2021 Members
On this page, you'll find a list of current Triangle SinC members, brief bios and links to their blogs and websites. Please also take a look at the TSinC Books page for the latest news on members' current or forthcoming books, appearances, and signing events.
Esme Addison Ever since Esme discovered Nancy Drew, she's wanted to solve mysteries. As a mystery author, she's finally found a way to make that dream come true. A former military spouse, Esme lives in Raleigh, NC with her husband and three boys. When she's not writing, you can find her visiting B&Bs, breweries, wineries, and historical sites. Her debut mystery, A Spell For Trouble, will be released by Crooked Lane in May 2020.
JD Allen's Sin City Investigations series launched with 19 Souls earlier this year. She is a Mystery Writers of America Freddie Award-winner. She has short stories in the Anthony Award-winning anthology, Murder under the Oaks as well as Carolina Crimes: 20 Tales of Need, Greed, and Dirty Deeds. She's served on the Bouchercon National Board, and belongs to MWA and PI Writers of America,. JD is chapter President. She’s an Ohio State Univ. alum with a degree in forensic anthropology and a creative writing minor.
Maria Elena Alonso-Sierra is the award-winning author of two romantic suspense novels, The Coin and The Book of Hours. She holds a Masters in English literature and has worked as a professional dancer, singer, journalist, and literature teacher. When not writing, she roams around to discover new places to set her novels.
Sue Anger has worked in magazine publishing, marketing content, and developmental editing. She loves to help small businesses and nonprofits develop digital marketing strategies. When she’s not out fighting for the underdog, she loves to go sailing with her buds. Sue's first novel, LAST KNOWN PORT, will be published soon. This historical fiction mystery is set in Beaufort, North Carolina in 1923. For more information, visit and like her Facebook page.
Sharon Bader
Judith Barillaro
Elisabeth Benfey
Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier lives in Apex, NC. Originally from St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, she is a writer of contemporary Caribbean fiction and mysteries. Ashley tries to fit writing into days that include teaching first grade and wrangling her 4 children. She’s excited to join Triangle Sisters In Crime as she takes her first big steps into becoming a ‘serious’ writer of crime and mystery stories set in her home island!
Tammy Bird is a suspense/thriller writer living in Wendell, North Carolina with her wife and two cats. Her work is rarely defined as sweet or cozy, and she likes it that way. She is not here for sweet or cozy. She is here for psychologically hard and gritty and real.
You can connect with Tammy on FaceBook at https://www.facebook.com/tammybirdauthor/, Instagram @tammybirdauthor, and Twitter @Tammy_Bird. You can also visit her website at https://tammybird.com.
April Bradley recently moved to Durham after living and raising a family outside New Haven, Connecticut. Her writing has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize as well as for The Best of Small Fictions and the Best of the Net. Her work has appeared in CHEAP POP, Hypertrophic Literary, Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Narratively, NANO Fiction, Smokelong Quarterly, and Thrice Fiction, among others. She serves as a submissions editor at SmokeLong Quarterly and as a reader Pidgeonholes. When April can manage time away, she sails the Pamlico Sound with her husband, John, on their sailboat and true home, Daily Alice. Find her online at www.aprilbradley.com and on Twitter @april_bradley.
Yvette Brantley
Jim Breeden's novel, Painting Angela, has been published by the North American Review after winning the Gas Station Pulp Award for literary crime noir. His stories and poems have appeared in the Apalachee Review, the Broad River Review, Crime Factory, Light Poetry, the Main Street Rag, and several anthologies. He is a former chapter secretary, and lives in Durham with his wife Susanna.
S. Katherine (Kat) Burnette is a state district court judge serving Franklin, Granville, Person, Vance and Warren counties. She earned her B. A. degree (English and Politics) and J. D. degree from Wake Forest University. In 2019, she earned a MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. Her poem, "A Mother's Prayer," appears in Flying South 2019. She lives in Oxford with her husband and has been working on a legal thriller.
Rick Bylina (1953-2054) was born on a snowy night in New Jersey (or so he was told) and expects to die, “…wailing against that goodnight…,” with a keyboard in his lap and a story in his head on January 17, 2054. For now, he lives with his wife in the woods near Lake Jordan and the nearby town of Apex, North Carolina. Ongoing corporate downsizing in the early 21st century convinced him to tap into his passion for writing rather than remain a cog in the corporate wheel. He scribbled any crazy idea that crossed his mind. After gaining discipline, he published his debut mystery novel, “One Promise Too Many” in 2011. And the books keep coming . Writing happens spontaneously between housework, gardening, cooking, fishing, and wrestling alligators.
Patricia Cassese
Linda McCoy Cromartie adopted North Carolina as her "home is where the heart is" state when she came to UNC-CH in 1970. Since retiring from careers in teaching and real estate, she has begun to write mysteries full-time. Linda lives in the small mountain town of Franklin, which inspires her writing. Her work in progress, DeSoto Trail, combines gemstone mines, Cherokee legends and drug trafficking in a cozy thriller.
Donna Crowe
Henry Danis
Nellie Dixon
E.B. Davis’s short stories have appeared online and in print. Chesapeake Crimes: Homicidal Holidays, included “Compromised Circumstances.” The Carolina Crimes: 19 Tales of Lust, Love, and Longing anthology contained “Ice Cream Allure,” and “Wishing for Ignorance” was chosen for A Shaker Of Margaritas: That Mysterious Woman. She blogs and interviews authors at http://writerswhokill.blogspot.com.
Barbara Dolny-Bombar - Before moving from NY to NC, Barbara Dolny-Bombar won numerous awards during a long-time career in broadcast television (Commercial and Public) and as an independent (indie) producer. As a writer, her articles and short stories have been published in local, regional, and national publications. She now works as an independent writer / photographer, does a bit of web design, and experiments as a digital artist in Warhol-esque style art. A favorite activity is people watching - she gets some of her best ideas that way.
Cynthia Drake
Tim Garvin grew up in the forests of Juneau, Alaska, with whales in the front yard and bears in the back yard. He ended up in Arkansas where he worked as a potter for years, then as a porcelain jeweler (bluebusstudiostore.com if you want to see his work), selling at art shows and galleries around the country. He has always wanted to write, and in fact got an MFA in fiction from the University of Arkansas, but every time he picked up the pen, he was disappointed with what came out, so he put it down again. Now it seems he has picked up the pen for good, having received a two-book contract from Blackstone Publishing. The first book, A Dredging in Swann, is due January 28, 2020. The second, Four Evenings, is already with the editor. He lives in the countryside around Durham with his wife, Cynthia, and their dog, Blue, both fine companions. Tim is chapter Treasurer.
Nora Gaskin Esthimer - A lifelong resident of the Durham-Chapel Hill area, Nora has a Bachelor’s Degree in English with Honors in Creative Writing from UNC, and a Masters in English from the University of Washington in Seattle. She retired in 2005, after more than 24 years as a stock broker and financial adviser, to focus on writing. While Nora's first published novel, Until Proven: A Mystery in 2 Parts, is entirely fiction, the seed for it was a real murder that happened in Chapel Hill on Christmas Eve, 1963. She lives and writes in Chatham County, inspired by her native landscape, her husband, and three dogs. Her favorite word is "gratitude."
Judith Fowler
Toni Goodyear is a former journalist and winner of the North Carolina Press Association Award for feature writing. Other past careers include freelance writing (e.g., Redbook, Bantam Books jacket copy, Fawcett Publications), public relations, market research, ghostbusting (yes, really), managing data for clinical trials, and teaching university psychology. She holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from UNC Chapel Hill. She has just completed her first cozy mystery, Trouble Brewing in Tanawha Falls.
Marni Graff is the award-winning author of The Nora Tierney English Mysteries and The Trudy Genova Manhattan Mysteries. The Nora Tierneys feature an American writer living in the UK; the fifth in that series is set to publish the summer of 2021. Trudy Geonva has Graff's favorite nursing job, as a medical consultant to a NY movie studio. With two in print, Graff is currently writing the third. She is co-author of Writing in a Changing World and her short story, "Quiche Alain" appears in the Agatha Award-winning Malice Domestic Anthology, Murder Most Edible. Her most recent essay is in The Who, The What and The When. Graff is Managing Editor of Bridle Path Press; a member of Sisters in Crime and two local chapters, the NC Writers Network, and the International Association of Crime Writers.
N.A. Granger is a Professor Emerita at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. After forty years of research and teaching undergraduates and medical students, she decided to turn her knowledge of human anatomy to the craft of mystery writing. In addition to the Rhe Brewster mystery series (Death in a Red Canvas Chair, Death in a Dacron Sail, Death by Pumpkin), she has written for Coastal Living and Sea Level magazines and several times for the Bella Online Literary Review. You can find more of her writings and musings on her website. She lives with her husband and a Maine coon cat who blogs in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and she spends a portion of every summer in Maine, researching for her books and selling them, too.
Calvin Hall
Mary Harris's grandmother gave her a Perry Mason mystery novel to distract her for a while. When she was four years old. Which she read. This started a lifelong love affair with words. Now, no genre is safe! Although she's still hesitant about haiku. Mary is published in fiction and non-fiction and is also a screenwriter; she understands the struggle to get the idea from the head to the paper. Her main mantra is, "It's all about the story." She is a passionate believer in the Oxford comma, but allows nothing to interrupt the flow of the story. She lives in Raleigh with her family and Diggz, the best cockapoo ever.
Kathleen Heady is a native of rural Illinois, but has lived and traveled many places, including numerous trips to Great Britain and seven years living in Costa Rica. She is the author of three mystery novels, Hotel Saint Clare, The Gate House, which was a finalist for an EPIC award in 2011, and Lydia's Story. As a change of pace, her latest is a Young Adult historical fantasy entitled Jewels in Time, set in thirteenth century England, and other times and places.
Pamela Hirschler
Charlotte Hunter
Linda Janssen
Sara Johnson lives in Durham where she teaches part time and plots mysteries while walking her goldendoodle Beau. Her first forensic mystery, Molten Mud Murder, was published by Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks in 2019. The second book in the Alexa Glock mystery series, The Bones Remember, comes out in September, 2020. Sara is the current president of Triangle Sisters in Crime.
Larry Keeton
Diane Kelly is a retired tax adviser and former assistant attorney general for the state of Texas, Diane Kelly repeatedly encountered white-collar criminals. When she realized her experiences made great fodder for novels, her fingers hit the keyboard and thus began her award-winning Death and Taxes romantic mystery series. A graduate of her hometown’s Citizens Police Academy, Diane also writes the Paw Enforcement series, which stars a female K-9 team. She’ll launch her new House-Flipper Mystery series in February of 2019. Diane lives in North Carolina with her own hunky hero, a trio of dogs, and too many cats to count.
Lawrence Kelter
Harry Krebs
Eric Larson has been writing fiction since the third grade but only began writing traditional mysteries in Spring 2019. He hopes to self-publish his first mystery novel in Fall 2020. A graduate of Duke and ECU, he lives in Raleigh with his wife and three children. Authors he admires include Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Eric Ambler, Ralph Ellison, Ray Bradbury, and Reynolds Price, whom he spent a year with as an assistant in 1998-99.
Gina Lea lives in Garner, NC where she is the Director of Learning and Development for Dunkin Donuts. Gina’s first novel Defining Destiny (2014) is women’s fiction with a mystery element. Kirkus Review called it “An ideal, frothy beach book.” Her second novel in the Destinybay series is a traditional mystery currently in edits. Her short story “The Windmills” was published in Carolina Crimes: 21 Tales of Need, Greed, and Dirty Deeds, the second TriSinC anthology. Her current work in progress is a magical realism YA mystery. Her best critics are her hubby Rob and Zuzu the Wonder Dog! Gina is the TriSinC Vice President.
Joan Leotta
Jen Lowry is from Maxton, North Carolina and loves the small town life. She is a fan of all things horror, UFC, and binge-watches episodes of The Mentalist. When she isn’t literacy coaching at a metropolitan high school, author coaching, or homeschooling her son, she can be found sharing out the author journey online or hiding behind the pages of a new book. She’s published over twenty books in multiple genres. The Sunday Killer is her first thriller, police procedural novel, releasing August 31, 2021! Grab a peppermint coffee, a Reese’s cup, and check her out @jenlowrywrites.
Michael Mayo
Karen McCullough
James McGuffey
Liz McGuffey
Ann Mitchell graduated with a B.S. in Accounting from Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C. One of her short stories, The Game, has been published in the anthology Carolina Crimes: 19 Tales of Lust, Love and Longing. Ann is the chapter Webmaven .
Julianne Moore/Jule McBride
Michele Movius
Valerie Nieman's To the Bones, a genre-bending mystery/horror about coal country, was a finalist for the 2020 Manly Wade Wellman Award. It joined three earlier novels, a short fiction collection, and three poetry collections. Her next novel, Backwater, is a North Carolina-set YA mystery to be published by Regal House/Fitzroy Books in 2022. She has published widely in journals, and has held state and NEA creative writing fellowships. A graduate of WVU and Queens University of Charlotte and a former journalist, she recently retired from teaching creative writing at NC A&T State University.
Bonnie Olsen
John Olsen
Kate Parker - Raised in Washington DC, Kate had her family and her career there. Except for a short stay in Colorado, she has spent her retirement in eastern and central North Carolina where she has written three historical mystery series: The Victorian Bookshop Mysteries, The Milliner Mysteries, and The Deadly Series, all set in London. She now lives with her daughter and a lazy, stubborn Aussie Shepherd/Lab mix who is running the household when the humans aren't traveling overseas.
Jacque Perkins
Mark Anthony Powers grew up in the small town of West Lebanon, NH. At Cornell University, he strayed into Russian and Creative Writing while majoring in engineering. After receiving his MD from Dartmouth, he went south to the University of North Carolina for an internship and residency in Internal Medicine, followed by a fellowship in Pulmonary Diseases and Critical Care Medicine. After almost forty years in clinical practice and teaching, he retired from Duke University as an Associate Professor Emeritus of Medicine and began his exploration of other parts of his brain. Writing, gardening, IT, and magic courses were just some of the enjoyment that followed. A deep dive into beekeeping led to his presidency of the county beekeeping association and certification as a Master Beekeeper. Two cups of coffee and two hours of writing most mornings produced A Swarm in May and other works.
Karen Pullen left a perfectly good job at an engineering consulting firm to make her fortune - (er, maybe not) - as an innkeeper and a fiction writer. Her first mystery novel, Cold Feet, was published by Five Star in January 2013 and its sequel, Cold Heart, was released in January 2017. She edited the Anthony-nominated Carolina Crimes anthology, and served on the Board of Sisters in Crime (national) as Chapter Liaison. Her story collection, Restless Dreams, was released in September 2017 from GusGus Press.
Melissa Bourbon Ramirez is the national bestselling author of more than twenty mystery books, including the Book Magic mysteries, the Lola Cruz Mysteries, A Magical Dressmaking Mystery series, and the Bread Shop Mysteries, written as Winnie Archer. She is a former middle school English teacher who gave up the classroom in order to live in her imagination full time. Melissa, a California native who has lived in Texas and Colorado, now calls the southeast home. She hikes, practices yoga, cooks, and is slowly but surely discovering all the great restaurants in the Carolinas. Since four of her five amazing kids are living their lives, scattered throughout the country, her dogs, Bean, the pug, and Dobby, the chug, keep her company while she writes. Melissa lives in North Carolina with her educator husband, Carlos, and their youngest son. She is beyond fortunate to be living the life of her dreams.
Pamela Raymond is a New Orleans native making her way back home via Raleigh/Durham. By day, she wrangles millennials into writing IT code and by night, tries to wrangle herself into writing something more exciting. Although she has never been a published book author, in her previous life in St. Louis, she wrote a lifestyle column and blog for a fashion and entertainment-based magazine. She is hoping to parlay that experience into something cozy and mysterious.
Jennifer Riley - Two decades ago, Jennifer Riley moved from Kentucky to North Carolina, where she took part in various writing courses and critique groups. She helped edit a corporate technical report and spent three weeks in Italy. On the Deep South Magazine web site, she has two short stories. Jennifer has two mystery novels available on Amazon. She published a short story "Rolla," in the current Triangle Sisters in Crime anthology.
C.A. Rowland - C.A. Rowland has always loved traveling and exploring new places, from neighborhood empty houses to foreign lands that draw her. Her short stories have appeared online and in print. She writes The Haunted City Mystery series set in Savannah, Georgia. Her work can be seen in several upcoming volumes of Fiction River and Pulphouse Magazine. You can keep up with her upcoming fiction and travel adventures at www.carowland.com.
E Senteio
Jennie Spallone Award-winning author Jennie Spallone (spalloneauthor@aol.com) is a North Carolina Triad transplant from Chicago. Her psychological suspense and thrillers deal with moral and ethical issues; what causes a person to "cross the line" and how it affects those left in the crossfire. She also authored a non-fiction book about life-coaching a young woman with high-functioning Autism. A former Chicago freelance journalist, Jennie wrote feature stories/profiles for local and national newspapers and magazines. The long-time SINC author currently facilitates a ZOOM Book Club which, this year, will illuminate the mystery and suspense novels of minority authors. She enjoys interviewing these authors, many of whom are SINC and/or MWA authors.
Carolina Taylor is the author of five mysteries—"Death in Delmarva", "Loose Ends", "Jewelry from a Grave", "The Typist", and "What Are Friends For?"--as well as a collection of short stories, "Enough! Thirty Stories of Fielding Life’s Curve Balls", and a nonfiction book, "Publishing the Nonprofit Annual Report: Tips, Traps, and Tricks of the Trade". She is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America.
Debbie Taylor - Greetings from the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where I live with my husband and two demanding Westies. I am a recovering technical writer-editor hard at work on my first novel, working title “Punch List.” It is a comedic cozy mystery about a woman who wants to put a contract on her contractor. My pandemic hobbies have been catching up on my reading list and trying my hand at writing 1000-word short stories for a local Facebook group called “Quarantine Writers Club.” Short stories sure teach you how to kill your darlings.
Kari Wainwright has several mystery short stories published in anthologies and belongs to three Sisters in Crime chapters, thanks to Zoom, as well as a local writers’ group. She resides in Arizona with her husband Tom, son Travis, and Shih Tzu Oscar Wilde, and in the summer, she primarily lives indoors.
Elizabeth Walker
Cathy Walsh
Betsy Walters
Cat Warren
Marlie Wasserman moved to Chapel Hill after decades in New Jersey, where she served as Director of Rutgers University Press. She now writes historical crime fiction. Her debut novel, The Murderess Must Die, was published by Level Best Books in 2021. Marlie imagines the life of Martha Place, a woman who killed her stepdaughter in Brooklyn in 1898, then became the first woman in the world executed in the electric chair. Historic fiction meets true crime. Marlie is under contract for two new books, Canal Crossing, set in Panama in 1906, and Inferno on Fifth, set in New York City in 1899.
Molly Weston
Bonnie Wisler - Bonnie is a member of SinC, RWA, and has participated in numerous other writing groups. Her first novel, Count A Hundred Stars received a 5-Star rating from both the Foreward Clarion and Midwest Book Reviews. Her love of animals, nature, travel, romance, and mystery is vividly reflected in her writing. Bonnie is retired from the federal government, works part-time for a major airline, and lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with her family.
