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.


Dawn M. Barclay

Dawn M. Barclay is an award-winning author who writes psychological and romantic suspense as D.M. Barr and non-fiction under her own name. Her eight published books include Expired Listings, Murder Worth the Weight, and Saving Grace: A Psychological Thriller. Her newest release Deadly When Disturbed, will be released by Level Best Books in January, 2025. LBB will also publish her upcoming multi-volume series, Vacations Can Be Murder: A True Crime Lover’s Travel Guide. Dawn recently finished her second stint co-editing a Sisters in Crime NY/Tri-state anthology. New York State of Crime, published by Down & Out Books in the fall of 2024, which includes her third published short story, Orchestral Removals in the Dark

Dawn offers developmental and copy editing through SuggestedDevelopment.com, and ghostwrites personal histories and corporate profiles through LegacyQuest.net. A member of ITW, she has served as president of Hudson Valley Scribes, vice president of Sisters in Crime-NY (still a board member), and the newsletter author/board member of the NY chapter of Mystery Writers of America. Follow her at www.dmbarr.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.


Lori Robbins

Lori Robbins is the Amazon bestselling author of the On Pointe and Master Class mystery series and a contributor to The Secret Ingredient: A Mystery Writers Cookbook. She won two Silver Falchions, the Indie Award for Best Mystery, and second place in the Daphne du Maurier Award for Mystery and Suspense. Her short stories include “Leading Ladies”which received an Honorable Mention in the 2022 Best American Mystery and Suspense anthology. A former dancer, Lori performed with Ballet Hispanico and the St. Louis Ballet, but it was her commercial work, for Pavlova Perfume and Macy’s, that paid the bills. After ten very lean years onstage she became an English teacher and now writes full-time. Lori is a co-president of the New York/ Tristate Sisters in Crime and an active member of MWA.

Her experiences as a dancer, teacher, writer, and mother of six have made her an expert in the homicidal tendencies everyday life inspires.

You can find her at lorirobbins.com


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.