Young Adult Book Club starts at West Dennis

Free Movies on Fridays in August

Cape Cod and MA Authors come to West Dennis Library

This Friday, local authors from the Cape and greater Massachusetts will be at the West Dennis Library to meet the community, sign their books, and share in a free picnic. The schedule includes a brief presentation about free digital tools at 3pm and a panel discussion at 4pm. Panelists include:
Leslie Meier discussing the process of aging a character
Jim Coogan talking about writing for children
Barbara Ross discussing how being a publisher informs her writing process
Sheila Connolly explaining how she writes more than one ongoing series with several sets of characters
Susan Santangelo is our moderator and is available to discuss her experiences publishing for the Kindle

Some of the featured authors include:

Barbara Ross’ first mystery novel The Death of an Ambitious Woman featuring Police Chief Ruth Murphy was published in August 2010. In addition to her novel writing, Barbara recently became one of the editor/publishers at Level Best Books, which produces an anthology of crime stories by New England writers every year. The eighth edition, titled Thin Ice, was released in November 2010 and contains stories nominated for Edgar® and Agatha awards as well as winners of the Derringer and Al Blanchard awards. Prior to her adventures in fiction, Barbara had a career as a chief operating officer in the educational technology field where, among other duties, she worked with major textbook publishers on their e-publishing strategies. Barbara and her husband divide their time between Somerville, Massachusetts and Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

Leslie Meier

My books draw heavily on my experience as a mother of three and my work as a reporter for various weekly newspapers on Cape Cod. My heroine, Lucy Stone, is a reporter in the fictional town of Tinker’s Cove, Maine, where she lives in an old farmhouse (quite similar to mine on Cape Cod!) with her restoration carpenter husband Bill and four children. As the series has progressed the kids have grown older, roughly paralleling my own family. We seem to have reached a point beyond which Lucy cannot age–my editor seems to want her to remain forty-something forever, though I have to admit I personally am dying to write “Menopause is Murder!”

Now that the kids are grown — I now have two grandchildren — my husband and I are enjoying our empty nest on Cape Cod which we share with our Brittany, Sylvie.

Susan Santangelo

Susan Santangelo, author of the Baby Boomer Mysteries, is an early member of the Baby Boomer generation herself. She has been a feature writer, drama critic and editor for daily and weekly newspapers in the New York metropolitan area, including a stint at Cosmopolitan magazine. A seasoned public relations and marketing professional, she produced special events for Carnegie Hall's Centennial. In addition to being a member of SiNC and SiNCNE, she is a member of the Cape Cod Writers Center, and reviews mysteries for Suspense Magazine. She divides her time between Cape Cod, MA, and the Connecticut shoreline, and shares her life with her husband Joe and three English cocker spaniels: Tucker, Lucy and Boomer. A portion of sales from the Baby Boomer Mysteries is donated to the Breast Cancer Survival Center, a non-profit based in Connecticut which Susan founded in 1999 after being diagnosed with cancer herself.

Elizabeth Moisan, a native New Yorker, has worked professionally as an artist since graduating from Parsons School of Design in 1970. She is an Arts member of the Cape Cod Branch of the National League of American Pen Women; the founding host of A Book in the Hand and Shelf Space, two literary programs; the facilitator of a writing group; and founder and member of Just Plain Folk, a folk music group that performs locally.

A 13th generation Mayflower descendant, she lives in Massachusetts, on Cape Cod—a place with very deep family roots—a short distance from the setting of her book. Master of the Sweet Trade is her debut novel.

Sheila Connolly

Sheila Connolly writes the Orchard Mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime. As Sarah Atwell, she also wrote the Glassblowing Mysteries, whose debut book, Through a Glass, Deadly, was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Another series, the Museum Mysteries, opened in October 2010 with Fundraising the Dead, and she is planning a third series, set in Ireland, which will appear in 2012.

Sheila is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America, as well has Romance Writers of America. She currently serves on the SinCNE Board as President and is co-chair of the 2011 New England Crime Bake.

Leslie Wheeler

Leslie Wheeler is an award-winning author of books about American history and biographies. LOVING WARRIORS, her biography in letters of the nineteenth-century feminist, Lucy Stone, and her husband, Henry Blackwell, won the English-Speaking Union's Ambassador of Honor Award. Leslie now writes the Miranda Lewis "living history" mystery series--books set in the present-day but at historic sites, which enables her to weave in a lot of history. Titles include MURDER AT PLIMOTH PLANTATION, MURDER AT GETTYSBURG, and the recently published, MURDER AT SPOUTERS POINT. Leslie's short crime fiction has appeared in five anthologies published by Level Best Books: WINDCHILL, SEASMOKE, STILL WATERS, DEADFALL, and THIN ICE. She is now a contributing editor to Level Best Books.

Leslie and her family divide their time between Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a rural retreat in the Berkshires.

Sarah Smith

An Agatha winner for her most recent novel, THE OTHER SIDE OF DARK, Sarah Smith has been interested in ghosts and storytelling since she was four. She studied English at Harvard, where she hung out in the library reading mysteries, and film in London. She has written a bestselling adult mystery series set in the Edwardian period; two of the books were named New York Times Notable Books of the Year, one was a London Times Book of the Year, and the first, THE VANISHED CHILD, is being made into a musical. Her standalone novel about the Shakespeare authorship, CHASING SHAKESPEARES, is being made into a play. She is working on a novel about the TITANIC.

Marie Sherman, Justice of the Peace from Brewster, has chosen 90 true stories about interesting wedding ceremonies she has performed. She kept notes from the beginning which enabled her to draw on over 1,200 weddings for the book. They range from funny happenings, strange locations, annoying situations, near disasters, and much more!

Sit down, relax, and enjoy this amusing little book.

The book makes a delightful and unusual bridal shower gift, engagement, birthday, thank you, or Christmas gift.

Now in her 25th year as a Justice of the Peace, Marie still enjoys officiating at weddings at Inns, B&Bs, private homes, on the beach, and at her antique home, “Old Glory Homestead.”

Jim Coogan, Marjorie Frith, and others!!!