Elizabeth Sims | |
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Born | Wyandotte, Michigan, U.S. | September 30, 1957
Occupation | Writer and editor |
Nationality | American |
Education | English and composition |
Alma mater | Michigan State University Wayne State University |
Genre | Nonfiction, fiction |
Subject | Mystery, crime |
Notable awards | Florida Book Award Golden Crown Literary Society Award Lambda Literary Award Tompkins Award for Graduate Fiction |
Spouse | Marcia Burrows |
Website | |
www | |
Literatureportal |
Elizabeth Sims (born September 30, 1957) is an American writer, journalist, and contributing editor at Writer's Digest magazine. She is a former correspondent for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and author of two series of crime novels, including her Rita Farmer Mystery Series, originally published by St. Martin's Press Minotaur and Lillian Byrd Crime Series, originally published by Alyson Books. She has also published a stand-alone novel, Crimes in a Second Language, under her personal imprint, Spruce Park Press. Crimes in a Second Language was awarded the Silver Medal for General Fiction in the Florida Book Awards 2017. Her nonfiction works include You've Got a Book in You: A Stress-Free Guide to Writing the Book of Your Dreams, published by Writer's Digest Books, articles, short stories, poems, and essays for magazines and books. She also serves as a coach and mentor for new and aspiring writers and offers keynote speeches and presents workshops at writer's conferences around North America.
Elizabeth Sims was born on September 30, 1957, in Wyandotte, Michigan. She was raised in Detroit and attended Michigan State University and Wayne State University, graduating with degrees in English and composition theory. She is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, Novelists, Inc., and American Mensa. [1] [2]
In 1992, Sims began serving a two-year term on the editorial board of Moving Out literary journal, in which she also submitted the short story "Beautiful" in 1987, and "Cleva" in 1989. In 2006, she began writing features for Writer's Digest magazine. [1] She became a contributing editor in 2009, specializing in the art and craft of fiction. [3] She worked as a freelance correspondent for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in 2011. [4] Also, Sims taught creative writing at Sarasota’s Ringling College of Art and Design in 2017 and 2018. [5]
In May 2008, she launched the Rita Farmer Mystery Series with The Actress. The main character, Rita Farmer, is a single mother and struggling Hollywood actress who is recruited to secretly coach the unsympathetic defendant in a high-profile murder trial.
The Extra, second in the Rita Farmer Mystery Series was published by St. Martin's Press Minotaur in June 2009. Rita, dressed in a police uniform as an extra on a movie shoot, is pulled into a real crime scene. When Rita and her boyfriend, George Rowe, try to help Amaryllis B. Cubitt, the director of an urban mission, they move deeper into mystery and danger.
Sims moves the action from Los Angeles to Washington's Olympic Peninsula in On Location, published by Minotaur in August 2010. Rita's sister Gina, working as a film location scout in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, goes missing, and Rita has no choice but to follow. Foul weather meets foul play as Rita and her stalwart friends risk their lives for the sake of truth—and love. [3]
The Lillian Byrd Crime Series is a six-novel series, originally published by Alyson Books (New York), beginning with Holy Hell in 2002. The series focuses on lesbian culture, mystery, and love. The second book in the series, Damn Straight, won a 2003 Lambda Literary Award. [2] Lucky Stiff and Easy Street followed in 2004 and 2005. The main character, Lillian Byrd, is a reporter turned sleuth whose quest for true love takes her into dangerous places. The series, set mostly in the Detroit, Michigan area, is noted for its off-kilter characters and wry humor. The fifth novel in the series, Left Field, was published in 2014 by Spruce Park Press. It received a Golden Crown Literary Society award in 2015. The sixth in the series, Tight Race, was published in 2022 by Spruce Park Press.
In 2017, Sims published Crimes in a Second Language, a departure from her series work. The novel, set in contemporary Los Angeles, features a white retired schoolteacher who befriends a young Mexican-American housecleaner. Their story line intersects with the film business and industrial espionage, and explores questions of friendship and literacy. In April 2018 Crimes in a Second Language was awarded the silver medal in the Florida Book Award general fiction category.
In addition to her writing, Sims serves as a keynote speaker and presents workshops at writer's conferences and retreats around North America. [3]
Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as speculative fiction and other genre fiction in the mid-nineteenth century and has remained extremely popular, particularly in novels. Some of the most famous heroes of detective fiction include C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, and Hercule Poirot. Juvenile stories featuring The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and The Boxcar Children have also remained in print for several decades.
Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, was an English author of thrillers and psychological murder mysteries.
Alyson Books, formerly known as Alyson Publications, was a book publishing house which specialized in LGBT fiction and non-fiction. Former publisher Don Weise described it as "the world's oldest and largest publisher of LGBT literature" and "the home of award-winning books in the areas of memoir, history, humor, commercial fiction, mystery, and erotica, among many others".
Peter Temple was an Australian crime fiction writer, mainly known for his Jack Irish novel series. He won several awards for his writing, including the Gold Dagger in 2007, the first for an Australian. He was also an international magazine and newspaper journalist and editor.
Charlaine Harris Schulz is an American author who specializes in mysteries. She is best known for her book series The Southern Vampire Mysteries, which was adapted as the TV series True Blood. The television show was a critical and financial success for HBO, running seven seasons, from 2008 through 2014.
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Edward Joseph Gorman Jr. was an American writer and short fiction anthologist. He published in almost every genre, but is best known for his work in the crime, mystery, western, and horror fields. His non-fiction work has been published in such publications as The New York Times and Redbook.
Keigo Higashino is a Japanese author chiefly known for his mystery novels. He served as the 13th President of Mystery Writers of Japan from 2009 to 2013. Higashino has won major Japanese awards for his books, almost twenty of which have been turned into films and TV series.
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Neil S. Plakcy is an American writer and professor whose works range from mystery to romance to anthologies and collections of gay erotica. Plakcy is a Professor of English at Broward College.
S. J. Rozan is an American architect and writer of detective fiction and thrillers, based in New York City. She also co-writes a paranormal thriller series under the pseudonym Sam Cabot with Carlos Dews.
George Caryl Sims, better known by his pen names Paul Cain and Peter Ruric, was an American pulp fiction author and screenwriter. He is best known for his novel Fast One, which is considered to be a landmark of the pulp fiction genre and was called the "high point in the ultra hard-boiled manner" by Raymond Chandler. Lee Server, author of the Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers, called Fast One "a cold-hearted, machine-gun-paced masterwork" and his other writings "gemlike, stoic and merciless vignettes that seemed to come direct from the bootlegging front lines."
Evan Stuart Marshall is an American literary agent, author of murder mysteries and nonfiction books, editor, and publisher of Marshall Plan software.
Jeri Westerson is an American novelist of medieval mysteries, Tudor mysteries, historical novels, and paranormal novels, along with LGBTQ mysteries under the pen name Haley Walsh.
David Housewright is an Edgar Award-winning author of crime fiction and past President of the Private Eye Writers of America best known for his Holland Taylor and Rushmore McKenzie detective novels. Housewright won the Edgar from the Mystery Writers of America as well as a nomination from the PWA for his first novel "Penance." He has also earned three Minnesota Book Awards. Most of his novels take place in and around the greater St. Paul and Minneapolis area of Minnesota, USA and have been favorably compared to Raymond Chandler, Ross MacDonald and Robert B. Parker.
Elizabeth J. Duncan is a Canadian writer of cozy mysteries and the author of the ongoing Penny Brannigan series set in North Wales. The first book in the series, A Cold Light of Mourning, was nominated for the Agatha Award and Arthur Ellis Award in 2009. The fourth novel in the series, A Small Hill to Die On, won the Bony Blithe Award in 2013 and the fifth novel, Never Laugh as A Hearse Goes By, was nominated for the same award in 2014.
Steph Cha is a Korean American novelist and fiction writer, who has released three novels in the crime fiction genre about her detective protagonist Juniper Song: Follow Her Home (2013), Beware Beware (2014), and Dead Soon Enough (2015). Her most recent book, stand-alone crime fiction novel Your House Will Pay (2019), won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery.