Join Michael Bracken and Sisters in Crime North Dallas for Crafting Killer Short Stories: Tips, Tricks, and Techniques to Take Your Short Stories to the Next Level.
Determining our biological family after a DNA test can reveal secrets and deceptions and is much like solving a mystery. Starting with relatives in DNA databases and working through public records and social media can be much like chasing clues to get to the perpetrator of the lies and sadly leaves victims along the way.
Whether you are published or unpublished, Nancy Coco discusses how to develop everything you need to market your book in one document. Using the long-running Candy-Coated Mysteries as an example, you'll learn how to create your own sell sheet that will help you focus on aspects like the book's summary, why audiences should read it, and what you want the public to know about your book. With everything in once place, it makes it easy to update your website, pitch reviewers, connect with bloggers, craft your social pages, create video content, and more!
Ready to learn how K9 search and rescue works? Join Paul Lake, the founder and executive director of Search One Rescue Team, for a scenario based on a real search that walks the audience through all the aspects of a Search and Rescue (SAR) mission and how the dogs are incorporated.
Today, when many books go on to Netflix or big screen production, location matters as it can become a significant factor in production cost. Reading habits are changing as well, as attention spans grow shorter and other content—including social media—competes with the novel. Franko’s novels strike a balance between traditional storytelling and meeting the demands of today’s audiences and market realities.
Join attorney Sara Borrelli as she provides tips and advice for protecting the hard work you’ve invested in your writing.
New York Times best selling author and Edgar Award nominee Kathleen Kent will offer details on how her personal career experiences helped inform her writing of her recent spy thriller/ serial killer novel, Black Wolf, and will then welcome questions from attendees.
Join us on Sunday, Dec. 10, from 2-4 p.m. CT at La Madeleine in Frisco for our annual holiday party! (Address: 8008 State Hwy 121—at Parkwood and 121)
Light refreshments will be served, along with fun games and surprises! There will be a gift exchange of books. Please bring a wrapped, gently used or new book if you wish to participate.
Author and award winning filmmaker, Dänna Wilberg, shares her views on writing a sustainable paranormal series by mixing fact with fiction and talks about how her background as producer and host of TV show “Paranormal Connection” for fifteen years lends its magic to her storytelling techniques.
This September 24, meeting will focus on members and attendees who have written material of which they would like to have feedback. Bring 3-5 pages with at least one other copy. All attendees are welcome, with or without bringing anything. Also, just for practice and fun, we will offer some pages of writing that may have errors, or need some editing, and some writing-related games for fun and learning.
Alternatively, anyone can bring a writing tip that worked well for them to share, or favorite opening line from any work of fiction.
Voice is the Loch Ness Monster of the literary world—a nebulous, evasive entity that nobody can describe. Still, readers crave it, publishers want it, reviewers swoon over it, but how can we develop voice when its very definition often eludes us? In this interactive class, author and licensed professional counselor Heather Harper Ellett will use word play exercises and narrative therapy techniques to walk authors of all stages through the satisfying work of finding their writerly voice and creating works that reflect their unique, authentic style.
Wall Street Journal’s bestselling author Kathleen Baldwin and award-winning author Liese Sherwood-Fabre team up for an insiders’ look at "Winning the Con Game.” As more authors seek to reach readers through direct sales, one nontraditional arena often overlooked are conventions (cons) which attract enthusiasts who might very well enjoy your book—if they knew about it. These two authors (fresh from the Texas Author Con) will discuss finding cons, setting goals for the event, and “working” the con to attract new, lifelong readers of your books.
Mysteries often have a strong connection with food – from foodie sleuths, to cozy mysteries that share recipes with readers. In this session, Amber Royer will discuss how to include mouth-watering temptations that wills engage your readers and add an extra tasteful layer of delight. We will consider how adding descriptions of food will give a sensory appeal to your work and ground it in a specific place and time. We will also explore how to use the sense of taste to access characters' memories and spark epiphanies, using a worksheet to brainstorm different aspects of said characters’ involuntary autobiographical memory.
5:30 - 6: Author Meet and Mingle
6 - 7: Author Panel
7 - 7:30: Book signing
Harry Hunsicker will tell the story of how he decided to go for a screenplay and how exciting it was to see his work produced and viewed on the big screen. He’ll offer insights on how you might do the same.
This will be an opportunity for Sisters in Crime North Dallas members to talk about their WIP and books or stories recently published. We’ll also open for questions and suggestions.
Please join us this Sunday, January 22, 2023 at La Madeleine in Frisco (8008 TX-121, Suite 100) for delicious refreshments, games, and prizes. We will meet in the back room from 3 - 5 pm. Guests are welcome for a small charge of $6, and all members at no charge. We would love to have you for the entire time, but please join us for as long as your schedule permits.
We are pleased to host DP LYLE, MD, for a Q&A session to help authors navigate forensic science in their fiction. Submit your story questions and problems, and we will interactively work them out with the goal of making your story better and more accurate, and have fun along the way.
Sponsored by the SinC Chapters of Austin, North Dallas and Houston
Featuring Det. David Fugitt (involved in over 600 murder investigations with Austin P.D.), Lt. Daniel D’Eugenio (over 23 years with the New York City Police Department), and Trina Perkins-Moulton, Esq. (Criminal Parole and Probate Attorney and Parole Board Outside Counsel).
If you have questions, need the Zoom invite, or need further information, email us at: TXSINC2022@gmail.com
Formatting, metadata, marketing—oh, my! If you’re embarking on the path of self-publishing—or even just considering the prospect—you might be feeling like you’re on a cross-country trip without a road map. Our panel of indie and hybrid authors is here to help steer you around the potholes.
Join attorney Mark Thielman to learn about the things that are often missed/overlooked/misstated about the practice of criminal law (at least as practiced in Texas state courts).
This is your invitation to get help from J Suzanne Frank with your writing roadblocks!
Members and guests may submit questions in advance and during the meeting (as time permits) regarding what you are stuck on or where you need help in any area of your writing journey. Suzanne will assist writers in seeing that you have the answers and the strategies to implement tactics that will smooth the pathway.
Join us on Wednesday, May 11, for this exciting event celebrating the publication of our inaugural chapter anthology, MALICE IN DALLAS: Metroplex Mysteries Volume 1.
Authors will be signing books, and we will have a scavenger hunt, drawings for prizes, and more.
You won’t want to miss it! Click VIEW ALL MEETINGS to RSVP!
Houston-based lawyer Iona McAvoy will address the basics of copyright, infringement, trademark, licensing (what that means to authors) and book contracts, tying these in with the recent uptick in self-publishing and dealing in the digital world.
Can’t decide who’s the best character to tell your story? You don’t have to settle for just a single character’s point of view. SIMON WOOD will discuss the techniques and the decisions that have to be made when writing in multiple points of view.
Join Debra H. Goldstein as she discusses how conflict, setting, character and other elements interplay to create a solid and marketable story.
Please join us for a virtual celebration marking the release of MALICE IN DALLAS, the first anthology from Sisters in Crime North Dallas! Edited by Barb Goffman, with an introduction by Charlaine Harris, this collection of stories will delight and intrigue you, and we are excited to celebrate its arrival together! We will have lots of fun lined up, including giveaways and chapter updates. We look forward to seeing you there!
The meeting will be held on Sunday, Oct. 24, 2-5 PM. ONLINE VIA ZOOM. To attend, please RSVP by filling out the form before noon on Oct. 24. The link will be emailed to you the day of the meeting.
Charlaine Harris is a true daughter of the South. Born in Mississippi, she has lived in Tennessee, South Carolina, Arkansas, and Texas. Her career as a novelist began in 1981 with her first book, a conventional mystery. Since then, she’s written urban fantasy, science fiction, and horror. In addition to over thirty full-length books, she has written numerous short stories and three graphic novels in collaboration with Christopher Golden. She has featured on bestseller lists many times, and her works have been adapted for three (soon to be five) television shows. Charlaine now lives at the top of a cliff on the Brazos River with her husband and two rescue dogs. She has three children and two grandchildren.
Barb Goffman is an independent editor who focuses on traditional and cozy mysteries, providing developmental, line, and copy-editing services. One of the books she edited took home the Agatha Award for best first novel. Short stories she edited won the Ellery Queen Readers Award and the Derringer Award. She also edits a line of stories (mostly reprints) called Barb Goffman Presents for Wildside Press. Since 2009 she has co-edited the Chesapeake Crimes anthology series, every book of which has had at least one story that won or was nominated for a major award. She edited the 2016 Malice Domestic anthology, Murder Most Conventional. Last year the anthology Crime Travel, which she organized and edited, was nominated for the Anthony Award, and stories in the book were nominated for the Agatha, Anthony, Derringer, Macavity, and Shamus awards.
In her spare time, Barb is a short-story writer. She’s won the Agatha Award twice, as well as the Macavity, Silver Falchion, and Ellery Queen Readers Award. She’s been nominated for major crime-writing awards thirty-three times for her short stories, including fourteen Agatha Award nominations (a category record), and multiple nominations for the Anthony, Macavity, and Derringer awards. Barb’s newest story, “Ice Ice Baby,” appears in the September/October issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. You can find more, including a list of her published stories, at www.barbgoffman.com.
As the publisher of Indie Author Magazine, Chelle Honiker brings nearly three decades of startup, technology, training, and executive leadership experience to the role. She’s a serial entrepreneur, founding and selling multiple successful companies. She’s organized and curated multiple TEDx events. As a writer, speaker, and trainer she believes in the power of words and their ability to heal, inspire, incite, and motivate. Her daughters, Kelsea and Cathryn, are her greatest inspiration and they tolerate her tendency to run away from home for months at a time. It’s said she could run a small country with just the contents of her backpack.
Recovering TV writer Anne Tibbets is an author, SCREAMS FROM THE VOID (2021, Flame Tree Press), and a literary agent with Donald Maass Literary Agency. Anne represents Adult and YA Thrillers, Mysteries, Horror, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and any anything else her clients toss her way. She has sold to hybrid and traditional publishers, working with authors such as Jaime Lynn Hendricks, Mandy McHugh, Emery Hayes, J.J. Blacklocke, Mia Tsai, Michael Howarth, Rus Wornom, and W.A. Simpson.
Anne lives in the Los Angeles area and receives queries via Query Manager. Her manuscript requests are listed on the Donald Maass Literary Agency website. You can always find Anne waxing poetic on Instagram and Twitter @AnneTibbets.
MATT COYLE, author of the Shamus, Anthony and Lefty Award-winning Rick Cahill crime series, will discuss his journey to publication. He'll cover the do's and don'ts, the highs and lows and plateaus in between as he went from reader to published writer in ten short years.
Are you wondering what career path to follow, Indie or Traditional? Want to know how much money authors really make, but Google shows you a dozen different amounts? Confused about how much to invest promoting your novel, on skill development, or making an audiobook? Do you feel like you spend hours on your writing career but don’t get anywhere?
Experienced, happy, bestselling author KATHLEEN BALDWIN has answers and wants to help.
