by guest blogger Elizabeth Zelvin

Sisters in Crime was the first organization I joined in 2002 when I completed the first draft of Death Will Get You Sober, the mystery manuscript I'd been talking about for years. I visited my local chapter, which was going through a lull at the time. And I signed up for Guppies, which I was told was the SinC online interest group (not yet a chapter) for the Great UnPublished, or prepublished wrtiers, as they are often called in SinC. I'm so glad I…

When I stepped off the plane in Savannah, it was hot enough to turn a guy to lava. I made my way to the spa where I'd been told I could find "Hard-hearted" Hannah Granitelli, a nightclub chanteuse and sometime girlfriend of my target, Rocky Cahoney.

I found Hannah in the atrium, taking some sort of beauty treatment. She looked me over at a distance and made her decision. Her face turned stony as I approached. "I got nothing to say to the likes of you," was her greeting.

"Gimme…

posted by Lorraine Bartlett

For the past couple of weeks we’ve returned to the cottage to find both hummingbird feeders bone dry. Now, this was impossible. For weeks we’ve only seen two tiny birds drinking this pseudo nectar. These birds would have to be the size of vultures if they were consuming all those calories.

Backtrack. Apparently you’re supposed to do a two-to-one mixture of water and sugar, but I must’vie gotten the recipe mixed up. For years i’vie been doing a…

My search for Rocco Cahoney led me first to Detroit, where I met the oldest criminal ever, Adam Antini. He sat in the shady corner of a park, feeding the mourning doves and pondering his life's misdeeds. "Before I sink into the ground," he told me, "I want to make things right."

"Good," I told him. "You can go a long way toward that if you tell me where to find Cahoney."

"If I help you, I won't last out the week," Antini said, "but it'll be worth it to clear my conscience. I'm…

Mark your calendars—Please!

“Silenced Cry,” the first in a series of crime/mystery novels, was released in April 2007. An August virtual book tour will give readers further insight into the book and the author. The tour will kick off on Monday, July 30, at 7:30 p.m. EST with a talk on the Internet Voice Radio. Other planned virtual events throughout August include guest blogs, interviews with the author and a special guest, plus a chat session.

Events details…

posted by Sheila Connolly

A few years ago my husband accepted a new job on Cape Cod, but home prices on The Cape (not to mention the horrors of summer traffic, as described by residents) drove us to look further north, and we ended up in buying a house in a town about half an hour from my husband's job. We had no personal connection with the town, but it was convenient, and we fell in love with a particular house.

This year the town has been turned topsy-turvy by the…

Posted by Guest Blogger Dean James

Some mystery writers have only one job - writing. Many others, like me, have either full-time jobs or part-time jobs in addition to writing. I spend five days a week as a medical librarian (cataloging and metadata, if you really want to know), and readers very often ask me, "When do you write?"

The short answer is "on the weekends." My schedule has been like this for more years now than I care to count. Full-time job during the week, sometimes…

When I was learning to write, someone made a comment about tension in a story. Well, I recognized tension when I saw it, but wasn't really sure how to go about creating it. I had one clue, though, from my husband. When he tells a story, he always gets to the good part, the part where you just have to know more and he stops. So you either have to ask a question and look a little bit dumb, or be patient and wait. I hate waiting.

So I went looking through all the writing books…

"Before there was Hollywood, there was Fort Lee."

I was wandering around the meeting room, waiting for the appointed hour for my presentation, and stumped by the supersized photos on the wall. I thought I recognized some of the faces in the pictures: Fatty Arbuckle and Lillian Gish. But what were they doing hanging in the Fort Lee Public Library?

Bill Camal, special events coordinator for the library, explained. Fort Lee, now known as the last stop before the George Washington…