Join the Friends of the Robbins Library for a special “Mystery Making” program on Wednesday, September 25, 2024, at 7pm featuring four talented local mystery writers from the Sisters in Crime Panel. The event will be held in the Community Room of the Robbins Library. Panelists on this fun, fast-paced improv game in which authors brainstorm on their feet to create a brand new mystery, using suggestions from the audience, will be Susan Cory (an award-winning residential architect in Cambridge, MA who authored the mystery series CONUNDRUM, Kate Flora (author of the Thea Kozak and Joe Burgess mystery series), Edith Maxwell (author of the Quaker Midwife Mysteries and the Local Foods Mysteries) and Toni L.P. Kelner. Toni is two authors in one. As Leigh Perry, she writes the Family Skeleton series. As Toni L.P. Kelner, she’s the author of the eight Laura Fleming mysteries.)
In this interactive workshop, these talented mystery authors representing different sub-genres, will brainstorm on their feet to create a brand new mystery using suggestions provided by the audience. Fun, fast-paced, and fascinating, this improv game offers important insights into mystery writers’ minds and the conventions of the genre.
Come be a part of the fun! This event is free and open to all.
More about the panelists:
Susan Cory is an award-winning residential architect in Cambridge, MA. She has a brown belt in karate. Her mystery series, beginning with CONUNDRUM, features Iris Reid, also a Cambridge architect, as an amateur sleuth trying to uncover a murderer at her Harvard reunion. FACADE, finds Iris drawn into a kidnapping scheme while teaching at Harvard. DOPPELGANGER, the third book in the series, features an obsessed con artist who implicates Iris in a crime, then tries to take over her life. In COLLATERAL DAMAGE, a lover from her boyfriend’s past reappears on the scene. She is a member of Sisters in Crime National, a local member of Sisters in Crime New England, and a regular attendee at Crime Bake. You can find her at susancory.com.
Kate Flora. Kate’s fascination with people’s criminal tendencies began in the Maine attorney general’s office. Deadbeat dads, people who hurt their kids, and employers’ discrimination aroused her curiosity about human behavior. The author of twenty-four books spanning many genres including crime fiction, true crime, memoir, and nonfiction, and many short stories, Flora’s been a finalist for the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, and Derringer awards. She won the Public Safety Writers Association award for nonfiction and twice won the Maine Literary Award for crime fiction. Flora has taught writing for the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, Brown University Continuing Education, the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, the Cape Cod Writer’s Conference, and for Grub Street in Boston. She’s the current president of Sisters in Crime New England, a former international president of Sisters in Crime, and a founder of the New England Crime Bake and the Maine Crime Wave conferences. She blogs with the Maine Crime Writers. Flora divides her time between Massachusetts and Maine, where she gardens and cooks and watches the clouds when she’s not imagining her character’s dark deeds.
Maddie Day/Edith Maxwell. Agatha Award-winning Edith Maxwell writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries and award-nominated short crime fiction. As Maddie Day she writes the Country Store Mysteries, the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, and the Cece Barton Mysteries. She is a lifetime member of Sisters in Crime as well as a professional member of Mystery Writers of America. A fourth-generation Californian and former tech writer, farmer, and doula, Maxwell now writes, cooks, gardens, and wastes time on Facebook north of Boston. She blogs at WickedAuthors.com and at Mystery Lovers Kitchen. Find her and Maddie at edithmaxwell.com and elsewhere.
Toni L.P. Kelner/Leigh Perry. Toni is two authors in one. As Leigh Perry, she writes the Family Skeleton series featuring a walking, talking skeleton named Sid. The series debuted with A Skeleton in the Family. As Toni L.P. Kelner, she’s the author of the eight Laura Fleming mysteries and the three books in the “Where are they now?” series. She also co-edited seven urban fantasy anthologies with NYT bestseller Charlaine Harris. In between novels and anthologies – and under both names – she writes short stories about pirates, PIs, serial killers, zombies, and demonic phone calls. A dozen of her stories were recently collected in her most recent book, The Skeleton Rides a Horse and Other Stories, from Crippen & Landru Publishers. Toni and/or Leigh have been nominated multiple times for the Anthony, the Macavity, and the Derringer awards, and she has won an Agatha Award for Best Short Story and an RT BOOKreview Career Achievement Award. Her short story “Baby Trap” was selected for the anthology Best American Mystery and Suspense 2024, edited by S.A. Cosby and Steph Cha.