Previous Events

Members,  details about our end-of-year celebration will be sent to your inboxes this Spring. We will be meeting in our usual spot!

Join us for QueryFest 5, where agents and editors will review your query letters and give you tips on how to bulletproof them for the best chance at receiving a contract.

***Please note, we already have a waitlist for this event. All members are welcome to join us for the brief panel that will precede the breakout session.

You’ve written your book and gotten it published. Now what?

Self-marketing isn’t just for indie authors. Traditionally published authors also need to market their books. In this presentation, Kelly will talk about everything from branding to direct advertising to building your newsletter list. Come with questions. Leave armed with new tactics for selling your books.

Kelly Oliver is the award-winning and bestselling author of four mystery series: The Jessica James Mysteries (contemporary suspense); The Pet Detective Mysteries (middle grade); The Fiona Figg Mysteries (historical cozies); and her new series The Detection Club Mysteries (historical mystery). In three years, she built her newsletter list up to 300K and actively markets both her indie and traditionally published books.

Currently, Kelly is Immediate Past President of Sisters in Crime, and incoming programming coordinator for SinC Guppies.

Kelly is Distinguished Emerita Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. To learn more about Kelly and her books, go to www.kellyoliverbooks.com.

Have you ever been interested in writing a mystery for the stage? Are you working on the next blockbuster thriller? If you are writing a script, have written a script, or simply script-curious, join us for TAKING THE MYSTERY OUT OF SCRIPTWRITING. We will be discussing:

• Differences between writing plays, screenplays and fiction
• How mastering dramatic structure and dialogue can help you to improve your fiction
• Opportunities for playwrights and screenwriters

Our panel will feature Lee Matthew Goldberg, Gary Earl Ross, Izolda Trakhtenberg, and will be moderated by Nina Mansfield.

Lee Matthew Goldberg is the Anthony, Lefty, and Prix du Polar nominated author of fourteen novels including THE ANCESTOR and THE MENTOR, and THE GREAT GIMMELMANS along with his five-book DESIRE CARD series. His YA series RUNAWAY TRAIN is currently with actress Raegan Revord from Young Sheldon attached to develop his original written pilot. MILES IN TIME will be released in 2025. After graduating with an MFA from the New School, he’s been published in multiple languages and his writing has also appeared as a contributor in CrimeReads, Pipeline Artists, LitHub, Chicago Quarterly Review, Electric Literature, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Jewish Book Council, The Millions, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, LitReactor, Mystery Tribune, The Nerd Daily, Monkeybicycle, Fiction Writers Review, Cagibi, Necessary Fiction, the anthology Dirty Boulevard, The Montreal Review, The Adirondack Review, The New Plains Review, Maudlin House and others. His pilots and screenplays have been finalists in Script Pipeline, Book Pipeline, Stage 32, We Screenplay, the New York Screenplay, Screencraft, and the Hollywood Screenplay contests. He is the co-curator of The Guerrilla Lit Reading Series and lives in New York City. Follow him at LeeMatthewGoldberg.com

Playwright, novelist, and audiobook narrator, Gary Earl Ross is a retired UBuffalo professor. His books include Wheel of Desire (2000), Shimmerville (2002), Beneath the Ice (2018), Blackbird Rising (2009), and the Gideon Rimes mysteries Nickel City Blues (2017), Nickel City Crossfire (2020), Nickel City Storm Warning (2021), Nickel City Naked Lady (2022), and Nickel City Monsters (2024). His staged or scheduled plays include Sleepwalker: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (2002), Matter of Intent (2005, winner of the MWA Edgar Award), The Best Woman (2007), Picture Perfect (2007), Murder Squared (2010), The Scavenger’s Daughter (2012), The Guns of Christmas (2014), The Mark of Cain (2016), The Trial of Trayvon Martin (2017), Stoker’s Guest (2022), Split Wit (2023), and A Length of Chain (2025). Among his other honors are three Emanuel Fried Best New Play Awards, a LIFT Fiction Fellowship, two ASI/DEC Fiction grants, and a Saltonstall Foundation Playwriting Fellowship. A member of the Just Buffalo Literary Center, the Dramatist Guild, International Thriller Writers, Crime Writers of Color, Private Eye Writers of America, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and Mystery Writers of America, Ross lives in Buffalo, nicknamed Nickel City for the bison head five-cent piece.

Izolda Trakhtenberg is a playwright, author, musician, and host of The Creative Solutions Podcast. Born in Moldova and raised in Michigan, she worked at NASA and performed as a professional musician in Washington, DC. Now based in Brooklyn with her husband and three cats, Izolda writes novels, including Die by the Sword, and plays such as Listen! and A Slice of Democracy, the latter of which was produced at the Nomad Theatre Festival. She founded the Vegan Writers of NYC, whose anthology In a New York Minute was released in 2023. She’s currently writing a musical. Learn more at IzoldaTAuthor.com.

Nina Mansfield is a Connecticut based author and playwright. Her short mystery fiction has appeared in multiple anthologies and various publications including Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Her  plays have had over 100 productions throughout the world. Antigone: 3021, her futuristic adaptation of the Ancient Greek classic, recently enjoyed productions in England, Australia and throughout the United States and is available through Stage Partners. Her plays are also published by Smith & Kraus, YouthPLAYS, Original Works Publishing and One Act Play Depot. Her first and only novel, Swimming Alone, a YA Mystery was originally published in 2015. Nina is a member of MWA, SCWBI, ITW, The Dramatists Guild and co-President of the NY/Tri-State Chapter of Sisters in Crime.

Join us this February for tips and inspiration for authors who would like to use true crime stories, historical or contemporary, to plot their next mystery or thriller, from those who have done it successfully.

Panelists:

Charles Salzberg: Charles Salzberg is a former journalist – with articles in New York magazine, Esquire, the New York Times, GQ,– and nonfiction book writer. His first novel, Swann’s Last Song was nominated for a Shamus Award (lost), Second Story Man, winner of the Beverly Hills Book Award, was nominated for a Shamus (lost), as was Canary in the Coal Mine (lost again). Devil in the Hole, was named one of the best crime novels of 2013 by Suspense magazine. He was a Visiting Professor of Magazine and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and taught writing at Sarah Lawrence, the Writers Voice, and the New York Writers Workshop, where he is a Founding Member. His latest novel is Man on the Run.   

Mariah Fredericks: Mariah Fredericks was born, raised, and still lives in New York City. She graduated from Vassar College with a degree in history. She is the author of the Jane Prescott mystery series, which has twice been nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award. The Lindbergh Nanny, was nominated for the 2023 Anthony and Agatha, as well as the Sue Feder Memorial Award. Her latest novel is The Wharton Plot, released on January 23, 2024.

Radha Vatsal: Radha Vatsal’s new historical crime novel, No. 10 Doyers Street (coming March 2025), takes place in New York City’s Chinatown in the early 1900s. She is also the author of the Kitty Weeks mystery novels set in World War I-era New York. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Review of Books, CrimeReads and elsewhere. Born and raised in Mumbai, India, she earned her Ph.D. in Film History from Duke University and has worked as a film curator, political speechwriter, and freelance journalist. She lives in New York City.

Join us for our annual open mic night!

The following writers will be reading from their work:

Members, join us for our annual holiday party. This year’s guest of honor is  S.J. Rozan.

SJ Rozan’s eighteen novels and eighty-plus short stories have won multiple awards, including the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Nero, and Macavity, and also the Japanese Maltese Falcon. She’s been honored with Life Achievement Awards from both the Private Eye Writers of America and the Short Mystery Fiction Society. Many of her stories have appeared in various “Best Of” collections, and she’s edited three anthologies.

The cost is $25 for members. Members, please check your emails for details.

Join us for the launch of the Sisters in Crime Anthology

“A New York State of Crime” panel and author readings.

The New York Society Library

53 E. 79^th Street, Members Room

November 14, 2024

At 6:00 pm

Register here:

New York State of Crime: Murder New York Style, with Sisters in Crime | The New York Society Library