Sheila Connolly

After collecting too many degrees and exploring careers ranging from art historian to investment banker to professional genealogist, Sheila Connolly began writing in 2001, and has now published over thirty traditional mysteries, including several New York Times bestsellers. Her series include the Orchard Mysteries (Berkley Prime Crime), the Museum Mysteries (Berkley Prime Crime), The County Cork Mysteries (Crooked Lane Books), the Relatively Dead Mysteries (Beyond the Page Press), and beginning in 2018, The Victorian Village Mysteries from St. Martin’s Press. Her first full-length, standalone eBook, Once She Knew, was published in October 2012. Connolly has also published a variety of short stories: "Size Matters" appeared in the 2010 Level Best Anthology, Thin Ice; "Called Home," a short prequel to the Orchard series, was published by Beyond the Page in 2011; and "Dead Letters," an e-story featuring the main characters from the Museum series, will be published by Berkley Prime Crime in February 2012. Beyond the Page also published "The Rising of the Moon," and another Level Best anthology includes "Kept in the Dark," which was nominated for both an Agatha award and an Anthony award for 2013. She is passionate about genealogy, both American and Irish, and is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Society of Mayflower Descendants. She is also an Irish citizen and owns a cottage in West Cork. She lives in a too-big Victorian in southeastern Massachusetts with her husband and three cats.

http://www.sheilaconnolly.com

Camille Minichino

Camille Minichino has published eight novels in the Periodic Table Mysteries series, featuring retired physicist GLORIA LAMERINO. The series continues in short stories on Kindle and smashwords.com.

As Margaret Grace, she’s published five novels in the Miniature Mysteries series, featuring miniaturist GERALDINE PORTER and her 10-year-old granddaughter, Maddie.

As Ada Madison, she’s poised to release a new series, the Professor Sophie Knowles Mysteries, featuring college professor SOPHIE KNOWLES.

Camille received her Ph.D. in physics from Fordham University, New York City. She is currently on the faculty of Golden Gate University, San Francisco and on the staff of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Camille is on the boards of the California Writers Club and NorCal Sisters in Crime. She’s a member of NorCal Mystery Writers of America and SF Romance Writers of America.

http://www.minichino.com

Joyce and Jim Lavene

People frequently ask us how we began writing together. And how we can write together at all!

Writing together was a natural evolution for us. We have been in several businesses together during our almost thirty year marriage.

Joyce began writing poetry when she was nine. Jim scribbled a little, but mostly read a lot. We decided to work together on a series of stories we told our children to amuse them after Hurricane Hugo hit our house in 1989. Without power or water for weeks, we needed something!

We started writing novels together after that and are still going strong! We also enjoy writing non-fiction about the people we meet in our travels. Ordinary people who are doing extraordinary things with their lives, like the characters we write in our novels.

As for our personal lives, we have three wonderful children, Chris, Jeni and Emmie as well as two fantastic grandchildren, Eric and Gabrielle. We love cats and have too many of them. We have a chocolate Lab named Bear. Jim is into computers, photography and line drawing. Joyce is active in sculpting, alternative medicine and water color painting.

All of our books are purposely written to be vegetarian and inspiring. We believe that we all have a journey that leads to the discovery of ourselves; our ultimate destiny.

http://www.joyceandjimlavene.com

Leigh Perry

Photo © Susan Wilson
http://www.susanwilsonphoto.com

http://www.leighperryauthor.com

Linda O. Johnston

Linda O. Johnston, a former lawyer who is now a full-time writer, currently writes for Harlequin Romantic Suspense. Her stories include the upcoming Shelter of Secrets miniseries and the K-9 Ranch Rescue miniseries, as well as stories for the HRS ongoing Colton series. She also writes mysteries, which have included the Barkery & Biscuits Mystery Series and Superstition Mysteries for Midnight Ink, and the Pet Rescue Mystery Series and Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter Mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime---with more to come. And nearly all her current stories involve dogs.

https://www.lindaojohnston.com

Janet Bolin

I was about seven, and for years (!), I'd been offering really helpful suggestions about the clothes my mother designed and sewed. Now I was going to make my own skirt.

At the fabric shop, I ran my fingers along each bolt of cloth, probably about sixteen times. My mother didn’t mind. She was doing the same thing. Finally, after much indecision and heavy consultation, I chose a navy blue cotton broadcloth with a red pin stripe.

Back home, under my mother’s close supervision, I cut out a couple of large rectangles and a strip for the waistband. Using my mother’s old black Singer, I carefully stitched the rectangles into a tube, then gathered the tube to the waistband. I made a buttonhole and sewed on a big red button. We folded a deep hem, and my mother, whose ability to stitch a straight line was far superior to mine, sewed the hem with her machine. For the finishing touch, she showed me how to wind red embroidery floss under one machine stitch and over the next.

I had made my own skirt and embroidered it, too. I was hooked.

I also loved reading. I asked where books came from. People wrote them? Wow! I knew what I wanted to do when I grew up.

Whether I grew up or not is debatable, but now I’m writing books in which my main character solves crimes. She also embroiders the way I do now, with sewing and embroidery machines.

What could be better?

http://threadvillemysteries.com