Sisters in Crime

Welcome to the Sisters in Crime Writers Podcast.

Everyone has a unique writing journey, so join us for conversations about those journeys from the writers themselves.

Hi, this is Julie Henrikus, the Executive Director of Sisters in Crime, and I am delighted to welcome Elle Hartford to the podcast this week.

Elle is the author of the award-winning Alchemical Tales series, blending cozy mystery with cozy fantasy.

She has also published several spin-off series and short stories in numerous anthologies.

What's the difference between fantasy and paranormal?

Oh, this is fun.

And this, actually, to plug the Sisters in Crime mentor program, this is something that I've been talking about with my Sisters in Crime mentee.

Welcome to the Sisters in Crime Writers Podcast.

Everyone has a unique writing journey, so join us for conversations about those journeys from the writers themselves.

This is Julie Henrikus, executive director of Sisters in Crime, and I am really thrilled to be having a special conversation this week with Raquel V. Reyes.

Raquel just, as we're recording this, stepped down from being president of Sisters in Crime and has stepped into the immediate past president role.

position, say that fast three times.

And I wanted to have an opportunity and have a conversation with her about reflections after a year of being president and she was vice president for a year before that.

She helped organize Sleuth Fest.

She is one of the 2029 co-chairs of VoucherCon in Miami and, you know, has also served on boards, has done a lot of different things.

You know, and so I was kind of surprised when I sold my book that there was not already a group of crime writers of color.

You know, like there's Sisters in Crime, there's Mystery Writers of America, International Thiller Writers.

And I was just like, why is there not a group already for us? You know, and so I've never been shy with starting something.

And I had, you know, Gigi Pondian and Walter Mosley also wanted to start groups.

She also regularly reviews and judges crime fiction.

She's a life member of Sisters in Crime Australia and is chair of the Bad Sydney Crime Writers Festival, all of which means she reads an awful lot of genre fiction.

And now this also means asking her to select, say, three of her own top works of Australian crime fiction was always going to be a bit of an ask.

Yeah.

And then I paused at Peter Corris and the Empty Beach in 1983 and the start of the Cliff Hardy series.

And this was an extraordinary moment, too, because this was Australia embracing the kind of hard-boiled American tradition of the private investigator.

And then I became a little bit worried because I thought, I'm only talking about men and being a member of, you know, a life member of Sisters in Crime.

I really joined Sisters in Crime when the whole swathe of female writers started to come through.

[gentle music] Welcome to the Sisters in Crime Writers Podcast.

Everyone has a unique writing journey, so join us for conversations about those journeys from the writers themselves.

[gentle music] Hi, this is Julie Hennrikus, the executive director of Sisters in Crime, and I am delighted to welcome Manju MJ Soni to the podcast this week.

MJ grew up in South Africa and wrote Defying Apartheid, a part memoir about being a doctor activist under apartheid.

Since then, drawing on her American, African, and Indian background, she's written mystery short fiction, and her debut cozy mystery, The Masala Chai Mystery Club, came out in July with Crooked Lane Books.

I mean, I, um, honestly, from the bottom of my heart, there are so many people who, I don't know, I think authors each have their own stories, and there's no competition as such.

You can't compete with each other, and maybe that's a big contributing factor, but they're just the nicest people.

Uh, so like Sisters in Crime, right? I became a member very long ago.

Very inspiring stuff.

Anyway, Angela volunteers with Procyon Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center, and belongs to the Writers Union of Canada, Crime Writers of Canada, Sisters in Crime Toronto, and South Simcoe Arts Council.

She lives in Loretto, Ontario with her husband, Peter Thomas Ponce.

Welcome, Angela Vanbreemen.

[gentle music] Welcome to the Sisters in Crime Writers Podcast.

Everyone has a unique writing journey, so join us for conversations about those journeys from the writers themselves.

[gentle music] Hi, this is Julie Hennrikus, the Executive Director of Sisters in Crime, and I am delighted to welcome A.M. Luisi to the podcast this week.

Baker of brownies and tormentor of characters, A.M. Luisi grew up watching Scooby-Doo mysteries and hammer horror films, which explains a whole lot.

When A.M. isn't finding new ways to mystify readers and make them laugh, she's growing vegetables in the garden and water lilies in the koi pond.

It's, try something and see what works for you.

This works for me because I can control all the bits and pieces and make them move around the way I want.

We, in the Sisters in Crime webinar library, there's a, um, webinar on using Excel spreadsheets for, um, for plotting.

And it's funny, I was talking about this, I was at Word on the Street in Toronto this weekend, and we were talking about pricing books, because there were four of us at a table.

Crime Writers of Canada, I belong to Crime Writers of Canada, and Sisters in Crime, they had a table.

And we'd been sort of going around checking out other people's books, and people were selling paperbacks for $35 Canadian.

Wow.