Sarah Miniaci from Smith Publicity
Having worked in a variety of roles in fields that include education, entertainment, fine arts and publishing throughout the public, private and not-for-profit sectors, since 2011 Sarah Miniaci has brought a broad range of knowledge and experience to her work at Smith Publicity, where she serves as Director, Literary Strategy. An avid and genre-spanning reader, Sarah also serves on the board of Diaspora Dialogues, a charitable organization working to change the face of Canadian literature which supports diverse emerging writers in turning their craft into a career through mentorship, professional development, and opportunities to present and publish their work. She continues to be energized by designing and executing publicity campaigns for debut and veteran authors alike.
Israel Romand
Israel Romand’s school and work background has a mix of everything from entrepreneurship, to military, biotech to ecommerce, and startup to established business. He left the W-2 world in 2017 and started offering sales, marketing and business consulting before moving on to start “ThoseMarketers” in 2019. Fast forward to today – ThoseMarketers has built a team of seasoned experts in digital marketing strategies such as PPC, email, social media, and SEO. He’s lived in 8 US and 2 international cities, and currently lives in Bergen County, NJ with his wife.
Join us on Zoom to discuss best practices for querying an agent with Paula Munier.
Paula Munier is Senior Agent and Storytelling and Content Director with Talcott Notch Literary, specializing in commercial fiction and nonfiction, and the USA TODAY bestselling author of the Mercy Carr mysteries. A Borrowing of Bones was nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award and named the Dog Writers Association of America’s Dogwise Book of the Year. Blind Search followed in November 2019; The Hiding Place debuts in February 2021.
Paula is very involved with the mystery community, having served as President of the New England chapter of Mystery Writers of America and on the MWA board. An active member of Sisters in Crime, ITW, AWP, and SCBWI, she’s the current co-chair of the New England Crime Bake committee.
A popular speaker, writing teacher, and founding member of careerauthors.com, Paula has written three books on writing, including the bestselling Plot Perfect, The Writer’s Guide to Beginnings, Writing with Quiet Hands, as well as the acclaimed memoir Fixing Freddie: A True Story about a Boy, a Mom, and a Very, Very Bad Beagle and Happier Every Day: Simple ways to bring more peace, contentment and joy into your life. She lives in New England with her family, two rescue dogs and a rescue cat.
Chapter members will receive a Zoom link prior to the meeting.
Join us for a panel discussion on Zoom about writing and selling your short mystery fiction. Chapter members will receive a link and password shortly before our meeting. Panelists will include:
Jackie Sherbow is the managing editor of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine as well as the editor of Newtown Literary. She is the coeditor of the anthology Terror at the Crossroads (Dell Magazines/Eris Press, 2018) and the author of the poetry chapbook Harbinger (Finishing Line Press, 2019).
Nick Kolakowski‘s novels include Boise Longpig Hunting Club and Maxine Unleashes Doomsday (Down & Out Books) as well as the “Love & Bullets” trilogy of novellas (Shotgun Honey). His shorter crime fiction and nonfiction work has appeared in CrimeReads, Thuglit, Plots With Guns, Crime Syndicate Magazine, and various anthologies. He has been an editor for Shotgun Honey and Mystery Tribune.
Jen Conley is the author of the Anthony Award nominated short story collection, Cannibals: Stories from the Edge of the Pine Barrens and the new YA novel, Seven Ways to Get Rid of Harry. She lives in Brick, New Jersey.
Johanna Ingalls is the managing editor and director of foreign rights at Akashic Books where she has worked for over two decades since being rescued from the music industry by Akashic publisher Johnny Temple. A graduate of Barnard College, she currently lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, with her Norwegian Forest cat, Squid Lee Gato.
Carol Goodman is the author of twenty-one novels, including The Lake of Dead Languages and The Seduction of Water, which won the 2003 Hammett Prize, and The Widow’s House, which won the 2018 Mary Higgins Clark Award. Her books have been translated into sixteen languages. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her family, and teaches literature and writing at The New School and SUNY New Paltz.
THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO HEALTH CONCERNS.
Please check back, as we hope to reschedule!
Join us for an evening with private investigator, Catherine Townsend.
Catherine Townsend is a writer, podcaster and licensed private investigator. Her work has appeared in publications including The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, the New York Post, The Huffington Post, Marie Claire and Elle.
After starting her career as a staff writer for New York Magazine, Catherine moved to London to create the very popular “Sleeping Around” dating column for The Independent newspaper. She is the author of Sleeping Around and Breaking the Rules (John Murray/Hodder), which have sold over 100,000 copies worldwide.
But her greatest passion was always solving mysteries: So after moving to Los Angeles, Catherine completed the required three years and 6,000 hours of training to become a licensed private investigator in California. She used her PI skills to move into investigative reporting and has covered hundreds of mysterious death cases as a reporter for various print and TV outlets – including, most recently, spending two years as a writer and digital correspondent for Investigation Discovery.
In 2018, Catherine created the hit iHeartMedia podcast Hell and Gone, a present-tense true crime podcast that plunges viewers into the cold case investigation of the 2004 murder of Rebekah Gould in the Arkansas Ozarks. Hell and Gone has been downloaded millions of times and was named one of Entertainment Weekly’s Top 5 podcasts of the year. The third season will be released in 2020.
In her spare time Catherine enjoys traveling to random destinations around the globe and also reading, watching and listening to true crime with her rescue chihuahua Winston Churchill.
Join us as our chapter members read from their published works and works-in-progress.
This annual tradition is a fabulous way to hear works from a wide variety of mystery and suspense writers, and it is open to the public.
Come discover your new favorite author! This event is free and open to the public.
Our Holiday Party is for NY/Tri-State Sisters in Crime Members and their guests. This year, we are pleased to welcome Guest of Honor, Kellye Garrett.
Kellye Garrett’s Hollywood Homicide, about a semi-famous, mega-broke black actress, won the Anthony, Agatha and Lefty for best first novel. It’s also 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. She serves on Sisters in Crime’s national board. Learn more at KellyeGarrett.com.
Members should look for their invitation in their emails!
Please join us on with Audie Hall of Fame Narrator Robin Miles for a discussion about all things audio.
Hailed as “a voice that never disappoints,” Grammy nominated, Audie award winning actor/director, Robin Miles, has garnered top honors, including the Audible Hall of Fame, Booklist Voice of the Year, and Audiofile’s Golden Voice, with over 40 Best of the Year and Earphones awards. Her chameleon-like acting ability wins accolades for its nuance, variety & depth, and spans over 400+ audiobooks in multiple genres (including, Hidden Figures, Hugo winners The Fifth Season Trilogy (NK Jemisin), Binti (Nnedi Okorafor), and The Mueller Report) documentary films, museum installations, and commercials. Her clients include every major US publisher, NYC’s American Museum of Natural History, The Smithsonian, Chicago Art Institute, and Seattle Art Museum.
Her acting credits include Broadway’s The Violent Hour, Law & Order, several regional theater classics and premiers, and the coveted Collected Shorts of Symphony Space/NPR Radio. She attended Yale University, Yale School of Drama, the British American Drama Academie, and owns Voxpertise, Inc. production & training studio in Manhattan.
Ms. Miles will be interviewed by chapter member Ellen Quint.
Ellen Quint is an audiobook reviewer, mystery writer, and Audies judge and an active member of Sisters in Crime-NY. Ellen brings a love of mysteries and a deep knowledge of the genre to her writing for AudioFile, where she writes the “Solve” blog. Her own crime short stories can be found in the Sisters in Crimes anthologies: FAMILY MATTERS: A Mystery Anthology (Crossing the Line), and WHERE CRIME NEVER SLEEPS: Murder New York Style vol. 4 (Taking the Brooklyn Bridge Back).
Having spent eight years at Pan Macmillan UK, in early 2017 Catherine Richards moved across to Minotaur Books at St. Martin’s Press. Her time in the London office was split between editing some of the list’s bestselling authors, and growing a list of crime fiction. She is excited to be a part of the dynamic Minotaur team where every book is given focus, energy, and creativity from acquisition to publication and beyond.
In her current role she is actively looking for thrillers, crime fiction, and suspense, and in particular female voices and psychological thrillers at the upmarket end of commercial. She loves when a writer can create a totally immersive experience for the reader; having you turning the pages, heedless of your surroundings. First and foremost for her there needs to be a compulsive plot; but beyond that she loves to see a distinctive voice or setting, small communities or complex, emotionally real relationships with dark secrets, and she enjoys reading both historical and contemporary.
Ms. Richards will be interviewed by author and chapter member, Mariah Fredericks.
Mariah Fredericks was born and raised in New York City. She graduated from Vassar College with a degree in history. A Death of No Importance, the first in the Jane Prescott series, was nominated for the 2018 Mary Higgins Clark Award. The second in that series, Death of a New American was published this year by Minotaur. Catherine Richards is the series editor, and Mariah Fredericks is profoundly grateful for that.