Mystery Month Author Panel

Mystery Writers of America NorCal Chapter

Mystery Writers of America Norcal Chapter author panel.

Mystery Writers of America NorCal Chapter are back for our annual Mystery Month Author Panel. Learn about new releases from our spookiest local authors and about their writing process. Enjoy some seasonal treats and a glass of wine as we explore the mysterious worlds these authors create. Coordinated by Laurie Sheehan and moderated by Scotty Cornfield. Copies of the author's books will be available for sale and signing at the event.

Registration is recommended and walk-ins are welcome. 

This year's panelists include:

Cara Black is the author of twenty-one books in the New York Times bestselling Aimée Leduc series as well as the WWII thrillers Three Hours in Paris and Night Flight to Paris. She has won the Médaille de la Ville de Paris and the Médaille d’Or du Rayonnement Culturel and received multiple nominations for the Anthony and Macavity Awards; her books have been translated into German, Norwegian, Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew. Her love of all things French was kindled by the French-speaking nuns at her Catholic high school, where Cara first encountered French literature and went crazy for the work of Prix Goncourt winner Romain Gary. On each visit she entrenches herself in a different part of the city, learning its secret history. She has posed as a journalist to sneak into closed areas, trained at a firing range with real Paris flics, gotten locked in a bathroom at the Victor Hugo museum, and—just like Aimée—gone down into the sewers with the rats. For the scoop on real Paris crime, she takes the flics out for drinks and dinner to hear their stories—but it usually turns into a long evening, which is why she sticks with espresso. Carablack.com

Michelle Chouinard is the Mary Higgins Clark Award nominated, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and San Francisco Chronicle bestselling author of The Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco series, the Detective Jo Fournier thriller series, and the standalone thriller The Vacation. She has a Ph.D in developmental psychology from Stanford and was a U.C. Merced founding faculty member. She enjoys amateur genealogy, zombie hunting, baking, and is held together by caffeine and dry shampoo. Find her at MichelleChouinard.com.

Heather Haven was born in Sarasota, Florida, but isn’t sure of the date because calendars hadn’t been invented yet. Her first book, How to Ride a Pterosaur, was a huge success among the Neanderthal set, although all that chiseling in stone gave her carpal tunnel syndrome. Her checkered writing career includes twenty novels, newspaper columns, ad copy, theatrical plays, and comedy acts. She also offers her services for obits on dicey political figures, Molly Ivins style. There have been no takers. Her latest book is yet another Alvarez Family Murder Mystery, Cleopatra almost Slept Here. You can find out more about Heather and her shenanigans at heatherhavenstories.com. 

Kate Hopkins Joyce is the author of the Gibson Girl series set in San Francisco at the turn of the 20th century. Edie Gibson escapes from an arranged marriage, heads out West, and discovers there’s a smart, spunky young woman beneath all those fluffy ruffles and fabulous hats. Think “The Gilded Age” meets “Legally Blonde.” In a previous life, Miss Joyce published three contemporary mysteries with St. Martin’s Press under a different pen name. She lives on California’s beautiful Central Coast with her feline companion, a handsome tabby named Dandy. katehopkinsjoyce.com

Robin Somers, Author of Beet Fields, a murder mystery, is a founding member of the Coastal Cruisers chapter of Sisters in Crime, and an Emerita Lecturer in Writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Eleven Stolen Horses, a Wild Horses mystery was inspired by the time Robin lived in the rural Sierra Nevada foothill town of Sonora, California — where she kept her horse, worked as a crime reporter for the local newspaper, and was an editor for the United States Forest Service. In 2002, Robin returned to her home near the beach in Santa Cruz, California, where she lives with her husband and their Havanese, Buster. She is a passionate advocate for wild horses.

Moderated by Scotty Cornfield, a former homicide detective and deep undercover operator. After a 30-year law enforcement adventure, he now works as a private investigator. Before, during, and after his police career, he was a filmmaker, screenwriter, improv performer, and occasional stand-up comic. He’s written two books of flash fiction (much of it crime, comedy, or comedic tales about criminals), and his first novel currently rests in the hands of his capable editor. He also occasionally volunteers on cold-case homicides. His website is scottycornfield.com.

The views and opinions expressed by presenters in Santa Cruz Public Libraries programs are their own and do not constitute an endorsement by Santa Cruz Public Libraries or its member jurisdictions. 

Los puntos de vista y opiniones expresadas por los presentadores de programas en las Bibliotecas Públicas de Santa Cruz son propias y no constituyen en un respaldo o reflejo de la postura de las Bibliotecas Públicas de Santa Cruz ni de sus jurisdicciones miembro.