by Paula Gail Benson
This year, Writers Who Kill has so much to celebrate at Malice Domestic, which will be held this weekend in Bethesda, Maryland. We are all excited for the recognition being given to our blogging partners. Not only is Annette Dashofy the guest of honor, but also Annette, Connie Berry, and Marilyn Levinson are Agatha finalists! Many congratulations to our partners and to all the folks who have worked so diligently to prepare and present what has become like an annual reunion party. It will no doubt be glorious!
I’m delighted to
get the party started with brief interviews from the finalists for Best Short
Story and Best Debut Novel. Each year, I’m always impressed with the authors in
these categories. They visited yesterday on The
Stiletto Gang and today we’ll continue the conversation. Please note that
the links will take you to the nominated short stories.
Ashley-Ruth Bernier
To learn more about these talented authors, just click on their names in the BIOS section and that will take you to their websites.
Best Short Story
Six-Armed
Robbery by Ashley-Ruth Bernier, Malice Domestic Mystery Most Humorous
Baby
Love by Barb Goffman, Double Crossing Van Dine
Lola’s
Last Dance by Kerry Hammond, Celluloid Crimes
Boss
Cat Rules by Nikki Knight, Malice Domestic Mystery Most Humorous
While
the Iron is Hot by Edith Maxwell, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
QUESTION: Each of
you has chosen a unique setting for your story. How has the setting influenced
your plot development?
Ashley-Ruth: Like the vast majority of my stories, Six-Armed Robbery takes place in St. Thomas, Us. Virgin Islands. I’m a 7th generation Virgin Islander, and grew up on St. Thomas. It’s a wonderful place to live and a gorgeous setting in which to grow up. My oldest three kids were born there as well!
I try to highlight some aspect of Virgin Islands life in my stories, and in this one, it’s the fauna. Specifically, the creepy fauna that has terrified many a VI lady for countless generations! Maybe frogs, roaches, iguanas, geckos, and gungolos aren’t scary for everyone, but I know plenty of my countrywomen would agree with me that they aren’t exactly a comforting sight, either.
I don’t want to give away too much of the story, but we all grew up hearing the same admonition about gungolos. I’m okay with snakes, iguanas, and lizards, but like Sister Alice, I’ll give a gungolo its space every time.
Barb Goffman
Barb: I set "Baby
Love" in a small town, which was necessary for the story to work. The
premise of the story is that the main character, a PI, has a rich wife who
keeps trying to lure her husband into bed so she can get pregnant, but at every
turn she's thwarted—all her seductive moves give her husband an idea of where
to look next for clues. In order for the wife to be able to keep trying to
entice her husband, he needs to not only work from home but to have a current
case that keeps him close to home. So I have him hired to find the next-door
neighbor's missing dog. The neighbor fears poor little Brody has been stolen to
be used as a dogfighting bait dog. (Don't worry; he wasn't.) The husband
inspects the neighbor's yard and surrounding area for clues, talks to other
neighbors, does online research, and relies on his knowledge of people in the
small town thanks to his involvement in the local Kiwanis club. The wife tries
to seduce him while he is investigating, approaching him, standing alluringly
by their bedroom window, and more.
The story needed to be set in a place with grass and soil, with streetlamps outside homes, where there are friendly neighbors, local online newspapers, civic organizations, and not a lot of traffic (people and cars). All of these aspects of the setting enabled the PI to further his investigation. I also had the town have no known dogfighting, despite the dog owner's fears, which meant the town police wouldn't take the time to search for what they viewed as an escaped dog. That gave my PI free rein to investigate without having to deal with officers working the same case. I also needed the wife to be able to show off her assets, so to speak, so she needed to live in a place where she could stand seductively by her window without fear that someone other than her husband might see her. If "Baby Love" was not set in a small town, where all of these details could be put to work, the story itself would not have worked.
 |
| Kerry Hammond |
Kerry: My story takes place in what some might call a "seedy" setting. Lola is a dancer at a club, but I don't want my readers to dismiss her as frivolous or inconsequential. I wanted her story to be compelling and I wanted readers of all types to identify with her no matter what she did for a living.
Nikki: My plots grow out of the world of the characters. This story started with Neptune, but he’s part of the larger Vermont Radio Mysteries setting, as the Boss Cat of the small-town radio station. While the murder itself was designed especially so Neptune could witness it from his window, the motivation is something very specific to that little Vermont town. No spoilers, but it relates to the kind of land-use issues I covered years ago when I worked at, yes, a small Vermont radio station. Though, sadly, we didn’t have an amateur sleuth cat!
Nikki Knight
Edith: The setting for "While the Iron is Hot" is a north-of-Boston modest home near the coast that two of the characters never leave. The narrator, Natasha, comes and goes several times. Because she grew up there, she knows where and how to use the surroundings to her benefit. I've also lived in that area for decades, and being familiar with the terrain and the seasons makes the writing come more easily.
Edith Maxwell
QUESTION: What
have you learned from writing short stories that benefits any length or genre
of writing?
Ashley-Ruth: Establish the energy of your story quickly, and sustain it throughout. Is it funny and light? Sweet and poignant? Shadowy and suspenseful? Begin in that vein and drop your readers into the mood that will carry them throughout the entire story. I’ve found that this kind of momentum keeps readers hooked and makes for a story that feels connected and complete.
Barb: Short stories require focus. You want to keep driving the plot forward. And you want to keep your writing tight and interesting. To do that, you want to keep reviewing your word choices to see if you can say something more clearly, with more forceful verbs and intriguing adjectives. You want to make your setting do double duty, if possible, not just showing where the story is set but helping to set the tone and move the plot forward. These skills can be put to good use in any genre, at any word length.
Kerry: I’ve learned to be concise and that everything you include in the final product must move the plot or character forward. Readers want a compelling story, not fluff or filler words.
Nikki: Start with the fact line. Whatever the length of the story, if you know the details of the crime, who solves it, and how, you have your roadmap. You can add scenery, and take useful side trips, but as long as you always keep track of the main fact line, you won’t get lost.
Edith: Focus! Whether it's a story of three thousand words or seventy-three thousand, every character, every word, every action needs to mean something and must move the story forward. Of course, novels have more room than short fiction to explore subplots and secondary relationships. As in a short story, it all needs to be important.
Best First Novel
Whiskey Business
by Adrian Andover
Murder in the
Crazy Mountains by K. L. Borges
Savvy Summers and
the Sweet Potato Crimes by Sandra Jackson-Opoku
Player Elimination
by Shelly Jones
Voices of the
Elysian Fields by Michael Rigg
QUESTION: How much of
your own background or characteristics are incorporated into your novel?
Adrian Andover
Adrian: There's so much
of myself in my novel, Whiskey Business—not so much my life
experiences, but rather my emotional center. Even though my protagonist, Reece
Parker, leads a life that is different from my own, I draw a lot from my own
questions, passions, fears, doubts, ideas, and emotions when I write. I'd say
there's a little bit of me in all of the characters. There are no characters
that "are" me, but I do believe that when you finish reading the
book, you'd understand who I am as a person a bit more. I've always written as
a way to express what I'm feeling inside, and some of my loved ones have
confirmed that they can feel my spirit in the story.
K.L.: A lot! So many little pieces of the story are
inspired by actual events in my past that either happened to myself or friends.
Many were things I had forgotten about until they bubbled up, clamoring to be
included, as I wrote. The protagonist is essentially myself as I would be if I
existed in her reality. Write what you know, right?
K.L. Borges
Sandra: I’m not a
professional soul food chef, though I too was partially raised on the west side
of Chicago and teethed on the fare of my Southern forebears. Like Savvy
Summers, I’m a second generation migration of the Great Migration, when some
six million souls made their way from the segregated South, to urban areas in
the North and West.
Sandra Jackson-Opoku 
Shelly Jones
Shelly: Like Wren and her nerdy board gaming besties, I too am very nerdy and
love board games. I own a few hundred (not an exaggeration) and often have
gaming weekends with my friends (when I’m not holed up writing away…). At the
same time, I am very introverted and need a lot of down time to process and
regroup, even after interacting with my closest friends (ala Charlie in my
books). I also live in a small college town, like my books, and love being able
to walk down to the bookstore/coffee shop and the farmer’s market each weekend.
Having grown up in a much larger city, small town living is definitely for me.
Michael: Though I no
longer practice law, I’m still an active member of the bar. I’m not a medical
professional, though I’ve been involved with various medical personnel/experts
over the years when I was in active practice. My brother is a physician (though
now retired, I believe), so much of my medical information comes from him. In
terms of personal characteristics, my protagonist is much like me, introverted
and duty-bound. My professional career was mostly associated with the U.S.
Navy, either active duty, reserve, or as a civilian. So, you’ll find that many
of my characters, including the protagonist, have a military background. I
might not have the experience to write from the point of view of a different
gender/orientation/ethnicity than mine, but I feel fairly comfortable in
“writing Navy” or other military branch, where the dedication to mission
accomplishment transcends many interpersonal differences/backgrounds. And, at
one point in my career, I earned certification as a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
(MBTI) practitioner, so I use those personality-types in adding depth to
characters/character reactions.
Michael Rigg
QUESTION: How did
you determine who your protagonist would be? Will this be part of a series? If
so, what is in store for your next novel?
Adrian: My protagonist,
Reece Parker, was born from the setting of the novel. Before I knew who'd be
telling the story, I knew that I wanted to set a cozy mystery in a
literary-themed cocktail and mocktail lounge. From there, I figured my
protagonist would be a mixologist. Once I had a really good understanding of
the setting, I spent a lot of time developing Reece's character, and now I feel
like he's a real person.
I'm very excited
to share that Whiskey Business is part of a series, and the
next book is coming out on June 30, 2026. It's called Pour
Choices, and it's available for
pre-order now.
The next installment takes place during an August heat wave in Hope Mills.
Reece and the Subplot crew are hosting their first-ever Comedy and Cocktails
night. When the comedian they hire tells some jokes that go too far during her
set, she's found floating in the nearby Delaware River the next morning. With
his best friend Nate tied up in the investigation, Reece commits to figuring
out whodunit. I can't wait to share the story with the world in a couple of
months
K.L.: The whole story
started as a very involved daydream spun out during a long car trip, and I
absolutely put a fictionalized version of myself into the leading role. Once I
decided to put the story into a book, I kept that character the same. Why
change horses in midstream?
Yes, Murder in
the Crazy Mountains is the first in a series of at least three books. In
the second book, to be released on October 14th, 2026, we again meet the same
main characters, in the same Helena, Montana, dog rescue. This time, they
become involved in a shady dog rescue from Butte, following the untimely and
suspicious death of a friend who transported dogs for the Butte operation.
Bodies pile up, and they find themselves fighting to stay alive long enough to
solve the mystery!
All the books will
be set in this Montana dog rescue and involve the same main characters, with
readers able to learn about different aspects of animal rescue and different
types of dogs or other animals, as they enjoy fast-paced, suspenseful mysteries
that contain enough humor to keep from becoming dark.
Sandra: Influenced by the
late Barbara Neeley’s protagonist sleuth in her quarter of Blanche White
novels, I wanted to write a mature protagonist who was shrewd, smart, sexy, and
as her nickname suggests—savvy.
Shelly: While Player Elimination revolves mostly around Wren Winters,
it was important to me that she had friends who supported her and added to
solving the mystery. Just like in a board game, the interaction between players
is important and I wanted to pay homage to the idea of gathering around the
table to play together by having my board gaming besties gather clues and share
them out. Each character contributes in a meaningful way to the mystery and to
each other’s lives, so that really their friendship is the heart of the story. Player
Elimination is book one in the Wren Winters series, followed by Murder,
She Rolled and Game Over, both of which are available now. I’m
nearly finished with the first draft of my next novel, which is the beginning
of a new series about a former medical examiner who moves back to her Catskill
Mountain hometown and takes a job at the local community college when her
sister dies unexpectedly.
Michael: I’ve always been
fascinated by medico-legal (forensic) issues and procedures in crime solving,
so I determined that my protagonist would be a Coroner, if possible. Without
going into a lot of detail, the Louisiana Coroner System is unique. The Coroner
is responsible for death investigations (autopsies) in designated cases,
coordinating sexual assault examinations, and being involved in the mental
health (commitment) process. That diversity provides wide latitude for a writer
to craft twists and turns in a novel, which is why I settled on Louisiana/New
Orleans as the location for my novels. Voices of the Elysian Fields is
the first novel in a series. The second novel, Shadows of Frenchmen, is
scheduled for release by Level Best Books on May 5, 2026.
Short Story
Authors’ BIOS
Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier’s work appeared
in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, The
Best American Mystery and Suspense 2023, and other esteemed anthologies.
Originally from St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Ashley-Ruth writes mysteries
highlighting the vibrant culture of her home. Ashley-Ruth is a 2022 winner of
the North Carolina Writers Network's Jacobs-Jones award, a 2023 Short Mystery
Fiction Society Derringer finalist, a Killer Nashville Claymore finalist, a
2024 recipient of Mystery Writers of America's Barbara Neely grant for Black
mystery writers, and a 2026 Agatha and Derringer Award nominee. THE BUSH TEA
MURDER is her first novel-length work. She currently lives with her family and
teaches first grade in Apex, North Carolina.
Barb Goffman has been a finalist for major short story
crime-fiction awards fifty times, forty-seven for writing and three for
editing. She’s won the Agatha four times, the Macavity twice, and the Anthony
and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Readers Award once each. She’s also won the
Derringer for editing, and in 2024 the Short Mystery Fiction Society awarded
her the Golden Derringer Award for Lifetime Achievement. Barb works as a
freelance editor, often focusing on cozy and traditional mysteries. She also is
an associate editor at Black Cat Weekly.
Kerry Hammond decided to give up the practice of law to
commit crimes—on the page. She is a two-time Agatha Award nominated author
whose short stories have appeared in several anthologies, including Malice
Domestic, Bouchercon, and Sisters in Crime. One of those stories was chosen for
inclusion in The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of
the Year, edited by Amor Towles. Her love of travel means that her stories
often take place in foreign locales she has (or wants to) visit, or while her
characters are enroute to their next adventure. She’s a huge fan of the subtle
surprise and is happiest when her readers don’t see the ending coming. She
lives in Denver with her husband, who is her favorite travel companion. Kerry
also writes downloadable Murder Mystery Party games at BlameTheButler.com
Nikki Knight (Kathleen Marple Kalb) is an
author/anchor/mom…not in that order. The Agatha-nominated author of short
stories and novels, she’s also a Regional Edward R. Murrow Award-winning anchor
of New York City's #1 weekend morning show on 1010 WINS Radio. Her work
includes fourteen mysteries across four series, and short stories in top
mystery magazines, anthologies, and online, with recognition in National
Excellence in Storytelling, Black Orchid Novella, and Derringer competitions.
Active in writers’ groups, she is a Marketing and Communications Liaison on the
National Board of Sisters in Crime, and a past VP of the Short Mystery Fiction
Society and NY/Tri-State SinC. She and her family live in a Connecticut house
owned by a large calico cat.
Agatha-winning and
Macavity-nominated author Edith Maxwell writes the Quaker
Midwife Mysteries and the Local Foods Mysteries, as well as award-winning short
crime fiction. As Maddie Day she authors the Country Store Mysteries, the Cozy
Capers Book Group Mysteries, and the Cece Barton Mysteries. She also wrote two
Lauren Rousseau Mysteries. Maxwell lives north of Boston with her beau, their
sweet cat Martin, and her organic garden; she blogs with the other Wicked
Authors and at Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen.
Debut Authors’
BIOS
Adrian Andover is the author of Whiskey Business,
his Lefty Award-winning and Agatha Award-nominated debut novel and the first
entry in the Mixology Lounge Mysteries series. In 2020, Andover was living
alone in a 200-square-foot studio apartment at the height of the pandemic when
he found a joyful respite in cozy mysteries. Not seeing many gay men
represented in the genre, he set out to write his own. When he's not reading,
writing, revising, or publishing a story, he enjoys taking long walks,
attending live music events, spending time with friends, and tasting craft
cocktails around his chosen hometown of Asbury Park, NJ.
Born and raised in
Idaho, K.L. Borges moved to Montana
over thirty years ago. She and her husband raised their three children there,
alongside a series of herding dogs. K.L. Borges was a math teacher at a private
Billings high school (Go, Rams!) for a decade, following an earlier career as an
environmental engineer. Borges is an active volunteer in the animal rescue
community of south-central Montana, a member of the Billings Gem and Mineral
Society and is a member of Sisters in Crime. She and her husband can often be
found enjoying the Montana outdoors with their two blue heelers. Murder in
the Crazy Mountains is her first book; it has been nominated for an Agatha
Award.
Sandra
Jackson-Opoku
is the author of three award-winning novels. The River Where Blood is Born
(American Library Association Black Caucus Award), Hot Johnny and the Women
Who Loved Him (Essence Magazine Bestseller in Hardcover Fiction)and Savvy
Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes (won the Malice Minotaur Award and is a
finalist for the Edgar and Agatha Awards). Savvy Summers and the Po’boy
Perils releases in July 2026. Her fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and dramatic
works are widely published and produced. She coedited the anthology Revise
the Psalm: Work Celebrating the Writing of Gwendolyn Brooks. Her professional
recognitions include the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the
Chicago Esteemed Artist Award, the Globe Soup Story Award, the Iceland Writers
Retreat Alumni Award, the Hearst Foundation James Baldwin Fellowship at
MacDowell Arts.
Shelly Jones (they/them) is a professor at a small
college in upstate New York, where they teach classes in transmedia
storytelling, the mystery genre, and writing. A Pushcart nominee and Best
Microfiction finalist, their creative works have been published in F&SF,
Apex, and elsewhere. Their novel, Player Elimination, was nominated for
the 2026 Agatha Award for Best First Novel. When they aren’t grading or
writing, Shelly can often be found hiking in the woods or playing a board game
while their cats look on.
Michael Rigg, an attorney for more than four decades, writes mysteries and thrillers set in two very different locations: Virginia Beach (where he lives) and New Orleans (which he visits as often as possible “for research,” including participation in three Mardi Gras Krewes). He is a retired Navy Judge Advocate and a retired civilian government attorney, formerly working for the Department of the Navy Office of the General Counsel. He is a member of International Thriller Writers, Mystery Writers of America, and both the Sisters in Crime national organization and its Southeastern Virginia Chapter—Mystery by the Sea.
