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That’s right, don’t murder your spouse, but more importantly, don’t murder your mystery. After that clever lead-in I’ll introduce this month’s reader. Faithful Sisters in Crime members, our reader this month is none other than Chris Roerden. She is the author of—you guessed it— Don’t Murder Your Mystery, winner of the Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction Book and a finalist for the Anthony, the Macavity and ForeWord Magazine Reference Book of the Year Chris has been an editor for 44 years. Many of her clients went on to become published by St. Martin's Press, Berkley Prime Crime, Midnight Ink, Walker & Co., Viking, Rodale, and others. She holds an MA in English and a BA summa cum laude from the University of Maine, where she later became a writing instructor. She also taught adults at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and English communication skills to South Korean schoolteachers for UNESCO. She has spoken before more than 200 audiences, including the National Speakers Association annual university. At our monthly August meeting she’ll touch on the essentials of mystery writing. If your goal is to see your work published, then you’ll want to listen carefully as she discusses the following: Dialogue, which is not whatever you put quotation marks around; Prologues, used for shock value, when followed by a change in scene, character, tone, and situation; Repetition, shows either carelessness or the beginning writer's uncertainty about readers not “getting” it; Body language, reveals a character’s attitude and feelings; Making known the goals or “wants” of your main characters lets readers feel tension with each obstacle encountered. A hidden agenda is a tension deficit disorder. For an in-depth analysis of the above, you’ll want to grab a copy of her book and study it intently. Fortunately, Chris will be signing copies at the conclusion of our meeting. For more about Chris and her books, visit bellarosabooks.com. Our reader this month is our own Lois Hendricks-Klass. Lois will read from her exciting mystery-thriller, Edge of the Wood. The novel centers on a female L.A. attorney who had been separated from her husband. The hero, Gloria, discovers her husband’s parents and her little boy have vanished from her in-law’s Pennsylvania farm house. In her relentless across country search our hero gets involved with the Mafia, and discovers the secrets of Pennsylvania Dutch superstitions. The novel has elements of romance, suspicion, and violence. My kind of stuff. After the meeting, Lois will be glad to sign a copy of her book for you. August 3, 2008 Speaker: Chris Roerden - author of Don't Murder Your Mystery: 24 Fiction-Writing Techniques to Save Your Manuscript from Turning Up D.O.A. Reader: Lois Klass September 7, 2008 Speaker Panel: The Darker Mask panel on writing for cross-genre: Gary Phillips, Naomi Hirahara, Alexandra Sokoloff, Gar Anthony Haywood. Reader: TBA October 5, 2008 Speaker: Glendale Police K-9 Unit Reader: Hannah Dennison November 2, 2008 Speaker: Pamela Samuels-Young, Writing Rejection: How to Survive and Thrive. Reader: Joan Del Monte December 7, 2008 Readers for Pre-Pub's author event Note: If you are a published author and member of Sisters in Crime/Los Angeles and interested in reading at a future meeting, please contact us. Where: Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are held at: The Community Room South Pasadena Library 1115 El Centro South Pasadena. Read about this month's meeting Doors open 2:00pm for refreshments and networking. Meeting starts at 2:30pm. See a map image, below Or Click on the Yahoo link for more detailed map and driving instructions: ![[ Yahoo! Maps ]](http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/us/mp/gr/mplogo.gif){kind=small} Map of 1115 El Centro St South Pasadena, CA 91030-3119
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