Events

Chapter Meeting: Finding and Wrangling Historical Research for Your Writing & Writing Believable Fight Scenes

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Quarterly Chapter Meeting/Event: February 4, 2023

Lone Tree Library, 10055 Library Way, Lone Tree, Colorado 80124 (303-791-READ)

Also Via Zoom; (Information on how to join the presentation will be posted in the Sisters in Crime-Colorado Groups.io members listserv.)

Please note: Chapter meetings are a member only benefit. You can learn more about us and our chapter here: https://sistersincrimecolorado.org/join/

To request more information, please use our contact form: https://sistersincrimecolorado.org/connect/

PROGRAM/SCHEDULE

9:30 am – 10:00 am   Welcome, Announcements

10:00 am – 12:00 pm   Finding and Wrangling Historical Research for Your Writing by Melissa Robbins

Readers want to be transported whether they go down the street, across the world, or back in time.  If you get those historical details wrong, a reader might cast aside your book. Melissa will share her resources to find those details, tips on wrangling them, and how to incorporate those historical finds into your story.

12:00pm – 1:00 pm   Lunch (brown bag or visit nearby restaurants)

1:00 pm – 3:00 pm   Writing Believable Fight Scenes by J.T. Evans

J.T. Evans was horribly bullied in junior high, and these events drove him to find training in martial arts around his 13th birthday. He’s been in and out of martial arts since that summer and has learned a wide variety of skills and arts from many great instructors. He’s touched on many different styles throughout the decades, but the most important changes martial arts drilled into him were self confidence and compassion for others. Yes, he knows how to fight, but he also knows how to avoid physical confrontation when possible.

Join J.T as he talks about writing, fighting, and how by adding accuracy, our story lines can sizzle!

RVSP on our Meet-Up Page or through our Groups.IO Listserv

The Zoom login information will be posted in the chapter’s groups.io listserv.

About the Presenters:

Melissa Robbins writes historical mysteries set in World War Two and the Roaring Twenties. She grew up near Washington, DC, influencing her love of history and museums. She hasn’t met a museum she didn’t like. A child of the 80’s, naturally Melissa’s first story involved a winged unicorn with a rainbow mane ‘published’ in her fourth grade class. Melissa is the Vice President of the Sisters in Crime Colorado Chapter.

J.T. Evans writes fantasy and urban fantasy novels. He’ll dabble with sci-fi and horror in short form as well. He is the former president of the Colorado Springs Fiction Writers Group and Pikes Peak Writers. When not writing, he secures computers at the Day Job, and plays way too many tabletop games. Despite having his right arm amputated and reattached after a nasty car crash, he types faster than the average bear. He is the author of the Modern Mythology and Flashing Blades series and is hastily working on more right now.

J.T joined the Gnome Stew Crew in March of 2016. Since that time, he has written dozens of articles for the site and has earned three gold ENNIE award – awards given to role-playing game products and their creators  (2016, 2017, and 2018) as part of the team at Gnome Stew.

Event: January 2023 Book Club

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

You are cordially invited to attend Sisters in Crime-Colorado Book Club. We meet once a month via Zoom. Come ready to chat with the author and other readers! If you don’t have a chance to read the book, that’s quite all right. We discuss craft, publishing and other subjects too. Everyone is welcome! Book club is free and open to the public. For specific dates please see the schedule at sistersincrimecolorado.org/book-club

PLEASE NOTE:  Sisters in Crime-Colorado members can get the link to the Zoom meeting on the chapter groups.io listserv. Non-members may request the meeting link by emailing  

sistersincrimecolorado(at)gmail(dot)com

January’s selection is The Lava Witch by Debra Bokur.

In a remote, mountainous area of a Maui forest near Haleakala volcano, the naked body of a young woman is found hanging from a tree. The devil is in the details: the woman’s nostrils, mouth, and lungs are packed with lava sand. Her hands are bound in twine. Her feet are charred and blackened, suggesting a fire-walking ceremony. Detective Kali Māhoe’s suspicions are immediately aroused. It has all the signs of a ritual torture and murder.

But Kali’s investigation soon leads her down a winding trail of seemingly unconnected clues and diverging paths—from the hanging tree itself, a rare rainbow eucalyptus, to rumors of a witch haunting the high areas of the forest, to the legend of the ancient Hawaiian sorceress Pahulu, goddess of nightmares. Casting a shadow over it all—the possibility of a Sitting God, a spirit said to invade and possess the soul.

Aided by her uncle Police Captain Walter Alaka’i, Officer David Hara, and the victim’s brother, Kali embarks down the darkest road of all. One that is leading to the truth of the mountain’s deadly core and a dark side of the island for which even Kali is unprepared.

www.debrabokur.com

Parker Book Club: The Code by Ann Dominguez

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Join us on Wednesday, December 21st at 7 pm on Zoom to talk about Ann Dominguez’s book The Code (Book Three of the Kate Deming Suspense Series).

Dr. Kate Deming has spent four brutal years working in a Chicago ER, swinging back and forth from tragedy at work to guilt for what she’s missing at home. The prescription is a new job that will allow more time with her growing daughters: an eight-year-old pirate wannabe planning to run away to the high seas, and a twelve-year old expert in eye-rolling and sarcasm who is the star of her middle school’s new Code Breaking team.

When a sophisticated ransomware attack paralyzes the hospital’s electronic medical record, the hospital pinpoints Kate’s computer as the cyber gateway. She thinks it’s a misdiagnosis until the FBI raids their apartment and arrests her husband, whose home tech support now appears all but benign.

Meanwhile, her twelve year-old daughter’s classmate overdoses to get away from a sextortion scheme that her daughter knows too much about.

Can Kate crack the code before another child gets hurt?

Award Winner: Dark Obsessions by Marie Sutro

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Dark Obsessions by Sisters in Crime – CO member, Marie Sutro won Best Suspense Novel for Authors on the Air 2022 Book of the Year award. Congratulations, Marie!

A GRUESOME MURDER IN THE WOODS
IS ONE OF MANY TERRORS TO BE UNCOVERED
Reeling from the trauma of her last case, SFPD Detective Kate Barnes heads to the Olympic Peninsula hoping to heal the present by resolving the past. When the ravaged corpse of an unidentified teen is discovered, her search for personal peace takes a back seat to the quest for justice.

…IN A DEADLY WORLD OF DARK OBSESSIONS
As Kate digs deeper, she discovers the victim was not the only one who had been taken against her will. Racing against the clock to rescue the remaining girls, she uncovers a complex series of ever-increasing horrors. In the darkest corners of Washington state, Kate Barnes will come face-to-face with an adversary so ruthless and powerful that it will take everything she has to save herself, let alone the girls.

www.mariesutro.com

Award Nominee: Dark Obsessions by Marie Sutro

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Dark Obsessions by Sisters in Crime – CO member, Marie Sutro is nominated for Authors on the Air 2022 Book of the Year award. The live awards ceremony will be held on Wednesday, December 14, 2022, at 6pm PT on Authors on the Air. Congratulations, Marie!

A GRUESOME MURDER IN THE WOODS
IS ONE OF MANY TERRORS TO BE UNCOVERED
Reeling from the trauma of her last case, SFPD Detective Kate Barnes heads to the Olympic Peninsula hoping to heal the present by resolving the past. When the ravaged corpse of an unidentified teen is discovered, her search for personal peace takes a back seat to the quest for justice.

…IN A DEADLY WORLD OF DARK OBSESSIONS
As Kate digs deeper, she discovers the victim was not the only one who had been taken against her will. Racing against the clock to rescue the remaining girls, she uncovers a complex series of ever-increasing horrors. In the darkest corners of Washington state, Kate Barnes will come face-to-face with an adversary so ruthless and powerful that it will take everything she has to save herself, let alone the girls.

www.mariesutro.com

Event: November 2022 Book Club

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

The Sisters in Crime-CO Book Club November 2022 reads are Police Navidad by Becky Clark (Fort Collins), The Woman He Used to Know by Helen Starbuck (Longmont), and The Rx For Murder by Sue Hinkin (Parker).

Free and open to the public. Come chat with the author and other readers! And if you don’t have a chance to read the book, that’s quite all right. Many times we discuss craft and the publishing process as well as the book, so all are welcome!

PLEASE NOTE: During the current coronavirus situation, our book clubs are meeting online via Zoom. Sisters in Crime-Colorado members can get the link to the Zoom meeting on the chapter groups.io listserv. Non-members may request the meeting link by emailing the book club coordinators directly:

Longmont: BookClubLongmont(at)gmail(dot)com

Fort Collins: bookclubftcollins(at)gmail(dot)com

Parker:  bookclubparker(at)gmail(dot)com

For more information, including specific dates, times, and locations, please visit https://sistersincrimecolorado.org/book-club/.

Hope you can join us!

Upcoming Release and Book Signing: Dead and Gondola by Ann Claire

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Dead and Gondola releases November 1st.

In this series debut, a mysterious bookshop visitor dies under murderous circumstances, compelling the Christie sisters and their cat, Agatha, to call on all they’ve learned about solving mysteries from their favorite novelist.

Ellie Christie is thrilled to begin a new chapter. She’s recently returned to her tiny Colorado hometown to run her family’s historic bookshop with her elder sister, Meg, and their beloved cat, Agatha. Perched in a Swiss-style hamlet accessible by ski gondola and a twisty mountain road, the Book Chalet is a famed bibliophile destination known for its maze of shelves and relaxing reading lounge. At least, until trouble blows in with a wintry whiteout. A man is found dead on the gondola, and a rockslide throws the town into lockdown—no one in, no one out.

The victim was a mysterious stranger who’d visited the bookshop. At the time, his only blunders had been disrupting a book club and leaving behind a first-edition Agatha Christie novel, written under a pseudonym. However, once revealed, the man’s identity shocks the town. Motives and secrets swirl like the snow, but when the police narrow in on the sisters’ close friends, the Christies have to act.

Although the only Agatha in their family tree is their cat, Ellie and Meg know a lot about mysteries and realize they must summon their inner Miss Marple to trek through a blizzard of clues before the killer turns the page to their final chapter.

Upcoming Release: Merry Little Mysteries: A Holiday Cozy & Historical Mystery Anthology

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Merry Little Mysteries contains Sisters in Crime – CO member, Donna Schlachter’s short story A Mistletoe Mystery.


Can sisters Holly and Ivy Christmas discover who seeded their spruce trees with dwarf mistletoe? And are the neighboring ranch brothers, Tom and Bob Jolly, behind this? Or victims as well?

The anthology releases November 1st.

Chapter Meeting: Marketing for Authors & True Community Policing

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Quarterly Chapter Meeting/Event: November 12, 2022

Lone Tree Library, 10055 Library Way, Lone Tree, Colorado 80124 (303-791-READ)

Also Via Zoom; (Information on how to join the presentation will be posted in the Sisters in Crime-Colorado Groups.io members listserv.)

Please note: Chapter meetings are a member only benefit. You can learn more about us and our chapter here: https://sistersincrimecolorado.org/join/

To request more information, please use our contact form: https://sistersincrimecolorado.org/connect/

PROGRAM/SCHEDULE

9:30 am – 10:00 am   Welcome, Announcements

10:00 am – 12:00 pm   Marketing for Authors by Jenny Kate

We’d all rather be writing, but today’s authors must also spend time as marketing agents. Jenny Kate can help with that. In this class, Jenny will explore building an author brand, how to create compelling marketing content; and what you should include in your marketing plan (website, email, social, ads).

12:00pm – 1:00 pm   Lunch (brown bag or visit nearby restaurants)

1:00 pm – 3:00 pm   True Community Policing by Clint Blackhurst

Given the current state of law enforcement in our country, he will be discussing what true community policing is and how it could be the answer to ongoing issues. He will also discuss homicide cases he worked during his career, and the differences between the various areas of law enforcement from Federal, State, County, and City. He’s open to answering any and all questions. Having a mystery writer for a wife, he’s no longer concerned when he’s asked questions such as the best way to murder someone and not get caught. 

RVSP on our Meet-Up Page (www.meetup.com/sisters-in-crime-colorado/events/289095811/) or through our Groups.IO Listserv

The Zoom login information will be posted in the chapter’s groups.io listserv.

About the Presenters:

Jenny Kate has been a communicator, marketer, teacher, and public relations professional since 2001. With her husband, she co-founded Writer Nation, an online space to help authors become authorpreneurs. She holds a master’s degree in English, is a member of Pikes Peak Writers and Sisters in Crime, and judges contests for the Utah League of Writers.

A born Alabama girl, Jenny bleeds crimson and white. When she isn’t writing or teaching about marketing, she travels the world looking for the world’s best vegan sandwich. So far, tofu banh mi in Hoi An, Vietnam, is winning that race. She lives in Northern Virginia with her family. Check out her website at www.thewriternation.com

Clint Blackhurst is a retired forty-seven-year police veteran. He has worked for Federal Law Enforcement (the FBI), State Law Enforcement (District Attorney’s Office), County Law Enforcement (Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office), and Municipal Law Enforcement (Ogden, UT Police Department and Brighton, CO Police Department). The last twenty-two years of his career he spent as the Chief of Police for Brighton. Not one to submit to an easy retirement, however, he’s now on his fifth year as a city council member. He has a BA in Criminal Justice from Metro State and a Master of Public Administration from CU.

Event: October 2022 Book Club

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

The Sisters in Crime-CO Book Club October 2022 reads are Police Navidad by Becky Clark (Longmont), Spirits and Sourdough by Bailey Cates (Fort Collins), and Until Dead by Donnell Ann Bell (Parker).

Free and open to the public. Come chat with the author and other readers! And if you don’t have a chance to read the book, that’s quite all right. Many times we discuss craft and the publishing process as well as the book, so all are welcome!

PLEASE NOTE: During the current coronavirus situation, our book clubs are meeting online via Zoom. Sisters in Crime-Colorado members can get the link to the Zoom meeting on the chapter groups.io listserv. Non-members may request the meeting link by emailing the book club coordinators directly:

Longmont: BookClubLongmont(at)gmail(dot)com

Fort Collins: bookclubftcollins(at)gmail(dot)com

Parker:  bookclubparker(at)gmail(dot)com

For more information, including specific dates, times, and locations, please visit https://sistersincrimecolorado.org/book-club/.

Hope you can join us!