The Stiletto Gang
Barbara J. Eikmeier
Barbara J. Eikmeier
Bio here
Connect:
Facebook · Twitter · Instagram · BookBub · website
Awards:
List Awards
Bethany Maines
Bethany Maines
Bethany Maines, a native of Tacoma WA, is the author of action adventure and fantasy tales that focus on women who know when to apply lipstick and when to apply a foot to someone’s hind end. When she’s not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some serious butt with her black belt in karate, she can be found chasing after her daughter, or glued to the computer working on her next novel.
Connect:
Facebook · Twitter · Instagram · BookBub · www.bethanymaines.com
Awards:
- 2023 Book Excellence Award Finalist, "Winter Wonderland"
- 2021 Maincrest Media Award Winner, “Blue Christmas”
- 2021 Maincrest Media Award Winner, “The Second Shot” Audio Book
- 2021 PNWA Literary Contest Finalist, “Fortune’s Flight”
- 2019 Book Excellence Award Finalist, “The Seventh Swan”
Brooke Terpening
Brooke Terpening
Brooke Terpening is a former software professional and attorney who is now retired in Colorado, where she lives with her husband. During her years as an attorney in Miami, she worked on several notable capital cases, including those of Casey Anthony, Ariel Hernandez, and Michel Escoto. A graduate of the Lighthouse Book Project, she currently serves as the newsletter editor for the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Mystery Writers of America. When she isn’t writing mystery and legal suspense, Brooke volunteers alongside her therapy dogs at hospitals, police departments, and mental health facilities.
Awards
- 2025 PNWA Winner Mystery/Thriller – Silver
- 2025 Writers League of Texas Mystery – Finalist
- 2025 Colorado Gold Rush Mystery/Thriller - Finalist
- 2023 Royal Palm Literary Award - Gold and Best Short Prose of the Year
- 2023 Royal Palm Literary Award - Silver unpublished book length mystery/crime
- 2022 Writers League of Texas Mystery - Winner
- 2022 Writers League of Texas Thriller - Finalist
- 2021 PNWA Winner Mystery/Thriller/Horror - Winner
- 2021 Colorado Gold Rush Mystery/Thriller – Winner
- 2021 RMMWA 6-Word Mystery Contest - Finalist
- 2020 Lighthouse Writers’ Workshop Book Project Graduate
Debra H. Goldstein
Debra H. Goldstein
Judge, author, litigator, wife, stepmom, mother of twins, and civic volunteer, are all words used to describe Debra. Her life and writings are equally diverse. She writes Kensington’s Sarah Blair mystery series (Five Belles Too Many, Four Cuts Too Many, Three Treats Too Many, Two Bites Too Many, and One Taste Too Many), which features a woman who finds being in the kitchen more frightening than murder. Debra also authored 2012 IPPY winning Maze in Blue, a mystery set on the University of Michigan’s campus in the 1970’s, and Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery. Her novels and short stories have been finalists for the Agatha, Anthony, Derringer, and Silver Falchion awards.
Connect:
Twitter · Facebook · Instagram · BookBub · www.debrahgoldstein.com
Awards:
- Silver Falchion finalist – Sarah Blair series
- Agatha & Anthony Award finalist – “The Night They Burned Ms. Dixie’s Place”
- IPPY Award Winner – Maze in Blue
Donalee Moulton
My mother knew I was going to be a writer in grade two. I was asked to write a sentence using a specific word, like “tree” or “house” and provided one line for each sentence. One line, apparently, would not do. My first sentence ran off the line, down the margin, along the bottom of the page, and over onto the next page. A story, after all, is as long as a story needs to be.
I don't know that there was one definitive moment, event, or experience that led me to conclude my life would be shaped by words. But if you look closely at my genetic code under a microscope I'm sure you would find these letters etched into my DNA: W*R*I*T*E*R. Writing has always been central to what I do and how I see myself.
As a communications professional, I worked with words to shape messages for clients, wonderful people doing important work that matters. But it was their work, and ultimately their words. What you will read here are my words. Words that came from my imagination, my need to speak, perhaps even my DNA.
What I've learned about writing is that while inspiration and ideas may be the spark, it is writing, rewriting, editing, hair pulling, and going back to the first page, again, that transforms ideas and inspiration into something that resonates with readers. And within yourself.
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Gay Yellen
Gay Yellen
After a brief acting career in Hollywood, Gay Yellen happily moved behind the camera at the American Film Institute, until the chance to be a magazine editor jump-started her professional writing career. Helping another author write a New York Times “New & Notable” thriller inspired her to write her own award-winning Samantha Newwman Mystery Series. Since Gay had already survived a crazed gunman, a killer earthquake, and an elephant's sneeze in real life, she had plenty of material to ensure that her books were chock-full of suspense, with a dollop of romance and humor on the side. Gay lives in Texas with a remarkable husband and a lot of books to be written.
Connect:
Facebook · Twitter · Instagram · BookBub · www.GayYellen.com
Awards:
- 2017 Chanticleer Mystery & Mayhem 1st Place, The Body Next Door
- 2017 Silver Falchion Finalist, The Body Next Door
- 2017 Reader’s Favorite Mystery, The Body Next Door
- 2015 Pages from the Heart Finalist, The Body Business
- 2015 Crowned Heart for Excellence, The Body Business
- 2014 RONE Award, The Body Business
Kathleen Kaska
Kathleen Kaska
I’m a Texas gal. Except for an eighteen-month hiatus living in New York City after college, I lived in the Lone Star State continuously for fifty years. Since then, Texas has been hit and miss—a little hit, but a heck of a lot of miss. There was a time when I thought I would happily die in Austin, Texas. But circumstances and weather—especially weather—changed that. Now, I spend most of the year on Fidalgo Island in Washington State, with a view of the bay and the mountains. When I get homesick, my husband and I listen to Willie Nelson. Soon, we are dancing the two-step, imagining we are at our favorite honky-tonk in Tokio, Texas, where the mayor is believed to be a dog. Who wouldn’t miss that?
Check out my award-winning mystery series: The Sydney Lockhart Mystery Series, set in the 1950s, the Kate Caraway Animal-Rights Mystery Series, and The Classic Triviography Mystery Series, which includes The Sherlock Holmes Quiz Book.
Connect:
Facebook · Twitter · Instagram · BookBub · www.kathleenkaska.com
Awards:
- 2025: Winner of the Amity Literary Award, Death Without Dignity (Fall of 2026)
- 2025: PenCraft Award: Best Sleuth, The Sydney Lockhart Mystery Series
- 2024: Kansas Authors Club Literary Contest Award for Best First Chapter, The Yellow-Wellie Incident: An Inspector Wigford Thorpe Mystery
- 2023: First Place Winner of the Chanticleer Mystery and Mayhem Award, Eagle Crossing
- 2023: Finalist for the Chanticleer Mystery and Mayhem Award, Murder at the Menger
- 2018: First Place Winner for Chanticleer Nonfiction Instructions and Insights, Do You Have a Catharsis Handy? Five-Minute Writing Tips
Judy Penz Sheluk
A former journalist and magazine editor, Judy Penz Sheluk is the bestselling author of two mystery series: The Glass Dolphin Mysteries and Marketville Mysteries, both of which have been published in multiple languages. Her short crime fiction appears in several collections, including the Superior Shores Anthologies, which she also edited. With a passion for understanding the ins and outs of all aspects of publishing, Judy is also the founder and owner of Superior Shores Press, which she established in February 2018.
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Lois Winston
Lois Winston
USA Today and Amazon bestselling author Lois Winston began her award-winning writing career in 2006 with Talk Gertie to Me, a humorous novel about a small-town girl in Manhattan and the mother bent on bringing her home. That was followed by the romantic suspense Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception. Lois wrote her first mystery thanks to a conversation between her agent and an editor looking for a crafting-themed cozy series. Thus, was born the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, which Kirkus Reviews dubbed, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” The series now includes eleven novels and three novellas. To date Lois has published twenty novels, five novellas, several short stories, one children’s chapter book, and one nonfiction book on writing, inspired by the twelve years she worked as an associate at a literary agency.
Connect:
Twitter · BookBub · www.loiswinston.com
Awards:
- 2004 St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic Contest for Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Finalist, “Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun”
- 2008 Smoky Mountain Romance Writers Laurie Award Winner, “Love, Lies, and a Double Shot of Deception”
- 2008 Phoenix Desert Rose Golden Quill Award Winner, “Love, Lies, and a Double Shot of Deception”
- 2008 Beacon Award Second Place, “Love, Lies, and a Double Shot of Deception”
- 2008 Romance Writers Ink More Than Magic Award Winner, “Love, Lies, and a Double Shot of Deception”
- 2008 Yellow Rose RWA Winter Rose Award Winner, “Love, Lies, and a Double Shot of Deception”
- 2011 ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Finalist, “Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun”
- 2011 Salt Lake City Library System Readers’ Choice Award Finalist, “Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun”
- 2011 Canyonland Press Readers’ Choice Award Finalist, “Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun”
- 2012 Daphne du Maurier Award Finalist “Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun”
- 2020 The Book Decoder Best Books of 2020, “A Sew Deadly Cruise”
- 2021 Killer Nashville Silver Fachion for Best Cozy Mystery Finalist, “A Sew Deadly Cruise”
Mary Lee Ashford
Mary Lee Ashford
Mary Lee Ashford is the author of the Sugar & Spice mystery series from Kensington Books and also half of the Sparkle Abbey writing team who pen the national best-selling Pampered Pets series. She is a lifelong bibliophile, an avid reader, and public library champion. Prior to publishing Mary Lee won the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense. She is the founding president of Sisters in Crime – Iowa as well as a member of Mystery Writers of America and Novelists, Inc. She lives in the Midwest with her family and her feline coworker.
Connect:
Facebook · Twitter · Instagram · BookBub · website
Awards:
Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence
Paula Gail Benson
Paula Gail Benson
Bio here
Connect:
Facebook · Twitter · Instagram · BookBub · website
Awards:
List Awards
Saralyn Richard
Saralyn Richard
Saralyn Richard's award-winning humor- and romance-tinged mysteries and children's book pull back the curtain on people in settings as diverse as elite country manor houses and disadvantaged urban high schools. Saralyn’s most recent release is Bad Blood Sisters. A member of International Thriller Writers and Mystery Writers of America, Saralyn teaches creative writing and literature at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and continues to write mysteries. Her favorite thing about being an author is interacting with readers like you.
Connect:
Facebook · Twitter · Instagram · BookBub· saralynrichard.com
Awards:
- 2022 Book Excellence Finalist, A Murder of Principal
- 2021 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Readers' Favorite Award, A Palette for Love and Murder
- 2021 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Finalist Best Investigator, A Palette for Love and Murder
- 2020 Readers' Favorite Silver Medal, A Palette for Love and Murder
- 2020 Book Excellence Finalist, A Palette for Love and Murder
- 2020 American Bookfest Finalist, Murder in the One Percent
- 2019 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Readers' Favorite Award 2019, Murder in the One Percent
- 2019 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Finalist Police Procedural, Murder in the One Percent
- 2019 Chanticleer CLUE Award Finalist, Murder in the One Percent
Sparkle Abbey
Sparkle Abbey
Sparkle Abbey is actually two people (Mary Lee Ashford and Anita Carter) who co-author the national best-selling Pampered Pets Mystery Series. Friends as well as neighbors, they often get together and plot ways to commit murder. Fictionally, of course. Though they live in the Midwest, if they could write anywhere, you’d find them on the beach with their laptops and, depending on the time of day, with either an iced tea or a margarita
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T.K. Thorne
T.K. Thorne
T.K. Thorne wanted to make first contact with aliens. When that didn’t work out, she became a police officer. Although most people she met were human, some were quite strange…. Retiring as a precinct captain, she writes full time. Her books include two award-winning historical novels (Noah’s Wife and Angels at the Gate); two nonfiction civil rights era works (Last Chance for Justice and Behind the Magic Curtain: Secrets, Spies, and Unsung White Allies of Birmingham’s Civil Rights Days); a dally with murder and magic in the Magic City Stories trilogy (House of Rose, House of Stone, and House of Iron); and a YA science fiction, Snowdancers where she finally got to meet real aliens.
Connect:
Facebook · Twitter · Instagram · BookBub · www.tkthorne.com
Awards:
- 2020, Chanitcleer International Book Awards, House of Rose
- 2016, IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award, Angels at the Gate
- 2009, ForeWord Reviews “Book of the Year for Historical Fiction, Noah’s Wife