How To Write An Effective Action Scene
Are You Curious Enough?
Person, Place, or Crime: Where to Start Your Mystery
Weaving a Character Web for a Crime Novel: Building in Conflict
The Long and Short Of Short Mystery Story Writing, Revision, and Submission
Turning Historical Figures Into Fictional Detectives
How to Use Conflict and Stakes to Raise Suspense
Meet the speakers

C. Hope Clark
C. Hope Clark is a multi-award-winning author of seventeen mysteries in three series, with many more to come if she has her way about it. She left a career in her beloved agricultural field, which included internal investigations, to marry a federal agent she met on a bribery case and to write stories. Hope is also the founder of FundsforWriters.com, a website and newsletter that reaches 25,000 readers and has been awarded the Writer's Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers for 21 years. She lives on the banks of Lake Murray in central South Carolina, and vacations on Edisto Beach, the setting of her largest series. www.chopeclark.com / www.fundsforwriters.com.
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Hallie Ephron
New York Times bestselling author Hallie Ephron, Edgar Award finalist and five-time finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, writes books she hopes readers can’t put down. She was named the 2024 Dr. Herb Voigt Writer-inResidence for the Milton Public Library. Her newest suspense novel is Careful What You Wish For (August, 2019). Hallie teaches writing at workshops and writing conferences across the country and abroad. A REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION of her Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel (Writers Digest Books), is widely available. It was nominated for Edgar and Anthony awards. Lee Child called it “the best how-to guide I have ever seen — I just wish I could have read it twenty years ago.” An award-winning crime fiction book reviewer, Hallie wrote an ON CRIME column for the Boston Globe for more than ten years. HallieEphron.com
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Amanda Flower
Amanda Flower is a USA Today bestselling and two-time Agatha Award-winning author of over fifty mystery novels. Her novels have received starred reviews from Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Romantic Times, and she had been featured in USA Today, First for Women, and Woman’s World. Her first Emily Dickinson Mystery, Because I Could Not Stop for Death, was an Agatha Award winner and Mary Higgins Clark Nominee. She currently writes for Penguin-Random House (Berkley), Kensington, and Sourcebooks. A former librarian, Flower and her husband own a farm and recording studio, and they live in Northeast Ohio with their adorable cats.
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Rob Hart
Rob Hart is the author of Assassins Anonymous, as well as The Paradox Hotel, which was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, and The Warehouse, which was published in more than 20 countries. He also wrote the Ash McKenna series, the short story collection Take-Out, the novella Scott Free with James Patterson, and the comic book Blood Oath with Alex Segura. He is currently a writing mentor in Seton Hill University's MFA program. Find more at www.robwhart.com.
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Mike Maden
I grew up working in the canneries, feed mills and slaughterhouses of California’s San Joaquin Valley. A lifelong fascination with history and warfare fortuitously led to a Ph.D. in political science focused on conflict and technology in international relations. I was in grad school when I happened upon Tom Clancy’s magnificent, The Hunt for Red October. Not surprisingly, my first foray into fiction was a four-book techno-thriller series centered around drone warfare. After that series ended, I received the thrilling but wholly unexpected invitation to join the Tom Clancy franchise. It was an amazing experience.
Now I have been given the incredible privilege to write for The Oregon Files, the iconic series brought to life by the legendary Clive Cussler. With the help of his terrific writing partners Craig Dirgo, Jack Du Brul and Boyd Morrison, Clive built the series into an international bestselling franchise with some of the greatest characters and memorable moments in the genre. It goes without saying that I have big shoes to fill. Providentially, the first endorsement I received for my first novel Drone, came from the hand of Clive Cussler himself. It was an extremely generous thing for him to do and I am forever grateful. It’s a debt I intend to repay by honoring his memory and legacy by creating more amazing adventures for the Oregon and her valiant crew.
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Chris Mooney
Hailed as “one of the best thriller writers working today” by Lee Child and “a wonderful writer” by Michael Connelly, Chris Mooney is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Walk in My Combat Boots, written with James Patterson. His recent books include ER Nurses and Blood World. His fourth book, The Missing, the first in the Darby McCormick series, was a main selection of the International Book of the Month Club and an instant bestseller in over thirteen countries. The Mystery Writer’s Association nominated Chris’s third book, Remembering Sarah, for an Edgar Award for Best Novel. Foreign rights to his novels have been sold to twenty-eight territories. He has sold nearly two million copies of his books. Chris teaches writing courses at Harvard and the Harvard Extension School. He lives in the Boston area with his wife and son.
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Andrew Welsh-Huggins
Andrew Welsh-Huggins is the Shamus-, Derringer-, and International Thriller Writers-award nominated author of more than fifty published short mystery stories. Andrew’s stories have appeared in leading short-fiction publications including Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, Mystery Tribune, and many more. In addition, Andrew’s stories have been published in multiple anthologies including Mickey Finn: 21st-Century Noir vols. 1,3,4 and 5; Paranoia Blues: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Paul Simon; This Time For Sure, the 2021 Bouchercon anthology; and The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2021 and 2024. Andrew’s private eye story, “Through Thick and Thin,” is upcoming in both The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2025 and The Best Private Eye Stories of the Year 2025. Andrew is also the author of more than a dozen novels, including his new, critically acclaimed thriller, “The Mailman,” introducing freelance courier Mercury Carter.
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Zach Honey
Zach Honey is North Carolina-born and Montana-raised with an equal love for sweet tea and waist-deep snow. He studied film production and philosophy at Montana State University and received a master’s degree from the University of Nottingham in England. Zach is primarily seeking thrillers and adult fiction, especially those set in rural places, mountainous regions, or other hard-to-reach corners of the world. His other interests include hiking, skiing, music, board games, golf, and other outdoor activities, and he is open to non-fiction pitches in these categories.
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Michelle Richter
Fuse Literary
Michelle Richter joined Fuse Literary in 2014 from St. Martin’s Press, where she worked on a variety of fiction and nonfiction including MELISSA EXPLAINS IT ALL by Melissa Joan Hart. She has a Master’s degree in Publishing from Pace University, where she is an adjunct lecturer. Michelle’s clients have won or been finalists for such awards as the Edgar, Mary Higgins Clark, Strand Critics, Anthony, Agatha, Lefty, ITW Thriller, Macavity, Barry, Derringer, IPPY, and International Book Award. She is a member of Sisters in Crime.
Michelle is seeking:
- suspense
- mystery
- psychological thrillers
- domestic suspense
- women’s fiction
- book club fiction
- YA mystery/thriller
- select contemporary YA
She’s especially eager to find suspense and psychological thrillers with complex lead characters. BIPOC, LGBTQ, and disabled voices in fiction always welcome. Michelle loves unreliable narrators, stories of family secrets, friendships, and sibling relationships. Her favorite writers include Colson Whitehead, Celeste Ng, Ruth Ware, Laura Lippman, Megan Miranda, Lori Rader-Day, Jennifer Hillier, and Tana French. She’d love to find the next BATH HAUS, SUCH A FUN AGE, WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING, THE LADY UPSTAIRS, LONG BRIGHT RIVER, THE DUTCH HOUSE, EVERYTHING I NEVER TOLD YOU, WINTER COUNTS, BLACKTOP WASTELAND, or BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD.
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Latoya C. Smith
LCS Literary Services
Latoya C. Smith started her editorial career as an administrative assistant to New York Times bestselling author, Teri Woods at Teri Woods Publishing while pursuing her Bachelor’s Degree at Temple University. She graduated Cum Laude from Temple in August of 2005. She then attained a full-time position at Kensington Publishing in March of 2006. In October 2006, Latoya joined Grand Central Publishing, an imprint at Hachette Book Group. For the span of her eight years there, Latoya acquired a variety of titles from hardcover fiction and nonfiction, to digital romance and erotica. She was featured in Publishers Weekly, Forbes and USA Today, as well as on various author, book conference, and book blogger websites. In early 2014, she appeared on CSpan2 where she contributed to a panel discussing the state of book publishing. From August 2014 to February 2016, Latoya was Executive Editor at Samhain Publishing where she acquired short and long-form romance and erotic fiction. She is the winner of the 2012 RWA Golden Apple for Editor of the Year, 2017 Golden Apple for Agent of the Year, and the 2017 and 2021 Literary Jewels Award for Editor of the Year. Latoya is the founder of the company and provides editorial services as well as literary representation to authors.
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