In this season of Thanks and Giving, I am so thankful for our wonderful Sisters in Crime chapter which has given all of us encouragement, support, and an empowering community on our writing journeys!

Although I loved being a workshop presenter and reader at the Louisville Literary Arts’ Block Festival, I was sad to miss our November meeting, which included another powerhouse presentation from Miki Reilly-Howe on Janet Burroway’s classic craft book, Writing Fiction.  

Thanks to Susan Bell’s excellent recording skills, I got a chance to listen to the terrific talk by Catherine Luttinger, currently a freelance developmental editor who has also worked as a literary agent and an editor at a major publishing house. Miki Reilly-Howe, who has been working with Catherine on her own debut novel, asked her super questions, and we learned a lot.

 

Catherine clarified that a developmental editor offers deep and substantive feedback on a novel as a whole, working with story development, plot aspects, dialogue, and world building. A good developmental editor will work to help make the writer’s voice “the most powerful it can be” and point out places where an author is telling rather than showing, as well as over-explaining and not fully trusting “the readers’ creativity to fill in the blanks.”

Catherine loves her job and the “treasure hunting” involved and thoroughly enjoys helping a manuscript become great.

 

 

 

Whether an author plans to seek traditional publication or self-publish, she strongly advises enlisting the services of an editor. Even something as basic as spelling or formatting errors can be extremely distracting and torpedo a writer’s chances of publishing success. Catherine admits she herself finds it hard to focus on content when she encounters spelling errors. From a behavioral science perspective, Miki points out that writers have only a split second to make a positive impression.

 

 

The second part of Catherine’s talk dealt with literary agents. In recent years, literary agents have taken on more and more of the editorial process role and aim to make the manuscript the best it can be for submission. An agent is the writer’s advocate and will not only try to sell the book to a publisher but will review contracts and push for publicity and marketing for the author’s work. Agents take a 10-20 percent commission off of net sales.

While there are lots of agents out there, there are many fewer publishing houses because of consolidation. It’s vital for authors to do research to find agents that are a good fit for them. Research what they’re looking for and what books they’ve represented.

 Authors need to nail their query letters and submission packets. With agents receiving thousands of queries, they’re looking for reasons to reject submissions.

It’s important to personalize query letters, and authors may even want to enlist the help of a freelance editor to polish their query letters, since first impressions are so important.

Miki pointed out something I think we all need to keep in mind, which is how important encouragement is. She noted that she might have abandoned her writing project had she not received Catherine’s positive feedback that she had a good story worth pursuing. Honest support and encouragement is such an important gift we can give one another.

I’m sure I’ve missed a lot of the good points Catherine made in her talk, and I encourage you to go to listen to the entire presentation!

 

Book Signing! I’m looking forward to December 3^rd. Books make great holiday gifts, and from 1-3 PM at the Hurstbourne Barnes and Noble, seven chapter members, Susan Bell, Gloria Casale, Elaine Munsch, Jeanette Pope, Carol Preflatish, Lynda Rees, and Lynn Slaughter, will be signing their books.

 

 

 

Then, at 4 PM, we’ll have our annual holiday luncheon at Olive Garden on Hurstbourne in Louisville, where we’ll vote on nominees for the board and present the Volunteer of the Year Award to Elaine Munsch. If you do not plan to attend the holiday luncheon, please submit your votes for board positions to Lynn Slaughter, lynnslaugher03@gmail.com, prior to the December 3^rd meeting.

 

 

Our nominees for 2023 are:

President: Elaine Munsch

Vice-president: Carol Preflatish

Secretary: Leanne Edelen

Treasurer: Patience Martin

Programs: Miki Reilly-Howe

Webmaster/Membership: Susan Bell

Publicist: We’re still looking!

Also: Elaine has sent out a questionnaire to chapter members about what kinds of programs, topics, and activities members would like to see the chapter get involved in. 

Writing News

Carol Preflatish attended three conferences or festivals in the last month, Prime Crime in Indianapolis, Purrs in the City in Jeffersonville, and the Writer’s Block Festival in Sellersburg. She was joined at Prime Crime by Elaine Munsch and Lynda Rees.

 

 

 

Carol reports finding both Prime Crime and the Writer’s Block Festival “very educational and informative.” And at Purrs in the City, she sold the most books at one event since 2018! She was also interviewed for a magazine article about drinking tea to help with weight loss. The article in which she’s identified as a mystery writer will appear in the print issue of Woman’s World Magazine and will be on sale on or about December 8.

 

 

 

 

Lynn Slaughter participated in the Louisville Book Festival and the Kentucky Book Festival at the end of October and this month, presented a workshop on “Writing Young Adult Fiction 101” at the Louisville Literary Arts’ Block Festival, where she also did a reading from her latest YA novel, DEADLY SETUP. This month, she’s excited to begin teaching a creative writing class at the Louisville Academy of Fine Arts.

 

 

 

All for now. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and we hope to see you on December 3^rd!

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the time the Louisville Literary Arts’ Block Festival rolls around on November 12, I will have been on the road to attend four writing festivals in the space of a few weeks. And as you’ll be able to tell from our members’ writing news below, I’m hardly alone in finding fall an especially busy time for us Scoundrels!

But first an update on our October chapter meeting. While we were terribly disappointed that our speaker, private investigator Susan Spaulding, had to postpone her talk due to a family illness, we were treated to another terrific presentation on Janet Burroway’s classic craft book, Writing Fiction, by chapter member Miki Reilly-Howe. Along with the establishment of our lively critique group, I view the inclusion of craft presentations in our monthly meetings to be one of our group’s most positive additions to our activities.

Meantime, we have an outstanding speaker slated for our November 12 meeting. Developmental editor Catherine Luttinger, who spent several years working for Stephen King’s agent and editor, will speak to us about “The Fine Art of Editing and Finding a Literary Agent.”

 

 

 

 

On December 3, from 1-3 PM, chapter members Susan Bell, Gloria Casale, Elaine Munsch, Jeanette Pope, Carol Preflatish, Lynda Rees, and I will be doing a holiday book signing at the Hurstbourne Barnes and Noble in Louisville. Books make great holiday gifts, and we hope you’ll attend and support our hard-working authors! 

Following the book signing, we’ll adjourn for our holiday luncheon to the Hurstbourne Olive Garden where we’ll elect our board members for 2023 and present our Volunteer of the Year Award to Elaine Munsch.

We’re still hoping to find a publicist for our group, but we do have a slate of nominees for our other officers for the coming year:

Elaine Munsch- President

Vice-President- Carol Preflatish

Secretary- Leanne Edelen

Treasurer- Patience Martin

Programs- Miki Reilly-Howe

Webmaster/Membership- Susan Bell

WRITING NEWS

Elaine Munsch’s latest Dash Hammond adventure, A HAUNTING AT MARIANWOOD, is about to be released by Mystery & Horror LLC. On October 14, the publisher did an exciting cover reveal! Meantime, Elaine will travel to Indianapolis October 28-30 for the Prime Crime Festival.

Check out Elaine’s author page on Facebook:  E. M. Munsch.

 

 

 

 

 

Carol Preflatish, author of the Nathan Perry mystery series, has several signing events in October and November:

• October 14 & 15, Glasstoberfest at Zimmerman’s Art Glass, Chestnut Street, Corydon, Indiana
• October 28-30, Prime Crime in Indianapolis
• November 5, Purrs in the City, Jeffersonville, Indiana
• November 12, Louisville Literary Arts’ Block Festival, Sellersburg, Indiana

For specific times and locations, check out Carol’s website, http://CarolPre.com

 

Lynn Slaughter’s DEADLY SETUP received the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards silver medal. Coming up:

• October 28, Louisville Book Festival (Lynn will participate in a panel, “Why YA?” at the KY International Convention Center in downtown Louisville)
• October 29, Kentucky Book Festival, Joseph Beth Booksellers, Lexington, KY
• November 12, Louisville Literary Arts Block Festival, Ivy Tech Community College, Sellersburg, Indiana (Lynn will present a workshop, “Writing Young Adult Fiction 101”)

 

 

All for now! We hope to see many of you at our November 12 chapter meeting.

 

On Saturday, September 10, a dozen of us gathered for a combined in-person and Zoom chapter meeting held at the Middletown Library. After a short business meeting, Miki Reilly-Howe gave an excellent presentation on the second half of Chapter Five from Janet Burroway’s classic craft book, WRITING FICTION. One of the things we especially value about Miki’s presentations is the outstanding examples she chooses to illustrate her points.

Following Miki’s presentation, we heard from our guest speaker, chapter member Carol Preflatish, author of the Nathan Perry mystery series, who provided us with a plethora of handy tips about how she stays organized as a writer. She shared her novel “bibles” in which she keeps track of everything she may need to refer to, ranging from character descriptions to research about her setting and subject matter, to her submission records. She advised developing a writing process and method of organization that works for each of us as individual writers. Carol shared lots of tricks she uses to remember plot or character ideas she thinks of at random moments, including a tiny recorder and A LOT of post-it-notes! And she reminded us of the importance of backing up our work.

Our October 8^th chapter meeting will be another combination in-person and Zoom meeting which will be held at the St. Matthews Library in Louisville. Our featured guest speaker will be private investigator Susan Spaulding.

MEMBER NEWS

Elaine Munsch is happy to announce the publication of her latest Dash Hammond adventure, A HAUNTING AT MARIANWOOD. Mystery & Horror LLC, the fantastic publisher of MYSTERY WITH A SPLASH OF BOURBON, will be publishing the book in October. She looks forward to sharing the cover with you soon.

 

 

Carol Preflatish appeared on the Star Chamber Show Blog Talk Radio on Wednesday, September 14. To listen to the recording, go to: Star Chamber Show

 

 

 

Lynda Rees reports that she’s submitted queries for FLIP OR FLOP, MURDER HOUSE, to a couple of publishers. One asked for the complete manuscript, stating it scored really high on their rating system. All fingers are crossed!

 

 

 

 

Lynn Slaughter’s novel, LEISHA’S SONG, received the Silver Falchion Award for best juvenile/YA mystery. On September 29 and 30, she’ll be at the Heartland Book Festival where she’ll do a Friday student workshop, “Let’s Cook up a Mystery,” and a Saturday presentation, “Intro to Writing Young Adult Fiction.”

All for now. We hope to see you on October 8^th at our next chapter meeting.

 

 

On Saturday, August 13, nine of us gathered via Zoom for a brief chapter meeting and a lively presentation by Miki Reilly-Howe on Burroway’s Chapter Five from Writing Fiction, followed by a fascinating and informative guest speaker, Judith Turner-Yamamoto, interviewed by Miki.

Judith, an award-winning author, poet, and journalist, spoke to us about her journey to publication for her debut novel, Loving the Dead and Gone, a finalist for the 2020 Petrichor Prize, due out in September from Regal House. You can view the recording of Judith’s talk here: 

Judith Turner Yamamoto

After sharing a riveting excerpt of her beautiful novel, she spoke about how in this past year, she’s devoted herself to publicizing her novel and ensuring its successful launch. This has involved multiple steps, including:

 

 

• Having a professional website (https://turneryamamoto.com/)
• Making a list of everyone in her network
• Securing blurbs from noted authors
• Garnering reviews from major industry publications such as Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly
• “Mastering social media”
• Arranging events with bookstores
• Setting up giveaways on Goodreads

She highly recommended that we take advantage of the many resources offered by Dan Blank on his website, https://wegrowmedia.com/

A key takeaway from Judith’s presentation was that after a writer has typed “The End” and secured publication, the work continues. In today’s publishing world, the vast majority of authors are expected to do the lion’s share of marketing and publicizing their books. She’s a wonderful example of someone who has put the work in to ensure a successful launch. We’re so grateful to Miki for arranging for Judith’s visit with us.

As for what’s coming up, we’re delighted to return to a combined face-to-face/Zoom chapter meeting on September 10 at the Middletown Library. Our very own Carol Preflatish will speak to us about “How to Be an Organized Writer.”

MEMBER NEWS

Carol Preflatish did a super “Meet and Greet the Author” session at the Jeffersonville Indiana Library on August 6.

She talked about the research involved in her latest book, WITCH HUNT, the third book of her Nathan Perry Mystery series.

 

 

Lynda Rees‘ middle-grade mystery, Freckle Face & Blondie, is now in audio. The second book in Lynda Rees’ middle-grade series, The Thinking Tree, Freckle Face & Blondie 2 , just launched in audiobook as well.  Lynda is anxiously awaiting news from a couple of publishers who asked for full MS after reading three chapters of her work in progress, Flip or Flop, Murder House.

 

 

 

 

Lynn Slaughter’s first adult mystery, MISSED CUE, will be published by Melange Books in the summer of 2023. Her recently released YA novel, DEADLY SETUP, received a lovely review in Mystery and Suspense: https://www.mysteryandsuspense.com/deadly-setup/

She’s also excited to share that she’ll be a participating author at several upcoming events: Killer Nashville, the Heartland Book Festival, the Louisville Book Festival, the Kentucky Book Festival, and Louisville Literary Arts Book Festival.