Laura Durham is the Agatha Award-winning author of Better Off Wed, For Better Or Hearse, and To Love and To Perish. When she isn't writing, she heads up a successful wedding planning company and hangs out with her husband and baby daughter. Laura is a graduate of Duke University and did not major in wedding planning. (president@mwa-ma.org)
Back to TopDonna Andrews serves as Vice-President of the Mid-Atlantic chapter of Mystery Writers of America, and chapter liaison and board member for Sisters in Crime. She's a member of the Private Investigators and Security Association. Her hobbies include gardening, computer and strategy games, and practical research on procrastination--though she obviously needs remedial work on the procrastination front: No Nest for the Wicket (St. Martins, 2006) and The Penguin Who Knew Too Much (St. Martins, 2007) are her eleventh and twelfth books published since 1999.
(vp@mwa-ma.org)
A former computer instructor and researcher at the Smithsonian Institution and the National Gallery of Art, Carla Coupe’s Agatha Award-nominated short story, “Rear View Murder,” appeared in Chesapeake Crimes II. She fills her spare time belly dancing, gardening, and enjoying life with her husband and son. (secretary@mwa-ma.org)
Back to TopSandi Wilson is author of Be The Boss (Avon, 1985) and Be The Boss II (Avon, 1993), as well as dozens of non-fiction magazine articles. Wilson is working on a mystery featuring the Blonde in Black. She runs an electronic design studio in Washington, DC (29 years). (treasurer@mwa-ma.org)
Back to TopPatrick Hyde has worked as a criminal and labor lawyer for 26 years and served as president of the D.C. Superior Court Trial Lawyers Association and on the Advisory Commission On Sentencing to the D.C. City Council. He writes about the world of criminal defense attorney Stuart Clay in The Only Pure Thing (January, 2007) and is presently working on a sequel and on co-authoring a children’s mystery with daughter, Madeleine Hyde. (legalcommitteechair@mwa-ma.org)
Back to TopClyde Linsley, former vice president of MWA-Mid Atlantic, is the author of four mystery novels, three of which are set in early 19th Century America. He had 40-some-odd years of experience in newspapers, radio, television, magazines and the internet before publishing his first mystery novel in 2000, and is also a full-time freelance writer. He is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism. (chaptersliaison@mwa-ma.org)
Back to TopMegan Plyler is a cultural anthropologist who specializes in human rights issues in East Africa. Having worked and lived in various parts of Africa since 1993, she put her specializations to work writing her first mystery set in Tanzania. Her sleuth, Sarah Bedford, is a cultural anthropology graduate student who becomes entangled in murder in a society for which she has yet to learn all the rules. (events@mwa-ma.org)
Back to TopEllen Crosby has worked as a free-lance regional reporter for The Washington Post and was the Moscow correspondent for ABC Radio News. Her first US novel was The Merlot Murders (Scribner, 2006) which is set in Virginia. The Chardonnay Charade, a sequel, will be out in August, 2007. She is also the author of Moscow Nights, which was published in London by Piatkus Books. Ellen is currently working on a third Virginia wine country book. (locliaison@mwa-ma.org )
Back to TopCon Lehane has been a college professor, a union organizer, and -- like his protagonist Brian McNulty -- a journeyman bartender. After spending most of his life in and around New York City, he's worked in DC for the past dozen years as a labor journalist. Beware the Solitary Drinker, the first McNulty book, was chosen a Best Mystery of 2002 by Publishers Weekly. The second, What Goes Around Comes Around, has been likened to Lawrence Block's early Matt Scudder novels. Death at the Old Hotel, the third book in the series, will be in bookstores in June. (membership@mwa-ma.org)
Back to TopChris Freeburn is the author of Parental Source and Generation Without Souls, police procedurals that also focus on the social elements of law and crime and Dying for Redemption, which features Callous Demar, a PI whose ghostly existence causes his agency to move to Limbo. Chris is a former JAG Army specialist and spent years as a paralegal in Virginia. (mwareads@mysterywriters.org)
Back to TopKathryn Johnson, founder of Write by You (www.writebyyou.com), an author’s mentoring service located near Washington, D.C., writes as Kathryn Jensen, K.M. Kimball and Nicole Davidson. Forty of her novels have sold to major publishers. Her children’s book, Secret of the Red Flame, was an Agatha Award finalist. A popular conference speaker, she also has served as judge on the Edgar Awards Committee. Her WIP, THE CHAMELEON WRITER: Thriving in Today’s Publishing World, will be published by The Writer’s Institute in 2008. (newsletter@mwa-ma.org)
Back to TopDaniel Stashower is the author of the Edgar Award-winning Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle. He has also written five mystery novels and numerous short stories. Dan is a recipient of the Raymond Chandler Fulbright Fellowship. His latest book is The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe and the Invention of Murder. (nominations@mwa-ma.org)
Back to TopMarcia Talley is the Agatha and Anthony award-winning author of six Hannah Ives mysteries: Sing It To Her Bones, Unbreathed Memories, Occasion Of Revenge, In Death’s Shadow, This Enemy Town and Through the Darkness. She is editor/author of Naked Came The Phoenix, a star-studded, tongue-in-cheek collaborative serial novel about murder in a fashionable health spa. A second collaboration, I’d Kill for That, is set in an upscale gated community. Marcia’s short stories appear in numerous collections, including “With Love, Marjorie Ann,” “And Safety First,” both Agatha Award nominees, and “Too Many Cooks,” winner of both the Agatha and Anthony awards for Best Short Story. A recent story, "Driven to Distraction" won the Agatha and is included in "The Deadly Bride and 21 of the Year's Finest Crime and Mystery Stories, Vol. 2.” (outreach@mwa-ma.org)
Back to TopSharon Williamson, aka Shawn Wilson, retired in 2003 after a 34-year career with several federal agencies including the U.S. Marshals Service, the Bureau of Prisons and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. She is a produced playwright and currently is working on a mystery set in Washington, D.C. amid the gathering storm clouds of WWII. (webcoordinator@mwa-ma.org)
Back to TopFrom 2002 - 2006, Noreen Wald served as President of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of MWA. She is the author of two mystery series-the Jake O'Hara Ghostwriter series and writing as Nora Charles, the South Florida Senior Sleuth Series starring Kate Kennedy as a modern Ms. Marple. Noreen has taught writing classes at The Writer's Center and the Smithsonian. Many of her students have been published. Noreen also served as Executive Vice President and Secretary for MWA's National Board of Directors.
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