About

Who are the Miss Demeanors?

CONNIE BERRY

Connie Berry writes the award-winning and best-selling Kate Hamilton Mystery series, set in the UK and featuring an American antiques dealer with a gift for solving crimes. Connie was raised by antiques dealers who instilled in her a passion for history, fine art, and travel. During college she attended St. Clare’s College, Oxford, where she fell under the spell of the British Isles. Besides reading mysteries and writing them, Connie loves foreign travel, cute animals, and all things British. She lives in Ohio with her husband and adorable dog, Emmie. You can find her at www.connieberry.com.


SUSAN BREEN

Susan Breen is the author of the Maggie Dove mystery series. Her shorts stories have been published by Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, the Malice Domestic anthology Mystery Most Diabolical and the 2022 MWA anthology (edited by S. J. Rozan) Crime Hits Home.  One of her stories was also longlisted for the 2021 Margery Allingham Short Story Competition. Susan’s first novel, The Fiction Class, won a Washington Irving Award from the Westchester Library Association.

Susan teaches fiction and novel writing for Gotham Writers and is on the faculty of the New York Pitch Conference. She lives in a very pretty little village on the Hudson River with her husband and two sweet cockapoo dogs. Her three grown children are flourishing elsewhere, and she has a brand-new granddaughter, Savannah Rose. You can find out more about her at www.susanjbreen.com


C. “MICHELE” DORSEY

C. Michele Dorsey is the author of Oh Danny Girl, the first in the Danny and Nora O’Brien mysteries, and the Sabrina Salter series, including No Virgin Island, Permanent Sunset, Tropical Depression, and Salt Water Wounds. Michele is a lawyer, mediator, former adjunct law professor and nurse, who didn’t know she could be a writer when she grew up. Now that she does, Michele writes constantly, whether on St John, outer Cape Cod, or anywhere within a mile of the ocean.  


MARNI GRAFF

Marni Graff is the award-winning author of The Nora Tierney English Mysteries and The Trudy Genova Manhattan Mysteries. The Nora Tierney English Mysteries feature an American writer living in England who has a nose for murder. With four in print, the fifth, The Evening’s Amethyst, September of 2021. Graff’s Manhattan series focuses on nurse Trudy Genova, a medical consultant for a New York movie studio. Based on Graff’s real-life position, it is the series her mentor PD James advised her to write. She is currently writing the third, Death in the Orchard. Both series are a mix of amateur sleuth and police procedural.

Graff’s short story, “Quiche Alain,” is part of the Anthony-award winning anthology from Malice Domestic, Murder Most Edible, as well as co-author of Writing in a Changing World, and is Managing Editor of Bridle Path Press, a curated indie press. She is a member of Sisters in Crime National, Mavens of Mayhem SinC (NY), Triangle SinC (NC), the NC Writers Network, and The International Association of Crime Writers.  This year she was judge for the IACW’s Dashiell Hammett Award. Graff has published creative non-fiction, essays and for seven years wrote for Mystery Review magazine.

All Graff’s books can be found on https://www.bridlepathpress.com  and Amazon.com, and are also available as eBooks and on Audible.

Email: bluevirgingraff@gmail.com

@GraffMarni

www.facebook.com/bluevirgin.graff


CATHERINE MAIORISI

Catherine Maiorisi is the author of the NYPD Detective Chiara Corelli Mystery series featuring Corelli and her partner Detective P.J. Parker–two tough women, fighting each other while solving high profile crimes. A Matter of BloodThe Blood Runs Cold, A Message in Blood, and Legacy in the Blood are all available as ebooks, paperbacks, and audiobooks narrated by Abby Craden.  

In addition to publishing multiple mystery and romance short stories in various anthologies, Catherine has authored four romances novels. Her latest book, The Disappearance of Lindy James, was awarded a GOLDIE for Best General Fiction.


EMILYA NAYMARK

Emilya Naymark is the author of the novels Hide in Place and Behind the Lie.
Her short stories appear in A Stranger Comes to Town, edited by Michael Koryta, Secrets in the Water, After Midnight: Tales from the Graveyard Shift, River River Journal, Snowbound: Best New England Crime Stories 2017, and 1+30: THE BEST OF MYSTORY. When not writing, Emilya works as a visual artist and reads massive quantities of psychological thrillers, suspense, and crime fiction. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her family. Find out more at emilyanaymark.com/author.


KEENAN POWELL

Keenan Powell is the Agatha, Lefty, and Silver Falchion nominated author of the Maeve Malloy Mystery series, Deadly Solution, Hemlock Needle, Hell and High Water. While still in high school, she was one of the illustrators of the original Dungeons and Dragons. Art seemed an impractical pursuit – not an heiress, wouldn’t marry well, hated teaching – so she went to law school instead. When not writing or practicing law, Keenan can be found oil painting, studying the Irish language, or hanging out with her friends at mystery conventions.


LANE STONE

Proud baby boomer and dog mom, Lane Stone is originally from Atlanta, Georgia, but has lived in the DC area for over three decades. She now lives in Alexandria, Virginia and Lewes, Delaware with her husband, Larry Korb, and their Standard Schnauzer, Cordy.

Her art thriller trilogy, “The Big Picture,” debuted in May 2022, with the publication of THE COLLECTOR. DEAD MEN DON’T DECORATE was published in November 2022, written as Cordy Abbott.

Her first series was the “Tiara Investigation Mysteries,” followed by a co-written standalone romantic suspense, MALTIPOOS ARE MURDER. Next, she wrote the “Pet Palace Mysteries” series.

When not writing, Lane enjoys traveling. Antarctica and Oberammergau in 2022 and Panama Canal and Norway in 2023. Volunteering for worthy causes has always been a part of her life. She is the Virginia state president of the American Association of University Women, and the immediate past co-president of AAUW-Alexandria. In that capacity she was one of the originators of their human trafficking rescue program. (A portion of the proceeds from DEAD MEN DON’T DECORATE is donated to that project.)  She serves on the Board of Directors of the Delaware River & Bay Lighthouse Foundation. She is a graduate of Georgia State University and serves on the university’s political science department advisory board. She has a post-graduate certificate in Antiquities Theft and Art Crime.

She is represented by Dawn Dowdle, Blue Ridge Literary Agency. And is a member of SinC, MWA, and ITW. 

She loves to hear from readers. www.LaneStoneBooks.com and on Facebook, Lane Stone Writer.


SHARON WARD

Sharon Ward is the author of In Deep and Sunken Death. She is an avid scuba diver. She was a PADI certified divemaster and has hundreds of dives under her weight belt. She wanted to share the joy and wonder of the underwater world–hence,  she wrote In Deep and Sunken Death. I hope you love them.