Show Business is Murder

About the Authors

Winner of the Agatha, Anthony, Macavity, and Shamus awards for her short stories, and Edgar-nominated twice for her Cass Jameson series, Carolyn Wheat embarked on a new venture with How to Write Killer Fiction. This unique approach to writing the crime novel explores “the funhouse of mystery and the roller coaster of suspense” so that the writer can create the ideal reader experience in either genre. She is currently at work on a book about detective characters as archetypes. She offers writing workshops and teaches regularly at UCSD.

Edward D. Hoch is a past president of the Mystery Writers of America and winner of its Edgar Award for best short story. In 2001 he was honored with MWA’s Grand Master Award. He has been guest of honor at the annual Bouchercon mystery convention, two-time winner of its Anthony Award, and 2001 recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award. He is also recipient of Life Achievement Awards from the Private Eye Writers of America and the Short Mystery Fiction Society. Author of over 875 published stories, as well as novels and collections, he has appeared in every issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine since 1973. Hoch resides with his wife Patricia in Rochester, New York.

Annette Meyers was born in New York, grew up on a chicken farm in New Jersey, and came running back to Manhattan as soon as she could. She has a long history on Broadway (assistant to Harold Prince) and Wall Street (headhunter and arbitrator, NASD). Her first novel, The Big Killing, featured Wall Street headhunters Xenia Smith and former dancer, Leslie Wetzon, who stumble over bodies on Wall Street and Broadway. There are now seven Smith and Wetzon novels and an eighth, Hedging, will be published in 2005. In Free Love, set in Greenwich Village in 1920, Meyers introduced poet/sleuth Olivia Brown and her bohemian friends. Murder Me Now followed. With husband Martin Meyers, using the pseudonym Maan Meyers, she has written six books in The Dutchman series of historical mysteries set in New York in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Both Annette Meyers’s and Maan Meyers’s short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies.

John Lutz is the author of more than thirty-five novels and approximately 250 short stories and articles. His work has been translated into virtually every language and adapted for almost every medium. He is a past president of both the Mystery Writers of America and the Private Eye Writers of America. Among his awards are the MWA Edgar, the PWA Shamus, the Trophee 813 Award for best mystery short story collection translated into the French language, the PWA Life Achievement Award, and the Short Mystery Fiction Society’s Golden Derringer Lifetime Achievement Award. He is the author of two private eye series, the Nudger series, set in his home town of St. Louis, and the Carver series, set in Florida, as well as many non-series suspense novels. His SWF Seeks Same was made into the hit movie Single White Female, starring Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh, and his The Ex was made into the HBO original movie of the same title, for which he co-authored the screenplay. His latest book is a suspense novel, The Night Watcher.

“Janet Evanovich meets The Fugitive.” That’s what author Tim Dorsey calls Elaine Viets’s new Dead-End Job mystery series. Shop Till You Drop is the first in the Signet series. Elaine actually works those dead-end jobs in this South Florida series. She has been a dress-store clerk, a bookseller, and a telemarketer who called you at dinnertime. She was nominated for three Agatha Awards in 2003 for Best Traditional Mystery for Shop Till You Drop, and two short stories, “Red Meat” and “Sex and Bingo.”

Angela Zeman, a former director of MWA, is the author of The Witch and the Borscht Pearl (Pendulum Press). The cozy novel, praised in reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and other venues, features characters from the popular Mrs. Risk “witch” short story series. Mary Higgins Clark chose a Mrs. Risk story for her anthology, The Night Awakens. The second Mrs. Risk novel is expected to appear soon. Her suspense story in Nancy Pickard’s anthology, Mom, Apple Pie, and Murder, was reviewed by PW as “magical.” “Green Heat,” her story in the MWA anthology A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime, also garnered high praise from Publishers Weekly. She also writes nonfiction articles about the mystery field, both alone and with her husband, Barry T. Zeman, who is an acknowledged authority on the history of the mystery and antiquarian book collecting. They contributed an article to MWA’s 2003 handbook edited by Sue Grafton (Writer’s Digest Books): Writing Mysteries. http://www.AngelaZeman.com.

Another original story by David Bart appeared in the 2003 Mystery Writers of America anthology, A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime, edited by Jeffery Deaver. David’s work has also been published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. One of his many stories published in AHMM was translated and reprinted in a Paris anthology. He is presently working on a suspense novel in addition to short stories and is an active member of the Mystery Writers of America, South West Writers, and PWA. David lives in New Mexico and can be reached at djbart@flash.net.

Bob Shayne has been nominated for two Edgars for his TV movie “The Return of Sherlock Holmes”-also nominated by the Writers Guild of America as Best TV Movie of the Year-and for “Ashes to Ashes and None Too Soon,” one of twelve scripts he wrote for the popular 1980s TV series “Simon & Simon.” Pierce Brosnan is attached to star in and produce Shayne’s upcoming movie Once a Thief. This is his first short story. He is also developing a series of historical mystery novels featuring the Naomi Weinstein character.

Mark Terry is the author of two mystery series, one featuring Dr. Theo MacGreggor, a consulting forensic toxicologist, and one featuring Megan Malloy, a computer troubleshooter. He is also a frequent book reviewer, technical editor, and freelance writer. His work appears regularly in Mystery Scene Magazine, and has appeared in The Armchair Detective and Orchard Press Mysteries. He has published nearly one hundred book reviews, dozens of columns and articles, and even the occasional poem. His “day job” is in the field of genetics. He lives in Michigan with his wife and sons. Visit his website at www.mark-terry.com

Gary Phillips writes in various mediums from the short story form to comic books to scripts, as a general practitioner of mass media. And what few forays he’s had into the arena of Hollywood has taught him that show bizness ain’t a business for sissies.

Parnell Hall is the author of the Stanley Hastings private eye novels, the Puzzle Lady Crossword Puzzle mysteries, and the Steve Winslow courtroom dramas. His books have been nominated for Edgar and Shamus awards. Parnell is an actor, screenwriter, and former private investigator. He lives in New York City.

Susanne Shaphren’s first nationally published mystery was The Visit, a Fiction Award story in the March 1972 issue of Weight Watchers Magazine. Her articles and short stories have been published in an eclectic alphabet soup of magazines including: Authorship, Better Communication, Crosscurrents, Delta Scene, Golden Years, Hibiscus, Jack and Jill, Lady’s Circle, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Plot, Short Stuff, and The Writer.

A transplant from Washington, D.C., Libby Fischer Hellmann has lived in the Chicago area twenty-five years. Her amateur sleuth series, featuring video producer Ellie Foreman, made its debut in 2002 with An Eye for Murder, published simultaneously by Poisoned Pen Press and Berkley Prime Crime. A Picture of Guilt was released in July, 2003, followed by An Image of Death in February 2004. Her short stories have appeared in both American and British publications. When not writing fiction, Libby writes and produces corporate videos. She is also a speech- and presentation-skills coach. She holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MFA in Film Production from New York University. She lives on the North Shore of Chicago with her family and a Beagle, shamelessly named Shiloh.

By the age of thirty, Charles Ardai had been a Shamus Award-nominated mystery writer, founder and CEO of a $2 billion Internet company, and a managing director at the investment and technology development firm Fortune magazine called “the most intriguing and mysterious force on Wall Street.” His proudest accomplishment, however, is having appeared as an extra in Woody Allen’s “Radio Days.” Mr. Ardai lives in New York.

Gregg Hurwitz is the author of The Tower, Minutes to Burn, Do No Harm, and The Kill Clause. He holds a B.A. in English and psychology from Harvard University and a master’s degree from Trinity College, Oxford. He lives in Los Angeles.

Show business may be murder, but somehow Steve Hockensmith has managed to survive his brushes with it-so far. A freelance journalist, he has covered pop culture and the film industry for The Hollywood Reporter, The Chicago Tribune, Newsday, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Total Movie, Cinescape, and other publications. He also recently sold the movie rights to his Derringer Award-winning story “Erie’s Last Day,” and a short film based on the story is in the works. His short fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and Analog. But what he really wants to do is direct…

Shelley Freydont is the author of the Lindy Haggerty mystery series (Backstage Murder, Midsummer Murder, A Merry Little Murder). She has toured internationally with Twyla Tharp Dance and American Ballroom Theater and has choreographed for and appeared in films, television, and on Broadway. She is a member of MWA and Sisters in Crime (President of NY/TriState chapter 2001-2003).

Robert Lopresti is a librarian and songwriter in the Pacific Northwest. Thirty of his stories have been published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and many other places. One of his stories was nominated for the Anthony Award in 1994.

Mat Coward is a British writer of crime, SF, horror, children’s, and humorous fiction, whose stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio and published in numerous anthologies, magazines, and e-zines in the UK, US, and Europe. According to Ian Rankin, “Mat Coward’s stories resemble distilled novels.” His first non-distilled novel-a whodunit called Up and Down-was published in the USA in 2000 by Five Star Publishing. The same publisher produced his first single author collection, Do the World a Favour and Other Stories in 2003.

Stuart M. Kaminsky is the author of fifty-six published books, forty short stories, and five produced screenplays. He was one of the writers of the A & E Nero Wolfe television series. He won the Edgar for best novel in 1989 and the Prix De Roman D’Aventure of France in 1990. He has received a total of six Edgar nominations for his novels and short stories. Kaminsky writes the Toby Peters series, the Porfiry Rostnikov series, the Abe Lieberman series, and the Lew Fonesca series set in and around Sarasota. He has also written two “Rockford Files” novels. Kaminsky has a B.S. degree in Journalism and an M.A. in English Literature from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. in Communications from Northwestern University. He taught film history, filmmaking, and creative writing at Northwestern University for sixteen years before going to Florida State University in 1988 to head the Graduate Conservatory in Film. He left FSU in 1994 to write full time. He now lives in Sarasota with his wife and family, and finds time to play a lot of softball.