Sisters in Crime

Sisters in Crime

Florida Gulf Coast Chapter

Mary Anna Evans

The chapter traveled to Venice for the February meeting. The featured speaker, Mary Anna Evans, led a workshop about adding feeling to your writing, with exercises. In one, the writers visualized a place and created a list of descriptive words to capture its mood, then wrote haikus using those words. Powerful.

Happy Birthday, Agatha!

The chapter celebrated the 129th birthday of Agatha Christie, with costumes and prizes.

Wendy Dingwall presented: the life of Agatha Christie.

Gwen Mayo prepares to pose her trivia questions.

A great group in attendance!

We had a nice door prize: a basket of mysteries, including one of Agatha’s best tales.

The following Sunday, we presented a panel on Agatha’s writing at the Sarasota Barnes and Noble. It was well-attended, and we spoke to several fans and collectors.

Joan Lappin: the rise of Amazon

Joan Lappin opened with a bit of history on Amazon. It began as an online book retailer, then moved into music next, then outward to selling other products. The company has made an enormous number of sales of sales, but has operated at a loss since the beginning. Only now is the company beginning to make money, and it’s through the web services it offers, not the books, music, movies, or groceries.

While Amazon has opened its doors to self-published authors, they aren’t going to make real money unless they sell thousands of copies. For example, the books read via the new Prime Unlimited only pay 14 cents to the author per copy downloaded.

Amazon has gone into the publishing business themselves, with many imprints (FYI-Thomas and Mercer is the mystery imprint). An independent author can promote their book by paying for better placement on the site, but one presumes that a book’s placement would also be excellent if it were published by Amazon.

Since the company seems to now control the book market from publishing to delivery, we discussed whether it could be broken up by the government as a monopoly. Janet Heijens theorized that Jeff Bezos (Amazon’s owner) would break up the company himself before that happened, perhaps first by spinning the delivery service off into its own company.

Overall, it was an educational meeting.
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Sisters in Crime Mystery Writers at Venice Book Fair

On Saturday, March 16th, the Florida Gulf Coast chapter of Sisters in Crime will present award-winning crime writers in rotation throughout the day at Booth 6. Stop by their booth and receive mystery handouts and information about the Sisters in Crime national organization.

* Authors signing from 9:00am – 11:00am are Janet Heijens and Teresa Michael. Ms. Heijens is the author of the acclaimed legal mysteries Wrongful Conviction and Snook Wallow. Ms. Michael is the author of the cozy mystery, Murder in Mariposa Beach.
* Signing from 11:00am – 1:00pm are Linda Russo and Louise Titchener. Ms Russo, former federal court reporter for the U.S. District Court of Washington D.C, is the author of All is Forgiven: Memoir of a Killer. Ms. Titchener is the author of over fifty romantic suspense and historical mysteries. Her latest, Trouble in Tampa, won the Silver Royal Palm Award from Florida Writer’s Association in 2018.
* Signing from 1:00pm – 3:00pm are Lisa Ricard Claro and Kate Franklin. Ms. Claro is the author of The Fireflies Series. Her latest novel is Love to Win. Ms. Franklin’s latest novel, The Tattooed Mermaid won a Silver Medal from Florida Authors and Publishers Association.

Whether you’re a lover of traditional or cozy mysteries, thrillers, police procedurals, or true crime novels, please take time to stop by booth 6. Learn how the importance of crafting excellence in the crime writing genres is one of the main goals of Sisters in Crime. And, meet super authors at the same time, perhaps walk away with a treasured autographed book.