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My new novel, Merry, is about all the things I’m passionate about: family, Charles Dickens, dogs, London, A Christmas Carol, ghosts, and Christmas. It’s also about one woman’s efforts to give her grown children the absolute best Christmas ever.

I’ve been writing stories since I was a girl. My first published novel was The Fiction Class. Then I wrote the Maggie Dove mystery series and a lot of short stories, one of which won the Margery Allingham Prize for short fiction. I’ve also been a reporter for Fortune magazine, an editor at the Foreign Policy Association, a teacher at Gotham Writers and a workshop leader for the Write to Pitch conference.

My treasures are my husband, my children, my grandchildren and my little dogs. I live in Yonkers, New York along the beautiful Hudson River.

A legislative lawyer and former law librarian, Paula Gail Benson’s short stories have appeared online and in print anthologies.

Shawn Reilly Simmons is the author of nine novels in the Red Carpet Catering mystery series featuring Penelope Sutherland, chef-owner of a movie set catering company. She’s also written over twenty short stories which have been published in various anthologies, including “Burnt Orange” in Passport to Murder: the 2017 Bouchercon Anthology; “The Prodigy” in Mystery Tour, the Crime Writers' anthology.

Shawn’s story “The Last Word,” appearing in Malice Domestic 14: Mystery Most Edible, won the Agatha Award for Best Short Story of 2019. Shawn also won the Anthony Award as editor for Best Anthology or Collection for the same anthology that year. Her story “The Red Herrings at Killington Inn,” appearing in Masthead: Best New England Crime Stories, received an Agatha Nomination in 2020 for Best Short Story. The following year, "Bay of Reckoning," appearing in the anthology Murder at Sea, published by Destinaiton Murders, won the Agatha Award for Best Short Story in 2021.

Shawn was born in Indiana, grew up in Florida, and began her professional career in New York City as a sales executive for an international airline after graduating from the University of Maryland with an English Lit degree. She has worked as a line cook, bartender, marketing executive, and bookstore manager, sold fine wine, written radio commercials, organized an annual mystery convention, and cooked for the cast and crew on movie sets.

In addition to her own writing, Shawn is President and Managing Editor at Level Best Books, a crime fiction press with a roster of roughly two hundred authors. She hosts a weekly podcast, Five Compelling Questions with Shawn, where she chats with writers across all genres about writing. She is also a co-host of the YouTube series We Are What We Read, which features authors highlighting books that have inspired and influenced them and their careers.

She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, the International Thriller Writers, and the Crime Writers’ Association in the UK, and a founding member of The Dames of Detection. Shawn served on the Board of Malice Domestic for over twenty years (2002-2023), where she welcomed hundreds of mystery writers and fans to the Washington, D.C. area each spring to celebrate the genre of Traditional Mystery and Agatha Christie. In 2027, Shawn will co-Chair Bouchercon, Mystery Most Monumental, in Washington, D.C.

Shawn lives in historic downtown Frederick, Maryland, with her husband, son, and Dino, their very huggable French Bulldog.

Although Michael Bracken is the author of several books—including the hardboiled private eye novel "All White Girls" and the young adult romance "Just in Time for Love"—he is best known as the author of more than 1,200 short stories. He has written in nearly every genre but has been most successful with women's fiction and hardboiled crime fiction, two genres that couldn't be more unalike.

Recipient of the 2016 Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer Award for lifetime achievement in short mystery fiction, Michael is also an Edgar Award nominee, a Shamus Award nominee, and a three-time recipient of the Derringer Award for his short mystery fiction, with three additional nominations.

Additionally, Michael is the editor of Black Cat Mystery Magazine and editor of several crime fiction anthologies, including the Anthony Award-nominated The Eyes of Texas: Private Eyes from the Panhandle to the Piney Woods and the three-volume Fedora series, and stories from his anthologies have received or been short-listed for the Anthony, Derringer, Edgar, Macavity, Shamus, and Thriller awards.

He has contributed articles to "The Writer" and other writing publications, contributed a chapter to the writing textbook "Many Genres, One Craft," is one of five authors featured in "Writing Erotica," and is extensively quoted in "The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Novelists." He regularly speaks about writing, editing, and publishing to audiences across the U.S. and Mexico.

Additional information about Michael, including a selected bibliography and his speaking schedule, is available at: www.CrimeFictionWriter.com. He is one of a rotating group of crime fiction writers who blog at SleuthSayers.org.

Before Alan stepped off the corporate merry-go-round, he had an eclectic (some might say disjointed) career. As an engineer, he worked on nuclear submarines, supervised assembly workers in factories, facilitated technology transfer from the Star Wars program, and learned to stack washing machines three high in a warehouse with a forklift. He even started his own recycling and waste reduction newsletter business. Now he writes fiction.

Alan Orloff’s debut mystery, DIAMONDS FOR THE DEAD (Midnight Ink), was a 2010 Agatha Award Finalist for Best First Novel. He’s written two books in the Last Laff mystery series, KILLER ROUTINE and DEADLY CAMPAIGN (also from Midnight Ink), and writing as his darker half Zak Allen, he’s published two books: FIRST TIME KILLER and RIDE-ALONG. His novel, RUNNING FROM THE PAST, was one of the initial Kindle Scout selections.

His novel, PRAY FOR THE INNOCENT, won the 2019 ITW Thriller Award for Best E-Book Original.

His novel, I KNOW WHERE YOU SLEEP, was a Shamus Award Finalist for Best First PI Novel.

HIs YA thriller, I PLAY ONE ON TV, won both the Agatha Award and Anthony Award for Best Children's/YA Mystery.

He wrote two books in the Mess Hopkins series, SANCTUARY MOTEL and LATE CHECKOUT (an Anthony Award Finalist).

DRIVING THE BUGMOBILE was a YA Coming-of-Age novel.

He and Adam Meyer were the co-editors of the crime fiction anthology, HOLLYWOOD KILLS.

He’s published more than sixty short stories in numerous publications, including JEWISH NOIR, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, CHESAPEAKE CRIMES: STORM WARNING, Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, WINDWARD, SNOWBOUND, LANDFALL, SEASCAPE, and MASTHEAD (BEST NEW ENGLAND CRIME STORIES 2016 - 2020), THE NIGHT OF THE FLOOD, MYSTERY MOST GEOGRAPHICAL, GUNS + TACOS, and MICKEY FINN: 21st Century Noir, Volumes 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

His flash fiction story, "Happy Birthday," was nominated for a 2018 Derringer Award, and his story, "Dying in Dokesville," won a 2019 Derringer Award.

His story, "Rent Due," won the 2021 ITW Thriller Award for Best Short Story, and “Rule Number One” (SNOWBOUND, Level Best Books) was selected for the 2018 edition of THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES anthology, edited by Louise Penny.

He loves arugula and cake, but not together. Never together.

Christine Eskilson writes short mystery fiction. Her stories have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies, including Best New England Crime Stories (2013, 2015, 2016 and 2018) and Malice Domestic 16. She received awards in the Al Blanchard Short Crime Fiction Contest, the Women’s National Book Association Annual Writing Contest, and the Bethlehem Writers Roundtable Short Story Contest. She is an attorney living in Boston, Massachusetts.