Sisters in Crime (SinC) Chesapeake Chapter

I consider myself fortunate to have had two of my short stories published this year. “Daddy's Little Girl" appeared in virtual print in July within the pages of ezine, Voices from the Garage. In May, I entered a contest conceived by Mozark Press. The editor, Linda Fisher, chose my short story, along with twenty-four other stories, to include in a print anthology called A Shaker of Margaritas: Hot Flash Mommas. My short story, “Implicated by A Phrase” drew two, average middle-age women on a day of shopping and lunch into murder while touring vacation rental homes on Hatteras Island, N.C. Not all of the stories included in this volume were mysteries, but all of the stories contained female middle-age protagonists.

The Mozark anthology came off the press in October, and shortly thereafter, a writer from the Chesapeake Chapter of SinC called me with an invitation to a promotional meeting for the authors in the chapter published this year. My reaction? I was dumfounded, amazed, and impressed. I hadn’t known that anyone else but the twenty-four other short story authors contained in the anthology knew of its existence. Sylvia Straub, another Chesapeake Chapter author, wrote a short story included in the same volume as mine, and Lina Zeldovich, a SinC member. Sisters in Crime lets no one slip through the cracks.

Photo courtesy of Robin Templeton

We met in a room of a retirement village. Residents were invited to the meeting. From the Chessie Chapter, twenty-seven authors had books and/or short stories published this year. Because I’m fairly new to the chapter, I hadn’t known that November's meeting always honored those authors published during the year and sold their books and short story anthologies, some of which were developed by the chapter itself. Each author stood and presented a short description of their published work.

A local indie store, Mystery Loves Company, set up shop in the retirement village. I don’t know how many books they sold, but the room was full of shoppers when I stopped by. Hopefully, they will make a nice profit and remain open, unlike many indies who are just about the only physical bookstores to carry small press books written by many of the authors that I’ve interviewed on this blog. During the sales time, I had the thrill of signing my first book.

While I was in Hatteras last month, the kindly owner of Buxton Village Books, Gee Gee Rosell, bought two books from me to sell in her shop. If you are ever on Hatteras Island, stop by and buy a book from Gee Gee, who is knowledgeable of SinC and a pleasure to meet.

The print and Kindle versions of A Shaker of Margaritas: Hot Flash Mommas are also available at Amazon.com.

For those mystery and crime writers who are not currently members of SinC, I hope my experience proves the advantages of being a member. Join at: http://sistersincrime.org/.

Today, I’m giving away three copies of A Shaker of Margaritas: Hot Flash Mommas by randomly drawing names of those who make comments on this blog.