In this interactive workshop, four mystery authors representing different sub-genres, including cozy/traditional and thriller/suspense, 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. Your authors for the evening are: 

Debra H. Goldstein: A former judge, Goldstein is the author of Kensington’s new Sarah Blair cozy mystery series. One Taste Too Many and Two Bites Too Many were published in 2019. Three Treats Too Many will be available in 2020, and she is under contract for additional books in the series for 2021 and 2022. She also wrote Should Have Played Poker and 2012 the IPPY Award winning Maze in Blue. Her short stories, including Anthony and Agatha nominated “The Night They Burned Ms. Dixie’s Place,” have appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies including Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, and Mystery Weekly. Debra serves on the national boards of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and is president of SEMWA and past president of SinC's Guppy Chapter.

Tilia Klebenov Jacobs: Award-winning author, Klebenov Jacobs has written two crime novels for adults: Wrong Place, Wrong Time, which won the Hollywood Book Award; Second Helpings at the Serve You Right Café, which won honorable mention in the 2015 London Book Festival; and Casper and Jasper and the Terrible Tyrant, a fantasy novel for readers of all ages about two boys separated from their parents during the reign of a petty despot, which was a New York Book Festival runner-up. She was also a contributing author to The Chalk Circle, a collection of intercultural essays, which won a Skipping Stones Honor Award, as well as other awards.

Linda McHenry: is a professional freelance writer and novelist. She is published in multiple genres, with millions of words in print. Linda's debut mystery, Second Time Around, was a finalist for the 2010 EPIC Award for Best Mystery/Suspense. Her nonfiction book, Taking the Mystery Out of Business, was referred to as "an arsenal of tools and resources to help managers and their businesses succeed," by the Director of Career Advancement at the University of Montana's College of Business. Her short story Mama was published in the Writer's Digest 17th Annual Short Short Story Contest compilation.

Clea Simon: is the author of five mystery series featuring cats that range from the cozy to the near noir, as well as a stand-alone suspense novel, and three nonfiction books. Her novel of suspense, the Boston rock noir, "World Enough" (Severn House), revisits the Boston punk scene. Her cat mystery series include the dark cat-narrated Blackie and Care series, which kicked off in 2016 with "The Ninth Life"; a whimsical cozy series about Cambridge witch cats, which debuted in 2018 with "A Spell of Murder"; her Pru Marlowe pet noirs, featuring a bad girl pet psychic and her crotchety tabby, Wallis, which began in 2011 with "Dogs Don't Lie"; her Theda Krakow "cats & crime & rock & roll" series, which launched in 2005 with "Mew is for Murder"(Poisoned Penn Press); and her Dulcie Schwartz feline mysteries series. which launched in 2009 with “Shades of Grey” (Severn House).