Mystery in the Midlands ONLINE and FREE!!!! Saturday, July 25, 2020

by Paula Gail Benson

For the last two years, the Palmetto Chapter of Sisters in Crime and the Southeast Chapter of Mystery Writers of America have sponsored a mid-summer conference for readers and writers in "famously hot" Columbia, S.C. While we had to cancel our in person gathering due to Covid 19, our third venture as an online conference, to be held on Saturday, July 25, 2020, looks to be a charm with a terrifically HOT lineup and a program offered free of charge (thanks to Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America for generous support). Anyone can attend. You don't have to be a member of Sisters in Crime or Mystery Writers of America to join in the fun!

All you have to do is register at this link, then click through to the Crowdcast link to save your spot.

REGISTER TODAY!!!!

Here's the link again:

https://sistersincrime.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1369310

Today, Monday, July 20, 2020, is the last day to register! You don't want to miss this fabulous program hosted by Dana Kaye with books available through Jill Hendrix's Fiction Addiction Bookstore in Greenville, S.C.

Here's the schedule for Mystery in the Midlands, on Saturday, July 25, 2020:

10:00 am to 10:15 am EST   Welcome

Dana Kaye (moderator), Debra Goldstein (SEMWA), and Paula Gail Benson (Palmetto Chapter SinC)

10:30 am to 11:15 am EST   Slip into Some Shorts

Dana Kaye (moderator) - John Floyd, Tara Laskowski, and Art Taylor

11:30 am to 12:00 pm EST  Mystery Writers Are Always Hot! Keynote

Charlaine Harris

12:15 pm to 1:00 pm EST       Spectres Rather Than Heat Mirages

Dana Kaye (moderator) - Alexia Gordon, Toni L.P. Kelner, and Gigi Pandian

1:15 pm to 2:00 pm EST      Pages Burning Their Way to the Screen

Dana Kaye (moderator) - Dana Cameron, Jeffrey Deaver, and Charlaine Harris

2:15 pm to 2:30 pm EST      Everybody in the Pool!

Dana Kaye (moderator), Debra Goldstein (SEMWA), and Paula Gail Benson (Palmetto Chapter SinC)

Here's some information about our fabulous authors:

Charlaine Harris is a true daughter of the South. She was born in Mississippi and has lived in Tennessee, South Carolina, Arkansas, and Texas. After years of dabbling with poetry, plays, and essays, her career as a novelist began when her husband invited her to write full time. Her first book, Sweet and Deadly, appeared in 1981. When Charlaine’s career as a mystery writer began to falter, she decided to write a cross-genre book that would appeal to fans of mystery, science fiction, romance, and suspense. She could not have anticipated the huge surge of reader interest in the adventures of a barmaid in Louisiana, or the fact that Alan Ball would come knocking at her door. Since then, Charlaine’s novels have been adapted for several other television series, with two in development now. Charlaine is a voracious reader. She has one husband, three children, two grandchilden, and two rescue dogs. She leads a busy life.

www.charlaineharris.com

John M. Floyd’s short fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, and many other publications. Three of his stories have been selected for the annual Best American Mystery Stories anthology (the 2015, 2018, and 2020 editions) and another was recently optioned for film. A former Air Force captain and IBM systems engineer, John is also an Edgar nominee, a four-time Derringer Award winner, a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a recipient of the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer Award for lifetime achievement, and the author of eight books. He and his wife Carolyn live in Mississippi.

http://www.johnmfloyd.com/

Tara Laskowski’s debut novel, One Night Gone, won the 2019 Agatha Award for Best First Novel and was a finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark, Anthony, Macavity, and Lefty Awards. It was hailed by Tana French as “a subtly but relentlessly unsettling novel.” Tara is also the author of two short story collections, Modern Manners for Your Inner Demons and Bystanders, which The Guardian named a best book of 2017. She has had stories published in Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazines and has won both an Agatha Award and a Thriller Award for her short fiction. She was a longtime editor of the flash fiction journal SmokeLong Quarterly. Tara earned a BA in English from Susquehanna University and an MFA from George Mason University and lives in Northern Virginia with her husband, writer Art Taylor, and their son, Dashiell.

https://taralaskowski.com/

Art Taylor is the author of the story collection The Boy Detective & The Summer of ’74 and Other Tales of Suspense and of the novel in stories On the Road with Del & Louise, winner of the Agatha Award for Best First Novel. He won the 2019 Edgar Award for Best Short Story for "English 398: Fiction Workshop," originally published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and he has won three additional Agatha Awards, an Anthony Award, three Macavity Awards, and three consecutive Derringer Awards for his short fiction. He is an associate professor of English at George Mason University.

https://arttaylorwriter.com/

Virginia native, physician by training, author by passion, Alexia Gordon writes the award-winning Gethsemane Brown Mysteries, with Book 5, Execution in E, being released March 24, 2020. She is a member of MWA, SinC, ITW, and CWoC; blogs at Missdemeanors.com and with the Femmes Fatales (femmesfatales.typepad.com/my_weblog/); and hosts the podcast, The Cozy Corner with Alexia Gordon. Find her on social media (Facebook: AlexiaGordon.writer, Twitter: @AlexiaGordon, Instagram: DrLex1995) and visit her website (www.alexiagordon.net) to sign up for her newsletter.

Toni L.P. Kelner/Leigh Perry is two authors in one. As Leigh Perry, she writes the Family Skeleton Mysteries. The sixth, The Skeleton Stuffs a Stocking, was released in Fall 2019. As Toni L.P. Kelner, she wrote eight novels in the Laura Fleming mystery series and three “Where Are They Now?” mysteries. Kelner also co-edited seven urban fantasy anthologies with New Your Times best-seller Charlaine Harris. Under both names she writes short fiction, including recent publications in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and a forthcoming story in Shattering Glass. Kelner has won the Agatha Award and an RT BookClub Lifetime Achievement Award and has been nominated multiple times for the Anthony, the Macavity, and the Derringer.

http://tonilpkelner.com/

Gigi Pandian is a USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award-winning mystery author, breast cancer survivor, and accidental almost-vegan. The child of anthropologists from New Mexico and the southern tip of India, she spent her childhood traveling around the world on their research trips, and now lives in California with her husband and a gargoyle who watches over the garden. Gigi writes the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt mysteries, Accidental Alchemist mysteries, and locked-room mystery short stories.

www.gigipandian.com

Dana Cameron writes across many genres, but especially crime and speculative fiction. Her work, inspired by her career in archaeology, has won multiple Anthony, Agatha, and Macavity Awards, and has been nominated for the Edgar Award. Dana's Emma Fielding archaeology mysteries were optioned by Muse Entertainment; the third movie, based on More Bitter Than Death, will premier on the Hallmark Movie & Mystery Channel in January, 2019. When she's not traveling or visiting museums, she's usually yelling at the TV about historical inaccuracies.

http://www.danacameron.com/

A former journalist, folksinger and attorney, Jeffery Deaver is an international number-one bestselling author. His novels have appeared on bestseller lists around the world, including the New York Times, the Times of London, Italy’s Corriere della Sera, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Los Angeles Times. His books are sold in 150 countries and have been translated into over twenty-five languages. He has sold 50 million books worldwide. The author of over thirty-five novels, three collections of short stories and a nonfiction law book, and a lyricist of a country-western album, he’s received or been shortlisted for dozens of awards around the world. His book A Maiden’s Grave was made into an HBO movie, his novel The Bone Collector was a feature release from Universal Pictures, and in 2019, NBC picked up a series called “Lincoln,” based on his books. Lifetime aired an adaptation of his The Devil’s Teardrop.

https://www.jefferydeaver.com/

We hope that you'll all join us for Mystery in the Midlands, Saturday, July 25, 2020!

 

The Bad Old Days

In addition to her award-winning archaeology mysteries, Dana Cameron’s Fangborn short story, "The Night Things Changed," won the Agatha and Macavity and was nominated for an Anthony Award. Her historical short story, "Femme Sole," appears in BOSTON NOIR and an historical Fangborn story, “Swing Shift,” will appear in CRIMES BY MOONLIGHT (April, 2010). Dana lives in Massachusetts and you can learn more at www.danacameron.com.

In between gatherings with family and friends, we spent the end of this holiday season as we traditionally do: flaked out on the couch, eating too many chocolate shortbread cookies and drinking just enough whiskey, while watching whole seasons of serial drama. Last year, Rome was the focus of this marathon. This year, it was Deadwood, The Sopranos, and Mad Men. Criminal behavior set in the past (even seen through flashbacks) makes for a fine time, even if it meant our new shelter kittens Kaylee and Zoë learned some exceedingly bad language.

One of my most memorable moments as an archaeologist was the day I was working on a 17th-century house site. The guides would lead groups of visitors past, and usually they'd ignore me, pretending perhaps I was an over-sized and grubby garden gnome. Or maybe a vole. On this particular day, a woman gazed at me dreamily and said, “Wouldn't you love to have lived back then?”

My first instinct was to say, “Lady, are you kidding me? Potential attacks from pirates, Europeans, andIndians? Rampant epidemics battled with medieval medicine? Limited legal rights for women? And that's before you consider what this waterfront would have smelled like back then. Alex, I'll take the category “Things That Make A Seagull Retch” for $100, please. Rotting fish, garbage dumped outside, oil lamps, and privies? I think not. Give me indoor plumbing, electricity on demand, and antibiotics any day.”

Being a well-behaved garden gnome, I said, “The past is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.”

Apparently, that was not concession enough; she looked disappointed. She clearly believed the good old days were better than these, that big skirts + petticoats + horse-drawn carriages = fine manners, crossed legs, and decency. To quote the Bart: Au contraire, mon frere. Do some spelunking through the court records of the era, and you'll see what I mean. Better yet, check out The Naked Quaker. This splendidly fun book runs down some of the highlights of 17th-century New England police blotter: violent fisticuffs in church, highwaymen, sex scandals, theft, cheating, witchcraft. I mean, it might as well be an episode of Maury.

Romanticizing the past is one of my pet peeves. It's something I frequently invoked in my Emma Fielding novels, and more recently, in my short stories. “Femme Sole” (in Boston Noir) is set in 1740s Boston. Anna Hoyt owns a North-End tavern and all the local toughs—including her husband—want a piece of it. I chose the setting because I'd never written noir and didn't want to sound like I was imitating Cain, Hammett, or Chandler (or Lehane, Pelecanos, Abbott, or Lippman), so I put my story a bit further back into the past. To me, noir isn't restricted by time or place; it's a story wherein people who live outside the law have to find their own solutions to life-and-death problems. I also wanted to see how a woman at that time might respond to the threats to her livelihood.

The story coming out in April is part of the MWA anthology Crimes by Moonlight. "Swing Shift" features elements from my “Fangborn” world. It's also set in historic Boston, but this 1940s Boston is full of vampires and werewolves, as well as Nazi spies, jazz, and nascent computer technology. Greed, crime, and secrets are as old as humankind.

The bad old days are familiar to mystery readers. From Didius Falco to Benjamin Weaver to Amelia Peabody to Paddy Meehan—who are your favorite historical detectives?

(Thanks to Maggie Barbieri and the Stiletto Gang for inviting me!)

Dana Cameron
www.danacameron.com