WriteNow! Faculty 2022
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Yasmin Angoe is the author of the acclaimed Her Name Is Knight, first book in the Nena Knight trilogy. She is a first-generation Ghanaian American and the recipient of the 2020 Eleanor Taylor Bland Award for Emerging Writers of Color. Her Name Is Knight came in #1 on multiple Amazon Bestseller charts and is an Editor’s Pick for Best Mystery, Thriller, & Suspense. Yasmin is a nominee for the Anthony Awards for Best First Book and the AAMBC Awards for Debut Author of the Year. Yasmin’s work has received numerous recognitions, “Best of” lists, and a Library Journal Starred Review. Her book has appeared in Woman’s World Book Club, POPSUGAR, Nerd Daily, the Washington Independent Review of Books, and other platforms. Yasmin is a former educator and received a Kirkus Review calling Her Name Is Knight, “A parable of reclaiming personal and tribal identity by seizing power at all costs.”
Terri Bischoff has been with Crooked Lane Books for thee years. She began her life in books as a bookseller at Kramerbooks in Washington, D.C. After moving home to the Midwest, she worked at a feminist bookstore before purchasing and operating Booked for Murder in Madison, WI. She spent 10 years at Midnight Ink as their acquiring editor, publishing 36-40 books a year. Terri has a wealth of experience and knowledge in both mysteries and in bookselling, particularly as a book buyer and reviewer. Terri’s interests lie in mainstream suspense and thrillers, LGBTQIA, and diverse characters / storylines.
Donis Casey is the author of Valentino Will Die, the second episode (following The Wrong Girl, 2019) in a new mystery/thriller series starring Bianca LaBelle, star of the silent screen action serial, Adventures of Bianca Dangereuse. In addition to this series about a beautiful, headstrong, and wildly lucky girl in glamorous 1920s Hollywood, Donis is the author of ten Alafair Tucker Mysteries, an award-winning series set in Oklahoma during the booming 1910s and featuring the sleuthing mother of ten children. Donis has twice won the Arizona Book Award and has been a finalist for the Willa Award and the Oklahoma Book Award. Her first novel, The Old Buzzard Had It Coming, was named an Oklahoma Centennial Book. Donis is a former teacher, academic librarian, and entrepreneur. She lives in Tempe, AZ. Read the first chapter of each of her books at her web site.
Hailey Dezort is a marketing manager at Kaye Publicity. She holds a B.A. in English with a minor in Anthropology from Loyola University of Chicago. Before joining Kaye Publicity, she was a digital content creator for two interior design companies. Hailey was also a marketing intern with Chicago Humanities Festival, where she was later hired to create social media strategies for their Spring Fest in 2018. Additionally, she completed a marketing intern for Open Letter Books in 2016.
Hallie Ephron is a New York Times bestselling author of suspense novels reviewers have called “deliciously creepy.” Her newest, Careful What You Wish For, is about a professional organizer married to a man who can’t pass a yard sale without stopping. It’s a mash-up of “Antiques Roadshow” and Strangers on a Train. A five-time finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, Ephron’s Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel was an Edgar Award finalist. Lee Child called it “the best how-to guide I have ever seen–I just wish I could have read it years ago.” She is a popular presenter at events and writing conferences.
Emmy-award winning reporter Christina Estes is the recipient of the 2020 Tony Hillerman Prize for Best First Mystery set in the Southwest. OFF THE AIR, featuring a local reporter investigating a murder, is inspired by Christina’s 20-year reporting career in Phoenix. She currently reports for the NPR member station in Phoenix. OFF THE AIR will be published next year by Minotaur.
Lori Galvin worked as an editor (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and America’s Test Kitchen) before moving to the literary agent side in 2015. She works with a diverse group of writers of both fiction and nonfiction. She is looking for high quality writing across crime and suspense, both literary and commercial—and from all voices. In addition to twisty, dark novels of crime and suspense; mystery/horror crossovers, and high concept thrillers; she is eager to work with writers whose work engages both the head and the heart. Some of her clients’ projects have been optioned by A24 and Netflix. Her crime and suspense fiction clients include Cambria Brockman (Tell Me Everything, Ballantine 2019); Cheryl A. Head (Time’s Undoing, Dutton, 2023), Wanda M. Morris (All Her Little Secrets and Anywhere You Run, Morrow 2021 & 2022); Nishita Parekh (The Night of the Storm, Dutton 2023), and Holly Watt (To the Lions, Dutton, 2019).
Kellye Garrett is the acclaimed author of Like A Sister, (Mulholland Books) in which no one bats an eye when a disgraced reality TV star is found dead in the Bronx—except her estranged half-sister, whose refusal to believe the official story leads her on an increasingly dangerous search for the truth. The suspense novel was featured on the TODAY show and was a Book of the Month April 2022 selection. She’s also the author of the Detective by Day mysteries about a semi-famous, mega-broke black actress who takes on the deadliest role of her life: private detective. The first, Hollywood Homicide, won the Agatha, Anthony, Lefty and Independent Publisher “IPPY” awards for best first novel and was named one of BookBub’s Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time. The second, Hollywood Ending, was featured on the TODAY show’s Best Summer Reads of 2019 and was nominated for both Anthony and Lefty awards. Prior to writing novels, Kellye spent eight years working in Hollywood, including a stint writing for Cold Case. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Sisters in Crime and is a co-founder of Crime Writers of Color.
Dana Kaye is the founder of Kaye Publicity, Inc., a literary public relations agency. Known for her innovative ideas and knowledge of current trends, she’s a frequently sought-out speaker and media source. She was profiled in Crain’s Chicago Business for her success in launching a business during a recession, was a Publishers Weekly Star Watch honoree, and has been interviewed by dozens of media outlets on the topics of book publicity, online marketing, and the future of publishing. Dana is also the co-founder of the Midwest Mystery Conference (formerly Murder and Mayhem in Chicago) and the author of Your Book, Your Brand: The Step-By-Step Guide to Launching Your Book and Boosting Your Sales.
Agatha Award-winning author Edith Maxwell writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries, the Local Foods Mysteries, and short crime fiction. As Maddie Day she pens the Country Store Mysteries, the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, and the Cece Barton Mysteries. A past president of Sisters in Crime New England, she’s a lifetime member of Sisters in Crime and a member of Mystery Writers of America. Maxwell lives north of Boston with her beau where she writes, gardens, cooks, and wastes time on Facebook. Find her (and Maddie) at EdithMaxwell.com, wickedauthors.com, Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen, and on social media.
Gigi Pandian is a USA Today bestselling and award-winning mystery author, breast cancer survivor, and accidental almost-vegan. The child of cultural anthropologists from New Mexico and the southern tip of India, she spent her childhood being dragged around the world on their research trips, which inspired her fiction. She now lives outside San Francisco with her husband and a gargoyle who watches over the backyard garden. Gigi writes the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mysteries, Accidental Alchemist Mysteries, and Secret Staircase Mysteries, which kicked off with Under Lock & Skeleton Key (March 2022), a locked-room mystery the New York Times Book Review called “wildly entertaining.” She’s received Agatha, Anthony, Lefty, and Derringer awards, and was an Edgar finalist this year. Gigi has served on the National Board of Sisters in Crime and is a co-founder of Crime Writers of Color.
Michelle Richter is a Senior Agent at Fuse Literary. She got her start in publishing at St. Martin’s Press, after earning an MbA in Publishing from Pace University. Michelle focuses on crime fiction and women’s fiction. Her clients have won or been shortlisted for such awards as the Edgar, Mary Higgins Clark, Anthony, Agatha, Lefty, Macavity, Derringer, ITW Thriller, Shamus, Silver Falchion, and Strand Critics. She’s especially eager to find mystery, suspense, and psychological thrillers with complex lead characters. BIPOC, LGBTQ, and disabled voices in fiction always welcome. Michelle loves British crime shows, voice-y character driven novels, twisty plots, unreliable narrators, and stories of family secrets, friendships, and sibling relationships. 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.
Alex Segura is the bestselling and award-winning author of Secret Identity, which the New York Times called “wittily original” and named an Editor’s Choice. NPR described the novel as “masterful,” and it received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and Booklist. Alex is also the author of Star Wars Poe Dameron: Free Fall, the Pete Fernandez Miami Mystery series, and a number of comic books – including The Mysterious Micro-Face (in partnership with NPR), The Black Ghost, The Archies, The Dusk, The Awakened, and more. His short story, “90 Miles” was included in The Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories for 2021 and won the Anthony Award for Best Short Story. By day he is the Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Oni Press, with previous stints at Archie Comics and DC Comics. A Miami native, he lives in New York with his wife and children.
Peng Shepherd was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, where she rode horses and trained in classical ballet. She has lived in Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, London, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and New York. Her first novel, The Book of M, won the 2019 Neukom Institute for Literary Arts Award for Debut Speculative Fiction, and was chosen as a best book of the year by Amazon, Elle, Refinery29, and The Verge, as well as a best book of the summer by the Today Show and NPR On Point. A graduate of the NYU MFA program, Peng is the recipient of a 2020 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the Elizabeth George Foundation’s emerging writers 2016 grant.
Betty Webb is the author of the bestselling Lena Jones mystery series (Desert Redemption, Desert Wives, etc.) and the humorous Gunn Zoo mysteries (The Panda of Death, The Otter of Death, etc.). LOST IN PARIS, her new mystery series set in 1922 France, will be released in April 2023, with its follow-up, FOUND IN PARIS, arriving in April 2024. Before beginning to write mystery novels, Betty spent 20 years as a journalist, interviewing everyone from U.S. presidents, astronauts who walked on the moon, Nobel Prize-winners, and polygamy runaways. Besides continuing to write, she’s spent the last few years serving as Writer-in-Residence at libraries throughout Arizona.
David Heska Wanbli Weiden, an enrolled citizen of the Sicangu Lakota Nation, is the author of Winter Counts (Ecco, 2020), nominated for an Edgar Award, and winner of the Anthony, Thriller, Lefty, Barry, Macavity, Spur, High Plains, Electa Quinney, Tillie Olsen, CrimeFest (UK) and Crime Fiction Lover (UK) Awards. The novel was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, an Indie Next pick, main selection of the Book of the Month Club, and named a Best Book of the year by NPR, Amazon, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, The Guardian, and other magazines. He has short stories appearing or forthcoming in the anthologies Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories 2022, Denver Noir, Midnight Hour, This Time for Sure, Never Whistle at Night, and The Perfect Crime. His nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, Shenandoah, and Writer’s Digest. Weiden is a Professor of Native American Studies and Political Science at Metropolitan State University of Denver and lives in Colorado with his family.
Sandra SG Wong (she/her) writes fiction across genres, including the cross-genre Lola Starke novels and Crescent City short stories. A Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence finalist and Whistler Independent Book Awards nominee, as well as a speaker, mentor, and hybrid (indie/trad) author, Sandra is Immediate Past President of Sisters in Crime and a proud member of Crime Writers of Color. A standalone suspense novel, In the Dark We Forget is her most recent release. Connect with her on Twitter, Instagram, and her web site.
See the full 2022 WriteNow conference program here.
