Kit Ehrman at our SCI, SinC meeting on Saturday, January 28, 2006 at The Mystery Company in Carmel, Indiana
From left to right (standing): Victoria Stewart, Sheila Boneham, Pat Robertson, Mark Zacharias, Tamara Phillips, Sara Gerow, Sharon Gerow, and Andrea Smith
Seated from left: Sherita Campbell and Brenda Stewart
Sheila Boneham has just completed her first mystery, Drop Dead on Recall. She is a long-time freelancer and award-winning author of 12 non-fiction books and more than 100 articles on dogs and cats.. She’s in the process of querying agents, and has started a sequel and a thriller. Are there animals in the mystery? Of course!
For some fifteen years, Sheila taught writing, folklore, and literature in the United States (Indiana University, University of Maryland, and American University), and in the Middle East (Kuwait University and the University of Tunis). She has a Ph.D. in folklore from Indiana University. Sheila worked as editor for several educational and magazine publishers as well as the Indiana Geological Survey. Because none of the above were nearly as much fun as writing with dogs underfoot and teaching the ins and outs of writing for publication to people who really want to write, Sheila now freelances full-time, and teaches classes and workshops from time to time.
A life-long animal lover, Sheila lives in Fort Wayne with one husband and, for the time being, two Australian Shepherds and a Labrador Retriever. She and Roger have also shared their home with numerous cats through the years. In her teens and twenties, Sheila showed hunters and jumpers, and was Indiana Hunt Seat Equitation Champion in 1968, 1969, and 1970. She’s been active showing dogs for more than a decade, and has taught obedience classes, tested therapy dogs, founded or co-founded two purebred rescue programs, and worked as a volunteer for several rescue programs and shelters. Sheila's dogs have worked as registered therapy dogs in hospitals, special education classes, and nursing homes, and have helped Sheila teach safety and humane care in schools. Her current therapy dog, Jay, even "teaches" reading in the Allen County Public Library’s Paws to Read Program
– and he inspired a character in Drop Dead on Recall!
Sheila is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, Dog Writers Association of America, and the Cat Writers’ Association. You can visit Sheila and her books at www.sheilaboneham.com, and give the dogs a cyberpat at www.perennialaussies.com.
Publishing Credits (Books):
•
The Golden Retriever (T.F.H. Publications, coming 2006).
•
The Parson Russell Terrier (T.F.H. Publications, 2006).
•
The Boxer (T.F.H. Publications, coming 2005).
•
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting and Owning a Cat (Alpha Books, 2005) - Award of Excellence, and MUSE Award for Best Care and Health Book 2005.
•
The Simple Guide to the Labrador Retriever (T.F.H. Publications, 2003), Maxwell Award for Best Single Breed Book 2003.
•
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting and Owning a Dog (Alpha Books, 2002), Maxwell Award for Best General Reference Book 2002.
•
Living with Your Australian Shepherd (T.F.H. Publications, forthcoming).
•
The Complete and Accurate Guide to the Flat-coated Retriever (T.F.H. Publications, forthcoming).
•
The Complete and Accurate Guide to the Bouvier des Flandres (T.F.H. Publications, forthcoming).
•
The Guide to Owning a Pembroke Welsh Corgi (T.F.H. Publications, 2000).
•
The Guide to Owning an Australian Shepherd (T .F.H. Publications, 2000).
•
Breed Rescue: How to Organize and Run a Successful Program (Alpine Publications, 1998), Maxwell Award for Best General Reference Book 1998.
Sherita Saffer Campbell is a poet, mystery writer, and co-director of The Humpback Barn Festival of Artists and Poets, in Muncie, IN; an annual gathering of poets and artists held at Minnetrista and Oakhurst Gardens in Muncie.
She also facilitates a journaling group with Linda Johnson, in Muncie, a fiction writer's group, with Linda Johnson, and 401 Poetry Society, with Jeff Pearson, co-director of the The Humpback barn Festival of Artists and poets, at Danner's book and Gift Store. She is a great grandmother who lives on a farm with her husband, cats, dogs chickens and horses.
To support her habit of writing she does psychic readings and teaches workshops.
Kit Ehrman pens the Steve Cline mystery series published by Poisoned Pen Press. From the fancy show jumpers to the sleek thoroughbreds that compete at the track, the horses and settings are as integral to the stories as the mysteries themselves. Ehrman has worked as a groom, veterinary assistant, and barn manager at numerous horse facilities and is a member of Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, Inc., and Sisters in Crime. To learn more or to contact Ehrman, visit http://www.kitehrman.com.
When Bruce Claremont quit his job working the night shift on a thoroughbred breeding farm and vanished, his sister Corey asks Steve for help. To find out what happened, he slips unobtrusively into Bruce’s world where secrets and jealousies and obsessions are the norm, and the present seems to be repeating its fiery past. If Steve’s not very careful, he just might get burned. . .
Steve goes undercover at Washington Park to discover who's been doping some racehorses and gets caught up in the unique lifestyle inherent to the backside. But it is not a life without peril because some men are willing to do anything to get the right horse under the wire first.
Steve Cline is hijacked early one morning along with some show horses. His escape turns him into a killer's target in an environment where a complex scheme develops and everyone, no matter how innocent, courts risks.
2004, Silver Dagger Mysteries, Overmountain Press; ISBN 1570722781 HC; $23.95; ISBN 157072279x Trade; $13.95
May can be the deadliest month, especially the first weekend. This anthology surrounds one of the world's greatest sporting events--the Kentucky Derby. For over one hundred years, the race has introduced a new crop of horses, and new mayhem galore. Amidst the glamour of fast horses, beautiful women, and great bourbon is an underlying current or danger and deceit as deep as the Ohio River. Ehrman’s entry is “Retribution.”
Jim is owner of The Mystery Company (independent bookstore in Carmel, Indiana); is a member of Speed City Indiana Chapter of Sisters in Crime -- AND is serving as the acting "speaker liaison vice president". So not only has he opened his doors to our organization (chapter meetings are held at The Mystery Company each month), he's also working to help bring special speakers to chapter meetings.
The Mystery Company is an independent bookshop for lovers of mystery and suspense, serving Indiana and the nation since 2003. In partnership with The Crum Creek Press, they are also publishers. For more information about their publishing program, visit the Crum Creek Press site.
In addition, Jim is editor of The Drood Review of Mystery, a bimonthly newsletter about new mysteries; which has "For twenty-three years, [been] the mystery genre's most comprehensive and trusted source of information about new books."
Jim also buys "more than my share of books, not just because I'm buying to stock the store but to stock our home too." (The Erasmus line -- "When I get a little money, I buy books and if any is left, I buy food and clothes" -- is all too apt.)
If characters die in a mystery novel, and no one reads their story, have they died in vain?
Mystery experts – booksellers, reviewers, genre devotees – introduce you to personal favorites: obscure classics, up-and-coming new writers, great books that unaccountably disappeared and lesser-known titles by bestselling authors. A companion volume to our Agatha and Anthony Award-winning 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century, this book takes you beyond the bestsellers, beyond the familiar, with essays recommending over 100 mystery novels – buried treasures that will become new favorites.
This book was also a Book Sense 76 selection of the American Booksellers Association.
Our list of 100 favorite mysteries of the 20th century represents the accumulated wisdom of the most knowledgeable people in the business. These are the books that we most enjoy, the books we present to our customers over and over again, and the books that we ourselves return to when we want to visit with cherished friends. In this book, we journey through our list of 100, with reviews contributed by booksellers across the United States and Canada. The book also features individual booksellers' list of titles that did not make the final list of 100 but should have, insights about mysteries and what our favorites mean to us, a directory of independent booksellers specializing in mysteries and, finally, a shopping list with current publication information about our 100 favorites.
Lisa is originally from Columbia, S.C. She moved to Indianapolis five years ago and is a Technical Services Librarian at Christian Theological Seminary where clergy are trained for mainline Protestant denominations. She's been reading mysteries since she was about twelve but has only recently started trying to write one.
Lisa is currently working on a mystery, tentatively titled THE HANGED JUDGE, set in the fictional town of Queen's River in the South Carolina mountains. The protagonist, Caton Robards, spent her childhood summers there with her maternal grandparents while she was growing up in Atlanta. Her grandfather was a retired nationally-syndicated columnist and author who wrote about life and folklore in the area. He had been a reporter on a major city paper and a correspondent in the First World War. Caton grew up to be a journalist herself. After a couple of successful true crime books, and a series of over-the-top period romance novels which she began publishing in college, she had just been able to give up her day job at The New York Times when she was widowed on 9/11. Coming to terms with the end of her world led her back to Queen's River where she plans to live while editing a complete edition of her grandfather's writings and papers. In 1897, a local judge was murdered. The crime was never solved. Caton's grandfather, then aged eight, lived two doors down and actually saw the body. As Caton works on his papers, she begins to suspect the truth. There's a modern tie-in and an element of what DorothyL calls woo-woo.
Her favorite mystery authors are John Dickson Carr, Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Michaels, Linda Fairstein, Charlaine Harris, Sarah Graves, Donna Andrews, Sujata Massey, Tony Hillerman, Patricia Sprinkle, Margaret Maron, and Alexander McCall Smith.
Lisa enjoys reading anything that looks interesting in non-fiction. She likes to travel but hasn't had the money and the time off simultaneously in the last few years. She also collects books of true ghost stories.
She is also a hopeless cat person, a dog lover AND NOT a morning person, so if she appears to be impersonating a zombie at SinC meetings, that's why. :-)
Jaci was born in New Jersey. Her dad was a Navy photographer, stationed in Lakehurst to work on restoring films from the Hindenburg Disaster. As with most Navy families, she moved around a lot, which became a life's pattern. Since joining our chapter she's moved to Utah and then again to California.
She earned her degree in Sociology from Mississippi State University and worked on the school paper and yearbook, mostly as a photojournalist.
She's had many interesting jobs; including working retail in camera stores; being a bartender; and then sales with Maybelline Cosmetics.
After moving to Carmel, Indiana, she began roaming around town and kept going by a store called "The Mystery Company." She wondered what it was. She went in; and to her surprise, discovered it was an independent bookstore. She joined one of the book discussion groups, and was hooked, feeling like she had a new family...and then a job there! She worked at the store until she moved out of state, but continues to help with publicity for the store events.
One of her favorite things about working at The Mystery Company was the opportunity to meet authors, and in her words: "Like most people, I've put authors on [a] pedestal; one that I (a mere mortal) would never be near. What I found though, is that authors are just like everybody else...wonderful! Every one comes in with a story to tell; you just have to listen." ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Tony Perona
Tony Perona is the author of the Nick Bertetto mystery series. Nick is a stay-at-home dad and former investigative reporter who has a knack for solving mysteries involving a supernatural element.
Perona is a former General Motors advertising/public relations manager who in 1991 became the first man at GM to take advantage of the corporation’s two-year leave-of-absence policy to care for his children. While at home he kept up his writing skills by becoming a newspaper correspondent and columnist. When the company could not reinstate him two years later, he continued to write and eventually opened his own business, Tony Perona Writing, to service the writing, marketing and public relations needs of other companies.
A University of Chicago MBA graduate, Perona also holds a BME degree from General Motors Institute (now Kettering University). Except for college and graduate school, he’s lived in Indiana his whole life, having grown up in Speedway and graduated from Speedway High School. Today he is still something of a stay-at-home dad and lives in the greater Indianapolis area with his wife and two daughters.
His free-lance writing credits include publication in the Indianapolis Star, the Detroit Free Press and the Hendricks County Flyer. During his stay at the University of Chicago, he co-wrote two musicals which were produced on campus.
****
"There are two sides to Tony Perona Writing"; please click here to visit Tony Perona's personal website.
Born and raised in southern Indiana, P.J., a self avowed tomboy, grew up hunting mushrooms in the hardwood forests, making her own bows and arrows from catalpa branches (luckily for the fauna they were inaccurate at best) and gathering tadpoles from the pool at the base of a waterfall fed by a small creek running through her parent’s property.
Only after raising her family and earning degrees in several disciplines did she return to her love of writing. Living in parts of the continent as diverse as Yuma, Arizona and northern Alberta, Canada, she studied the locales and their peoples, only to return to her roots in Indiana for her first mystery series.
The first in the series, A NEW LEASH ON DEATH, introduces her main character, C.J. Sutherland, a sociologist who returns to southern Indiana, to the fictional town of Persimmon Creek, to take a job teaching at the local community college.
A NEW LEASH ON DEATH is being circulated, seeking a publisher.
(click on title to view cover and read an excerpt from "The Long Shot")
Silver Dagger Mysteries (An imprint of Overmountain Press) ; Trade paperback/$9.95 (US Dollar); ISBN 1-57072-279-X; Hardcover/$23.95 (US Dollar); ISBN 1-57072-278-1
May can be the deadliest month, especially the first weekend. This anthology surrounds one of the world's greatest sporting events, the Kentucky Derby. Stories by nine members of the Ohio River Valley chapter of Sisters in Crime.
****
Another short story, “Orinoco”, featuring C.J. Sutherland and Oliver will be published in January, 2006, in DERBY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS, TOO, also by Silver Dagger Press.
****
P.J. is currently working on a second C.J and Oliver mystery involving the death of puppy miller.
Native Chicagoan Andrea Smith began writing mysteries and romantic suspense to help fill the void of positive African-American female protagonists in her favorite genre. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL, and a master of arts in novel writing and publishing from DePaul University in Chicago.
After working for many years in corporate communications for several Fortune 500 companies, Smith has finally given herself “permission” to follow her true calling and pursue her writing full-time. Smith has published three short stories featuring her Chicago police detective Ariel Lawrence, including A Lesson in Murder, featured in the mystery short story anthology Women on the Case, edited by Sara Paretsky and published by Delacorte.
Smith has completed a novel entitled Death Breaks the Deal and plans to see her Chicago police detective, Ariel Lawrence, on the shelves and in readers’ hands in the very near future.
****
Published work by Andrea Smith
Andrea Smith’s Chicago Police Detective Ariel Lawrence has been featured in the following short stories:
A Lesson in Murder, Women on the Case mystery anthology, Delacorte Press, Edited by Sara Paretsky
Fatal Flaw, Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine
Elected to Die, Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine
Praise for A Lesson in Murder:
“Of the writers introduced for the first time, American Andrea Smith stands out with her sharp plotting and terrific new Chicago police woman, Ariel Lawrence.”
Alison Burns, Highbury and Islington Express, United Kingdom
Marta Stephens was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on December 15, 1954. The family moved to the Midwest, when she was four. Aside from the two years she lived in Los Angeles in the mid 1970’s, Stephens, her husband, and two children call Indiana their home.
Stephens earned a degree in journalism/public relations from BallStateUniversity; her fiction writing career began soon after while in the process of researching an event that occurred at the dawn of WWII. It sparked the idea for her first novel—a spy murder mystery. That first writing experience quickly evolved into a life-changing passion that has led to the birth of her Sam Harper Crime Mysteries and her debut novel, Silenced Cry.
Silenced Cry was released in April 2007, by BeWrite Books (UK) and has attracted international attention. This debut novel received glowing reviews from Armchair Reviews, Bookbitch Reviews, Crystal Reviews (NY), Euro-Reviews (Netherlands), Alternative Read, (England) among others. All the reviews and an excerpt are available at www.martastephens-author.com.
Stephens is a member of Sisters in Crime International, Sisters in Crime Speed City Indiana Chapter, Deadly Prose Critique Group, and the Midwest Writer's Workshop. She is on the Speaker Bureau of Sisters in Crime Speed City Indiana Chapter. Silenced Cry was recently awarded “Cover of The Month” by Erin Aislinns http://www.erinaislinn.com/BookCoveroftheMonth.htm.
Marta Stephens -- Publishing Credits:
SILENCED CRY
Cover design by Scott Parkison, MuncieIN; photography by Dawn Allynn, www.dawnallynn.com
Homicide detective Sam Harper is the new officer on the beat; SILENCED CRY is his calling card. Torn between guilt and suspicion, Harper tries to make sense of the events that led to his partner’s murder during a routine surveillance of a drug supplier. It quickly becomes evident that his late partner, Frank Gillies, intentionally muddied the facts. Key points don’t add up and make Harper believe Gillies is involved in illegal activities. When questions surrounding his partner’s death go unanswered, Harper suspects a cover up.
Determined to find Gillies’ killer, Harper plunges back into his work. He and his a new partner, Dave Mann are called to their first case at the Harbor View Apartments, a building marked for demolition where workers discover the skeletal remains of an infant entombed in one of the walls. The investigation into the infant’s murder opens the floodgates of questions. When the suspects in the Baby Doe case link back to Gillies, the evidence mounds as quickly as the bodies in the morgue, and the truth leads Harper to the person he least suspects.
Brenda Robertson Stewart was born near Bedford, Indiana and moved about 20 miles north to Bloomington when she was nine. Both of these areas are in beautiful, rolling hills which geologically speaking, are made up in large part of limestone and sinkholes. Limestone from this area adorns buildings throughout the United States and is known around the world. Oolitic limestone, for which the tiny LawrenceCounty town is named, has been found in only one other spot on earth in China.
Brenda's first mystery series which begins with Power in the Blood, takes place in these scenic hills.
After graduating from BloomingtonHigh School, Brenda attended IndianaUniversity where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in English. She studied oil painting with well-known Indiana painter, Sarah Jayne Hogue, for many years and studied ceramics and sculpting with various artists around the country. She is a forensic artist specializing in facial reconstruction, and has been a figurative sculptor for over 30 years, specializing in Native Americans and other ethnic groups.
Brenda is a member of the Original Doll Artists Council of America (ODACA), the United Federation of Doll Clubs (UFDC), and Sisters in Crime, Ohio RiverValley chapter.
(click title to view cover; cover design by Jonah Lloyd, Sterling House Publishers)
2005, Sterling House Publishers; Trade Paperback/Price $12.95; ISBN 1-56315-365-3; available from your local bookstore, your online bookstore, or directly from SterlingHouse: 1-888-542-2665 or www.sterlinghousepublisher.com
Power in the Blood is the first novel in a series featuring Lettie Sue Wolfe, a forensic artist specializing in facial reconstruction for identification purposes. She has been widowed and has returned to southern Indiana to live close to two nonagenarian neighbors. They find themselves knee-deep in murder and mayhem in their seemingly peaceful community which they inhabit with greedy businessmen and religious snake handlers.
Silver Dagger Mysteries (An imprint of Overmountain Press) ; Trade paperback/$9.95 (US Dollar); ISBN 1-57072-279-X; Hardcover/$23.95 (US Dollar); ISBN 1-57072-278-1
May can be the deadliest month, especially the first weekend. This anthology surrounds one of the world's greatest sporting events, the Kentucky Derby.
 (2).jpg)
.JPG)
 (3).jpg)
