The Sisters in Crime Heart of Texas chapter will staff a booth at the upcoming Texas Book Festival on Saturday and Sunday, October 27 and 28, 2018. The Festival takes place in downtown Austin on the streets surrounding the Capitol Building. The Festival runs from 10 am to 5 pm on Saturday, and from 11 am to 5 pm on Sunday.
HoTXSinC authors will sell and sign their books in Tent 4, near the Capitol.
HoTXSinC’s TBF Coordinator K.P. Gresham setting up booth in Tent 4
HoTXSinC’s TBF Coordinator K.P. Gresham, Secretary Francine Paino, and President Helen Currie Foster — with HoTXSinC table all set for the weekend — Tent 4, near the Capitol of Texas
Our mission is to promote
the ongoing advancement, recognition,
and professional development of women crime writers. ~ SINC Mission Statement
Program: Michael Noll on the Writers League of Texas Upcoming Programs The Word on Our Members
Blog Challenge: Blogging From A to Z Selected Sites
Subscribe to HOTSHOTS! Nolo Contendere
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Writers’ League of Texas Program Director Michael Noll, author of the recently published book The Writer’s Field Guide to the Craft of Fiction, will discuss strategies for solving problems of character, scene, plot, and structure. A great way to find such strategies is by doing close readings of great writing and adapting the techniques gleaned from these close readings to your own work. The approach presented by the book and his blog, Read to Write Stories, is used in more than three dozen university classrooms around the country. This presentation will offer practical tips for reading like a writer, plus a preview of upcoming Writers’ League programming that could help with your writing and publishing goals.
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Michael Noll is the author of The Writer’s Field Guide to the Craft of Fiction, the Program Director at the Writers’ League of Texas, and the editor of Read to WriteStories,where he posts writing exercises based on published work and interviews authors about the craft behind their novels, stories, and essays. His short stories have been published widely, including in The Best American Mystery Storiesanthology.
The first thing we see about a story is its mystery.
And in the best stories, we return at last to see mystery again.
Every good story has mystery, not the puzzle kind, but the mystery of allurement.
~ Eudora Welty
I believe I could commit a crime. We all can.
It depends on which situations we find ourselves in.
In despair, I would steal food if my children were hungry. ~ Karin Fossum
Patty Flaherty Pagan of Houston has a new collection of crime, literary & speculative short stories, and flash fiction, ENDURING SPIRIT, coming from Spider Road Press in May 2018.
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NoreenCedeño, KP Gresham, Helen Currie Foster, and Dave Ciambrone have joined the blogging team at Writing Wranglers and Warriors. Recent posts there by HoTXSinC members:
Starts Sunday, April 1. The last day to sign up is March 31–click here for instructions.
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I think it was Freud who said that we’re all arrested at a certain age.
For me, it was always 13. ~ Megan Abbott
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Upcoming Events
Events listed below appear on the blogTexas Book Lover: Great books and all things Texas. Check Texas Book Lover for info on calls for submissions, workshops, conferences, book clubs, and other topics related to reading and writing.
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To me thin people never had any meaningful problems. ~ Dorothy Cannell
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No Lo Contendere
Members, send news to kathywaller1 at gmail dot com. Include both past and upcoming events.
Also send head shots and a list of your book titles/short story titles for theHOTXSINC author page.
HOTSHOTS! welcomes reviews and articles written by members. Email kathywaller1 at gmail dot com.
Our mission is to promote
the ongoing advancement, recognition,
and professional development of women crime writers. ~ SINC Mission Statement
NEW LOCATION on March 11: CAFE EXPRESS!
Program: Billy Kring on Creating and Stealing New Identities
Subscribe to HOTSHOTS! & HOTSHOTS! Wants You
Upcoming Programs The Word on Our Members Selected Sites Nolo Contendere
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Billy Kring
on
Creating & Stealing New Identities
Our Sisters in Crime speaker for Sunday, March 11, will be Billy Kring. In the world of entertainment, Billy Kring is a prolific writer, authoring over twenty books, as well as an actor. His years as a Border Patrol Agent, brought him into situations that color his stories with first-hand experience. He has been a consultant on terrorism and international border issues in such places as Mexico, South America, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, and the Pan Pacific.
Billy has also written a romantic suspense novel under the name B.G. Kring, because his wife asked him to, and his latest novel, Hunter’s Moon, has met with great success. He will speak on creating or stealing new identities, a topic that is of particular value to many writers.
On the sidebar at the right, scroll down to the words ENTER YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS, AND WE’LL SEND REMINDERS TO YOUR EMAIL. Type in your email address below.
As instructed, Click to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
WordPress will send you an email asking for your permission to notify you when HOTSHOTS! is published. Click on the indicated link. You’ll then receive an email every time a new issue of HOTSHOTS! goes online.
Some members have already received the email from WordPress (because the editor subscribed for them). If you received the email and didn’t respond but would like to subscribe, follow the steps listed above. If you don’t want to receive notifications, just ignore the email.
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HOTSHOTS! Wants You
HOTSHOTS!welcomes reviews and articles written by members. Query kathywaller1 at gmail dot com.
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“What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is this — two things:
I crave truth. And I lie. ” ― Tana French, In the Woods
Sue Meredith Cleveland and Dixie Lee Evatt, aka Meredith Lee, were featured in a four-part article in February in AARP Texas. The authors of SHROUDED: A Crispin Leads Mystery spoke about their book and writing as a team.
Meredith Lee’s SHROUDED received a starred Blue Ink review in the February 15, 2018 issue of Booklist. Sue Cleveland and Dixie Evatt write together under the pen name Meredith Lee.
“Here’s a little tip for you. If you don’t like being called a murderer, don’t kill people.” ― Tana French, Faithful Place
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No Lo Contendere
Members, send news to kathywaller1 at gmail dot com. Include both past and upcoming events.
Also send head shots and a list of your book titles/short story titles to Kathy for theHOTXSINC author page.
HOTSHOTS! welcomes reviews and articles written by members. Email kathywaller1 at gmail dot com.
Our mission is to promote
the ongoing advancement, recognition,
and professional development of women crime writers. ~ SINC Mission Statement
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NEW LOCATION on January 14: CAFE EXPRESS!
Program: US Army Lieutenant Colonel Michael Grygar
Art Taylor: Sue Grafton, A Remembrance (of Sorts)
HOTXSINC Election of Officers
The Word on Our Members
Selected Sites
May Your Coming Year
Nolo Contendere
Our dues remain the same
~ $20 for the year ~ and should be paid
at the first meeting. Cash or check, please.
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Our 2018 programs will be terrific
starting with
US Army Lieutenant Colonel Michael Grygar
LTC Grygar will speak about his work as a Military Police officer (MP) and Foreign Area Officer (FAO).
If you have questions about the Army, military police, or how the US Army trains and supports foreign military forces, bring them to the meeting.
LTC Michael Grygar entered military service in June of 1992, enlisting in the US Army Reserve as a Combat Medic. He was commissioned as a 2LT in the Military Police Corps through the University of Texas at Arlington ROTC program in 1996, while simultaneously earning a degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice. LTC Grygar entered Active Duty in 2002. In 2009, he began Foreign Area Officer training at the Defense Language Institute where he studied Portuguese. He has completed a Masters in National Security Studies with a focus
on Latin America at the Naval Postgraduate School.
LTC Grygar has been assigned to Fort Leonard Wood, MO; USAG Bamberg, Germany; Iraq; Monterrey, CA; US Military Group, Guatemala; Fort Polk, LA; Afghanistan; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Fort Sam Houston, TX. He has served in a wide variety of assignments as a Military Police officer and then as a Foreign Area Officer, including positions as a Battle Captain in Iraq; Commander of the Headquarters and Headquarters Company of the 793rd MP BN; Director of Emergency Services/Provost Marshal of the US Army Garrison in Bamberg, Germany; visiting instructor at the Guatemalan Command and General Staff College; Battalion Operations Officer, and Battalion XO of the 2nd Battalion, 353rd Infantry Regiment; instructor at the Brazilian Command and General Staff College in Brazil; and as the Political Military Affairs Division Chief within the Regional Affairs Directorate.
He is the recipient of the Bronze Star Medal (1 OLC), the Meritorious Service Medal (1 OLC), the Army Commendation Medal (1 OLC), the Army Achievement Medal (1 OLC), the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, the NATO Medal, the Parachutists Badge and the Air Assault Badge.
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Sisters in Crime Heart of Texas Chapter meets monthly on the second Sunday of the month, at 2:15 p.m. at Cafe Express,3418 N. Lamar, Austin 78705, 512 452-9888
For information about the Heart of Texas Chapter contact Joyce Arquette, Publicity, (512) 266-6543.
At the December 10, 2017 meeting, HOTXSINC elected officers for 2018. There being no nominations from the floor, the nominating committee’s slate of candidates was elected by acclamation:
President – Helen Currie Foster
Vice President/President Elect – Noreen Cedeno
Secretary/Membership – Francine Paino
Treasurer – David Ciambrone
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THE WORD ON OUR MEMBERS
K. P. Gresham’s radio play “The Case of the Poisoned Holly” was performed by a cast of HOTXSINC members at the annual holiday party on December 20, 2017. She spoke and signed copies of her mystery MURDER IN THE SECOND PEW at BookPeople on December 8.
“Amazon now requires you to purchase a minimum of $50 worth of books or other products before you can leave a review or answer questions about a product. These purchases, and it looks like it is a cumulative amount, must be purchased via credit card or debit card — gift cards won’t count.”
“Hindi pulp fiction writer Surender Mohan Pathak has been made ‘the Agatha Christie of India’ by Minakshi Thakur, who saw potential in a genre ignored by other publishers.”
“Now, Amazon is in a strange situation; it cannot itself decide if it’s a publisher or a distributor, but in either case the demand for a copy of our contract with our publisher is out of line, and Steve and I will not comply.”- Author Sharon Lee
The Passive Voice: “In an update to the OP, TeleRead says Amazon customer service solved the problem. PG is happy to hear that in part because the authors seem like nice people. “PG is usually on the little guy’s/gal’s side in these kind of disputes, but in this case, he understands Amazon’s concerns:…”
May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art– write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, that you surprise yourself.
Our mission is to promote
the ongoing advancement, recognition,
and professional development of women crime writers. ~ SINC Mission Statement
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Program: HOTXSINC Holiday Celebration “Holly Through the Heart” ~ An Original Radio Play
Election of Officers
Refreshments ~ Finger Foods
The Word on Our Members
Article: “Using Those Movies in Your Head to Promote Your Novel”
Report: Texas Book Festival Call for Submissions Selected Sites Nolo Contendere
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It’s the Season
Heart of Texas
~ Holiday Mode! ~
Sunday, December 10, 2017 2:15 p.m. at Book People
Election of Officers
SPECIAL EVENT
*****A Radio Play by Kathy Gresham*****
“The Case
of the
Poisoned Holly”
Refreshments & Finger Foods
Come One & All
Free & Open to the Public
Celebrate the Holiday Season
Say Goodbye to 2017
Look Forward to an Exciting New Year
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Sisters in Crime Heart of Texas Chapter meets monthly on the second Sunday of the month at 2:15 p.m. at Book People, 603 North Lamar, Austin, phone 512-472-5050. Take the elevator to the third floor.
For information about the Heart of Texas Chapter, contact Joyce Arquette, Publicity (512) 266-6543, and check out our website at http://sinc-heartoftexas.com
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An I had but one penny in the world,
thou shouldst have to buy gingerbread.
~ William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost
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The popular idea that a child forgets easily is not an accurate one. Many people go right through life in the grip of an idea which has been impressed on them in very tender years. ~ Agatha Christie
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Election of Officers
At the December meeting, HOTXSINC’S members will elect officers for 2018. The nominating committee presents the current members of the board, who have agreed to remain in office for 2018 if members so desire.
Nominees are the following:
Helen Currie Foster — President
Noreen Cedeno — Vice President/President Elect/Program Chair
Francine Paino — Secretary/Membership
Dave Ciambrone — Treasurer
The Pastor Matt Hayden returns to BookPeople to solve the latest murder (or was it a missed attempt to kill him?) in MURDER IN THE SECOND PEW. I’m looking forward to seeing all of my Sisters in Crime there!
Meredith Lee’sSHROUDED was reviewed in Blue Ink Reviews.Sue Cleveland and Dixie Evatt, who write under the name Meredith Lee, spoke and signed at their book launch at BookPeople on November 10.
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Manning Wolfe’s second novel, MUSIC NOTES: TEXAS LADY LAWYER VS L.S. BARON was released November 24.
Merit Bridges is left to sort out the truth while navigating the music business and the dark web, but she soon finds herself confronted with a web of lies so masterfully woven that she fears he may never find any answers. Merit must fight not only for justice but for her reputation, livelihood, and her life.
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Members, please email links to your websites and/or blogs to kathywaller1 at gmail dot com so we can list them in our blogroll. Email your news/announcements to the same address.
When you send news, please provide working links to everything you want linked: book covers, titles, your name, your website, venues for book launches, signings, panels, preferred vendor, etc. The editor is regrets she can no longer search for them. If you don’t provide a link, there won’t be a link.
Using Those Movies In Your Head to Promote Your Novel
Sue Cleveland & Dixie Lee Evatt
by Sue Meredith Cleveland and Dixie Lee Evatt(aka Meredith Lee)
When you’re writing do you sometimes visualize a scene as a movie in your head? Many of us do but few of us ever see our novel on the big screen.
Now there is a way you can bring a little piece of that movie to life and sell your books at the same time. For about $100 it’s possible to produce videos to promote your book and book events through social media.
These video trailers can be produced using advanced Powerpoint or Keynote software and tapping into websites that sell royalty free images, stock footage and stock music. It’s a four (or four and a half) step process.
Step #1: Conceptualize a simple storyboard. Ask yourself: What is my core message? (Example: “Shrouded goes on sale August 16, 2017.”). Think in terms of bumper stickers and billboards not broadcasts. You have less than 10 to 12 seconds to attract potential on-line customers. Viewers will flash through the material pretty fast. What images, colors, sounds and words build tension for your key points? In Shrouded we used graveyards with weeping angels and a night view of the Paris skyline as backdrops.
Step #2 Produce your video. You do this by uploading text, images and sound to your application (Keynote, PowerPoint or similar software). Experiment with the animation tools available to you and synchronize the music for maximum impact. This is where the creative side of your brain gets to play. Select royalty-free images and music from websites that sell these:
Once you have your royalty-free images and music, upload them to a template. The Keynote application on Mac is useful as are the animation options. Experiment with the tools offered for transitioning between slides, confetti, blur and many more, for building transitions between slides.
Set aside some quality time at the computer to synchronize all of this. It gets easier as you work with it.
Step #3. Post production. Pick your platform (Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, etc.). Read up on the file format required for a particular platform. Convert the now animated slide show to the format required by your online site of choice. Each website will list its specifications. For instance, Amazon will take any of several (AVI, FLV, MOV, MPG, WMV ad MP4).
Step #4. Distribution. Now you are ready to let the world see what you have done. You can track whether or not your video trailer is attracting attention for your book or event. When our promo trailer ran, our Amazon ranking hit a high of 47,815. Our ranking dipped as low as 945,856 when we did not run book trailers. These rankings reflect our books standing against other books in our genre, not the number of books sold.
Step #4.5. Targeting. Some platforms allow you to “boost” by targeting selected demographics. For instance, our Facebook author’s page offered boosts. We purchased $35 – $50 “boosts” to run for a week. We selected our demographic. An example: Men and women between the ages of 35 – 80 living in Austin who read mysteries. The “boosts” of our trailers on our Facebook author’s page reached between 4,000 to 6,000 people.
With eight million print titles on Amazon and a million ebook titles, it can be hard to get attention for your book when you have a shoestring budget. We’ve found that video book trailers are one more way to boost sales on a budget.
I have patches of insomnia, and I’m fascinated by the otherness of the world at night. The stillness.
Daytime preoccupations fall away, standards change, thoughts change.
It’s a canvas for reinvention, I think. ~ Morag Joss
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Texas Book Festival
by Helen Currie Foster, HOTXSINC President
Sisters in Crime awarded HOTXSINC a grant to fund a booth and other necessities needed for participation in the Texas Book Festival November 4 and 5. Below is an excerpt of the report President Helen Currie Foster submitted to Sisters in Crime.
SUCCESSFUL USE OF SINC GRANT
Sisters in Crime, Heart of Texas Chapter (HOTXSINC) so appreciates SINC’s $500 grant to us for our non-profit booth at the Texas Book Festival. The Festival is huge; it stretches from the Texas Capitol Building down Congress Avenue and this year up Colorado Street as well. Thousands of people from all over the country attend every year (we talked to visitors from Seattle, Chicago, Sicily, Turkey…). We were assigned a great location—Booth 417 in Exhibit Tent 4. I’m attaching the information for Exhibitors (you can find us listed therein). We were busy at our booth ALL DAY SATURDAY Nov. 4 and ALL DAY SUNDAY Nov. 5 until the Festival closed at 5:30.
HOTxSINC BOOK SALES! At our booth we sold books by HOTXSINC members (including Kathy Waller, Dave Ciambrone, Noreen Cedeño, Francine Paino, Kay George, Valerie Chandler, Laura Oles, Helen Currie Foster, Kathleen Phelps, Dixie Lee Evatt, Sue Cleveland, and including two anthologies including member contributions). We offered bookmarks and information on the plots and authors. The booth was staffed from time to time by Kathy Phelps, Noreen Cedeño, Fran Paino, Dave Ciambrone, Helen Currie Foster, and Dixie Lee Evatt, Sue Cleveland, Valerie Chandler and Pam Baggett-Wallis.
BANNERS: We had banners! HOTXSINC banners, our SINC banners and the giant SINC table-skirt.
SINC Brochures: We had a purchased Plexiglas table stand to hold SINC brochures, and another stand for our HOTXSINC brochure, which tells the history of our chapter. People were very interested in the history of both SINC and our organization and SINC, and by the end of the festival ALL brochures had been taken.
HOTXSINC Brochures: Fran Paino developed a brochure for the Festival recounting HOTxSINC’s 27-year history—very popular.
Also, we had a HOTXSINC membership signupform with our website listed, and have only a couple left.
CONVERSATIONS! We talked to many, many people during this two-day event. We talked to Austinites, out-of-towners, foreigners, students, retirees, friends, strangers. As you might expect, a number were writers/aspiring writers. The eye-catching banners drew people who were curious about HOTxSINC and SINC and loved hearing that we were local authors who were there to sign our own books. We made some good contacts with future members and had great conversations with others about critique groups, writing processes, thesupportive nature of HOTXSINC, and of course the excellent programs we’ve had this year.
THANK YOU AGAIN FOR THIS GRANT. We believe we’re establishing a presence at the most important book festival in Texas, one heavily attended and publicized, and we think it’s really important for the advancement of SINC and HOTXSINC for us to be there.
HOTXSINC books, 2017 Texas Book Festival
Noreen Cedeno, 2017 Texas Book Festival
Exhibitor tent, 2017 Texas Book Festival
Texas State Capitol
Exhibitor, 2017 Texas Book Festival
Noreen Cedeno & Dave Ciambrone, 2017 Texas Book Festival
Francine Paino, Helen Currie Foster, & Noreen Cedeno, 2017 Texas Book Festival
Sue Cleveland, Noreen Cedeno, Kathy Waller, & Helen Currie Foster
Francine Paino & Noreen Cedeno, 2017 Texas Book Festival
Noreen Cedeno & Dave Ciambrone
Dixie Evatt, 2017 Texas Book Festival
Dixie Evatt, Helen Currie Foster ,& Kathy Gresham
Noreen Cedeno and shopper, 2017 Texas Book Festival
Dixie Evatt, Helen Currie Foster, & Kathy Gresham
Dixie Evatt, Helen Currie Foster, & Kathy Gresham, 2017 Texas Book Festival
HOTXSINC books, 2017 Texas Book Festival
Scott Montgomery, Sue Cleveland, Dixie Evatt, & Helen Currie Foster, 2017 Texas Book Festival
HOTXSINC books, 2017 Texas Book Festival
Exhibit, 2017 Texas Book Festival
Sue Cleveland, Dixie Evatt, & Helen Currie Foster
Scott Montgomery, Sue Cleveland, Dixie Evatt, & Helen Currie Foster
HOTXSINC books, 2017 Texas Book Festival
Sue Cleveland, Noreen Cedeno, Kathy Waller, & Helen Currie Foster, 2017 Texas Book Festival
Statue, Texas State Capitol Grounds
Exhibitor’s tent,, 2017 Texas Book Festival
Bookwoman exhibit, 2017 Texas Book Festival
HOTXSINC books, 2017 Texas Book Festival
HOTXSINC books, 2017 Texas Book Festival
HOTXSINC banner, 2017 Texas Book Festival
Bookwoman exhibit, 2017 Texas Book Festival
Shoppers at HOTXSINC table, 2017 Texas Book Festival
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I do read P.D. James because she pays much more attention to character,
to a particular atmosphere or setting.
But most mystery writers, I think,
are controlled by the plot. ~ Martha Grimes
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One definition of noir is where a not-so-good man or woman
tries to touch something good – and fails. ~ S. J. Rozan
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Call for Submissions
HOTXSINC lists the following websites for information only. Readers themselves will need to evaluate reliability and quality.
Members, when you email news tokathywaller1 at gmail dot com. Send a headshot or snapshot and titles of books and stories for inclusion in the author page. Send the URL of your website or blog so the can be included in our blogroll
Also – When you send news, please provide working linksto everything you want linked: book covers, titles, your name, venues for book launches, signings, panels, etc., and make clear which link goes with each item. (The editor is a little slow on the uptake and needs help). The editor will no longer search for these. If you don’t provide a link, there won’t be a link.
Kathy Waller, editor kathywaller1 at gmail dot com
Michael Noll is the author of 
Sue Meredith Cleveland and Dixie Lee Evatt, aka 
https://states.aarp.org/taking-pen-going-press/
Meredith Lee’s SHROUDED received a 
Manning Wolfe’s second novel, MUSIC NOTES: TEXAS LADY LAWYER VS L.S. BARON was released November 24.
