with two exciting, energizing, and award-winning writers
​Mary Anna Evans and Michael Malone
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Saturday May 18, 2019
9:00 am to 4:30 pm
Western Wake Technical Community College, Room 118
3434 Kildaire Farm Road, Cary NC
Registration fee of $50 for members of Sisters in Crime;  $65 General public includes: All presentations and handouts;  snacks, bottled water, coffee, Panera box lunch; opportunity to meet and mingle with local mystery writers; door prizes. Registration closed May 15.

MORNING: Mary Anna Evans: Create a make-believe world that matters.

     Take a moment to think of stories that have made themselves a part of you. Remember one-of-a-kind characters like Jo March, whose heart broke when her sister Beth died, and so yours did, too. Remember evocative settings like To Kill A Mockingbird's hot, sticky courtroom. Remember mind-bending plots like the one that took you for a ride on the Orient Express. How can you create stories that will lodge in your readers' minds and never leave? You have to make them feel something. 
     In this workshop, you will participate in discussions and hands-on exercises that will help you: 
  • Develop characters who are intriguing and relatable (Even the villains!)
  • Create a setting that engages the senses and thus feels real
  • Use your characters' point-of-view to show your readers where you want them to look
  • Invent an internally logical plot that seizes the imagination
  • Write an ending that will leave your readers breathless
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​​    Mary Anna Evans is the author of the award-winning Faye Longchamp mysteries and an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma where she teaches fiction and nonfiction writing, including a graduate class in writing mystery and suspense. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Rutgers-Camden, as well as an MS in chemical engineering that comes in handy more often than you'd think. Her twelfth crime novel, Catacombs, will be published by Sourcebooks in October.
     Evans' novels have received recognition including the Benjamin Franklin Award, the Mississippi Author Award, and three Florida Book Awards bronze medals. Her short work has appeared in The Atlantic, Plots with Guns, Bayou, Dallas Morning News, The Louisville Review, and many other publications.

AFTERNOON: Michael Malone: All stories are mysteries. Southern Fiction, more so. 

Workshop participants will create a mystery's basic blueprint--a foundational structure--by exploring these seven crucial elements:
1) Plot.  It's still the same old story:  what's the secret.  How you tell the story is what's new.
2) Voice.  Finding the narrator's voice.
3) Place. Knowing the "local habitation and a dwelling place."
4) Creating characters.  And how to stay out of their way.
5) Character is Action.  The heart of story-telling is making the reader really care about  what happens next to fictional people.
6)  Listening.  Authentic or fake dialogue will make or break even the best plot.  
7) Prose.  The Praxis of Writing is Re-writing.  "The difference between the right word and the wrong word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."  Mark Twain.
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     Michael Malone is the author of 12 internationally acclaimed novels, including the classic Handling Sin, Dingley Falls and The Last Noel. He is currently at work on Dark Winter, the fourth in a “Hillston” quartet of novels narrated by two incompatible Piedmont homicide detectives, Justin Savile V and Cuddy Mangum.  Dark Winter is a prequel to Uncivil Seasons, Time’s Witness and First Lady, and tells the story of Cuddy and Justin’s first murder case together.
     Michael Malone has also written a collection of short stories Red Clay, Blue Cadillac as well as two books of non-fiction, one on American movies, one on Jungian pyschology. His television credits include network shows for ABC, NBC and Fox.  His short works are often anthologized and his novels have been translated into many languages. Among his prizes are the O Henry, the Edgar, the Writers Guild Award and the Emmy for ABC’s “One Life to Live,” where he was head writer for much of a decade. He has taught at Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore, and Duke.
​     Malone's widespread appeal—to lovers of literary fiction, critics, television serial fans, and mystery readers —establishes him as one of the most intriguing novelists writing today.
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