Panelists 2018

John Carenen John Carenen, a native of Clinton, Iowa, graduated with an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers Workshop. His work has appeared in popular and literary magazines, and he was a featured humor columnist in North and South Carolina newspapers. His debut Thomas O’Shea darkly humorous thriller, Signs of Struggle (2012) was followed by A…

Randy Overbeck Dr. Randy Overbeck is a veteran educator who has served children for more than three decades as a teacher and school leader. Over that time, he has worked many of the roles depicted in his writing with responsibilities ranging from coach and yearbook advisor to principal and superintendent. His first novel, Leave No…

Sheila Sobel Sheila Sobel’s debut novel Color Blind won the 2017 Killer Nashville Reader’s Choice Award for Best Fiction YA and Finalist for the 2017 Silver Falchion Award for Best Fiction YA. Sheila was also nominated for the 2016 Allegra Johnson Prize in Novel Writing through UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. After thirty-three years in the…

Kelly Oliver Kelly Oliver is the award-winning (and best-selling in Oklahoma and on AMAZON), author of The Jessica James Mystery Series, including WOLF, COYOTE, FOX, and JACKAL. Her debut novel, WOLF, won the Independent Publisher’s Gold Medal for best Thriller/Mystery, was a finalist for the Foreward Magazine award for best mystery, and was voted number…

Jennifer Dornbush Jennifer Graeser Dornbush is a screenwriter, author, speaker and forensic specialist. She has several crime drama TV series in development and recently published a mystery series with Crooked Lane Books. She penned the film and novel, God Bless the Broken Road, released in 2018. As a forensic specialist she consults on TV shows…

Amy Rivers Amy Rivers was born and raised in southern New Mexico and currently resides in Colorado with her husband and kids. Her graduate work focused on politics, psychology and forensic criminology, topics she loves to incorporate into her personal essays and novels. Amy has been published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Inspiration for…

PD Halt PD Halt left her native Virginia for New York when she was twenty-one, where she joined the mad men of advertising. She wrote award-winning campaigns, including Nothing Beats a Great Pair of L’eggs, and shot commercials in Paris for Yves Saint Laurent. Interpublic noticed her, and she found herself in artsy, trendy Düsseldorf,…

Charley Pearson Charley retired after a career at the headquarters of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, primarily overseeing chemical and radiological environmental remediation after the end of the Cold War, releasing closing facilities for unrestricted future use with EPA and state agreement. He apparently used up his left brain in the process, so he’s moved…

Maggie Toussaint Southern author Maggie Toussaint writes mystery, suspense, and futuristic fiction. Her work won two Silver Falchion Awards, the Readers’ Choice Award, and the EPIC Award. She is a two-time finalist for Georgia Author of the Year. Under her name and her pen name of Rigel Carson, she’s published twenty novels as well as…

R.G. Belsky R.G. Belsky is an author of crime fiction and a journalist in New York City. His newest mystery, YESTERDAY’S NEWS, is being published in May 2018 by Oceanview. It won the Claymore Award in 2016 (under the title of FORGET ME NOT). He previously wrote the Gil Malloy series for Atria which was…