Big Thrill Website Staff
Karen Dionne is the internationally published author of FREEZING POINT, a science thriller nominated by RT Book Reviews as Best First Mystery of 2008. A second environmental thriller about an erupting volcano, a missing researcher, and a radical scheme to end global warming is forthcoming from Berkley in 2011. Karen is also cofounder of the online writers community Backspace, and organizes the Backspace Writers Conferences held in New York City every year.
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Mark Terry is the author of the Derek Stillwater thriller series and other novels. His latest, THE FALLEN, will be released in April 2010.
Mark Combes is an avid sailor and Scuba diver and travels extensively in the Caribbean pursuing his passions. He works in book publishing and RUNNING WRECKED is his first novel.
Keith Raffel has held a top secret clearance to watch over CIA activities and has founded an award-winning Internet software company. Steve Berry called Keith's latest book, Smasher: A Silicon Valley Thriller, "taut, tight, and suspenseful" and said it "skillfully carries the reader triumphantly from one climax to the next."
Jeff Ayers is the author of VOYAGES OF IMAGINATION: THE STAR TREK FICTION COMPANION Pocket Books-November 2006. He frequently reviews thrillers for Library Journal and regularly interviews authors for LJ, the Seattle Post-Intellgencer, and Writer Magazine.
Linda L. Richards is the editor of January Magazine and a contributor to The Rap Sheet. Her fifth novel, DEATH WAS IN THE PICTURE, will be published St. Martin's Minotaur/Thomas Dunne January 2009.
Jonathan Maberry is a NY Times bestselling novelist, multiple winner of the Bram Stoker Award, and writer for Marvel Comics. His recent works include ROT & RUIN (Simon & Schuster), WANTED UNDEAD OR ALIVE (Citadel Press, co-authored by Janice Gable Bashman), and MARVEL UNIVERSE VS THE PUNISHER (Marvel Comics). Check out his publishing blog on his website at www.jonathanmaberry.com
Andrew Peterson is working on the next novel in a planned series featuring Nathan McBride, a former Marine Corps sniper and ex-CIA operative. Born and raised in San Diego, California, Andrew attended La Jolla High School before enrolling at the University of Oklahoma, where he earned a B.S. Degree in Architecture. Andrew and his wife Carla, live in Central California.
Julie Compton is the author of the critically acclaimed legal thriller, TELL NO LIES, and the recently released RESCUING OLIVIA, which Kirkus called "a pleasing hybrid of modern-day fairy tale and contemporary thriller." She lives and writes near Orlando. To learn more, go to www.julie-compton.com.
Mario Acevedo writes the Felix Gomez vampire-detective series for HarperCollins. Besides collecting rejection letters, Mario's experiences include military helicopter pilot, paratrooper, engineer, corporate clock-watcher, and art teacher to incarcerated felons. Mario lives and writes in Denver, Colorado.
New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Karen Harper has been published for 25 years. She is the winner of the 2006 Mary Higgins Clark Award. A former college and high school English instructor, Harper currently writes contemporary suspense for Mira Books and historical novels for Putnam. She and her husband divide their time between Columbus, Ohio and Naples, Florida.
Janice Gable Bashman is co-author (with Jonathan Maberry) of WANTED UNDEAD OR ALIVE: Vampire Hunters and Other Kick-Ass Enemies of Evil (Citadel Press 2010). She wrote sidebars for THEY BITE: Endless Cravings of Supernatural Predators (Citadel Press 2009) by Jonathan Maberry and David F. Kramer. She also writes for leading publications, including the NOVEL & SHORT STORY WRITER'S MARKET, THE WRITER, WILD RIVER REVIEW, INDUSTRY TODAY, and FOOD & DRINK QUARTERLY. And, her writing won multiple awards at the 2007 Philadelphia Writer's Conference.
Contributing editor Julie Kramer's third book, SILENCING SAM, will be released June 22. Linda Fairstein said, "Silencing Sam has a sexy protagonist, a sinister plot, and delivers another delightful read in this smart series." Kramer won the RT Book Reviewers Award for Best First Mystery and the Minnesota Book Award. She has also been a finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark, Anthony, Barry, and Shamus Awards.
Austin S. Camacho has written a series about private detective Hannibal Jones and a series of adventure novels featuring mercenary Morgan Stark and jewel thief Felicity O'Brien. To pay the mortgage he answers media queries for the Defense Department. Camacho lives in Springfield, Virginia with his lovely wife Denise and Princess the Wonder Cat.
Christine Goff is the award-winning author of the bestselling "Birdwatcher's Mystery" series. She began her career writing non-fiction for local, regional and national publication. Chosen Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers' 2002 Writer of the Year, two of her novels were named finalists for the prestigious Willa Literary Award for Best Original Paperback Fiction; and her latest novel, DEATH SHOOTS A BIRDIE, was a named finalist for the Colorado Authors League 2008 Best Genre Fiction Award. Her novels focus on environmental concerns through bird-related issues. Currently, she is working on a new book; a thriller set in Israel.
Dennis Tafoya lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and is the author of two novels, Dope Thief and The Wolves of Fairmount Park, as well as numerous short stories appearing in collections such as Philadelphia Noir, coming November 2010 from Akashic Books. He is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, the International Thriller Writers, and the Liars Club, a Philadelphia-area writers group.
Michael Haskins is the writer of the Mick Murphy Key West Mystery series. CHASIN' THE WIND the first in the series, was published in March 2008 and the second book, FREE RANGE INSTITUTION, will be available in February 2011. He has finished the third book in the series, CAR WASH BLUES. He lives with his wife, family, and sailboat in Key West, Florida.
John T. Cullen writes fiction and nonfiction. He is the author of A WALK IN ANCIENT ROME, Revised Second Edition (Sep 2009; nonfiction/ancient history); LETHAL JOURNEY (Sep 2009, dark thriller based on a true 1892 crime/ghost story); UMNITSA (WW2 espionage thriller); THE GENERALS OF OCTOBER (suspense: what if we had a Second Constitutional Convention?); and nearly two dozen other books. Visit http://www.johntcullen.com/.
Julie Korzenko is a senior paralegal at a boutique domestic law firm in Atlanta. Her first book DEVIL'S GOLD hit the shelves in March of 2009. Publisher's Weekly stated that "Fans of Alex Kava, Shannon, McKenna, and Suzanne Brockmann will hope to see more of Cassidy and Jake." She is currently wrapping up its sequel ANGEL FALLS.
John Darrin is a consultant on radiological emergency preparedness for homeland security. His work has taken him all over the world, and includes many unique and first-ever projects. A widower, John lives full-time in his RV and travels the country on the Go Places / Meet People / Do Things Tour.
Debra Webb wrote her first story at age nine and her first romance at thirteen. It wasn't until she spent three years working for the military behind the Iron Curtain and within the confining political Walls of Berlin, Germany, that she realized her true calling. A five-year stint with NASA on the Space Shuttle Program reinforced her love of the endless possibilities within her grasp as a storyteller. A collision course between suspense and romance was set. Debra has been writing romantic suspense and action packed romantic thrillers since.
Derek Gunn lives in Dublin, Ireland with his wife and three children and is the author of four novels. His post-apocalyptic thriller series, Vampire Apocalypse, has been widely praised on both sides of the Atlantic. Derek's first book is currently in active development as a major movie. Graphic novel rights to Derek's VAMPIRE APOCALYPSE series have been picked up by a US indie publisher - the first graphic novel is due out in 2011.
James A. Moore is the award winning author of the Serenity Falls trilogy and Deeper. He lives in the suburbs of Atlanta and writes thrillers and young adult thrillers. His latest release is the short story collection Slices.
Steven Savile's novel PRIMEVAL: SHADOW OF THE JAGUAR was a #1 bestseller in the UK. Primarily known for his fantasy and media tie-in work his debut thriller SILVER is due out from Variance in January 2010.
Michael Parker was born in Cuckield, UK 1941. He is the author of six novels and has been writing all his adult life. Parker has been married for 49 years and has 4 sons and ten grandchildren. He is a maintenance technician by trade and served in Royal Air Force. Parker lives in Spain with his wife, Pat. His next novel, A COVERT WAR, is due for publication in 2010.
Lori A. May is a novelist, poet, and freelance writer whose work has appeared in periodicals and anthologies such as The Writer, Tipton Poetry Journal, and Van Gogh's Ear. She is the author of two romantic suspense novels, THE PROFILER and MOVING TARGET, and is currently working on a YA suspense. Up next for Lori is a book-length collection of poetry, stains, with an autumn 2009 release. Her blog at http://loriamay.blogspot.com focuses on the writing life as well as author interviews, book news and reviews.
Milton Toby is an author and attorney who writes from his home in Georgetown, Kentucky. His long-standing involvement with Thoroughbred racing and the horse business, his representation of Death Row inmates, and years spent in the Third World combine to produce fiction crammed with unique twists and turns. His short stories have won national awards and he recently completed his first novel. Milton's essay on Lionel Davidson's THE ROSE OF TIBET will appear in the upcoming THRILLERS: 100 MUST READS.
During Don Helin's career in the military, he spent three tours in the Pentagon, then worked as a lobbyist for industry. These two "Washington Insider" careers have provided him ample material for his thriller novels.
Nate Kenyon is a two-time Bram Stoker Award finalist, P&E Horror Novel of the Year Award winner, and author of BLOODSTONE, THE REACH, THE BONE FACTORY and the upcoming SPARROW ROCK (May 2010). THE REACH has been optioned for film. He also has a trade paperback science fiction novella, PRIME, from Apex Books. Kenyon lives in the Boston area, where he is at work on his next novel.
Paula L. Tutman is an Emmy Award winning journalist and award winning author of DEADLINE!, currently working as a TV journalist in Detroit. She has some 30 years in the news business, obviously beginning her career when she was six...no, make that three. Using her background as a former police reporter, she weaves real life stories and experiences into compelling mystery thrillers. Her second novel, part two of a series is due November 2009.
Michael F Stewart is the author of several graphic novels published by Oxford University Press Canada. 24 BONES is his debut supernatural thriller, and THE SAND DRAGON is his first horror novel. His next novel, HURAKAN, will be released in Fall 2010. Michael lives and writes in Ottawa, Canada.
C.E. Lawrence's debut thriller, Silent Screams, coming out in December, recounts NYPD criminal profiler Lee' Campbell's dark journey into the mind of a serial killer. (Kensington Press). She has just completed the sequel, Scorned, to be released in 2010.
Cym Lowell is an aspiring thriller writer. His next novel is in the hands of his agent (Brenden Daneen of Fineprint Literary in New York) and on its way to publishers. Cym is also an international tax lawyer with expertise in cross-border money movement, and a shelf full of professional treatises on these scintillating subjects.
Missing the romance, relationship drama, and action of her favorite television shows, X-Files, Roswell, and Highlander, Jaime Rush created her own mix in the Offspring series, from Avon Books. Jaime Rush is a pseudonym for bestselling Tina Wainscott, author of eighteen novels for St. Martin's Press and Harlequin. Contests, sneak peeks and more at www.jaimerush.com.
Terry DiDomenico has spent most of her professional career editing and writing for university publications with a little freelancing on the side. She lives with her husband and two cats on four acres in south central Pennsylvania. She is working on her first novel - a thriller of course.
Scott Nicholson is the author of seven thrillers, including THEY HUNGER, as well as six original screenplays, two story collections, and the comic series "Dirt." He was the original bass player in the Killer Thriller Band. His virtual haunt is www.hauntedcomputer.com.
Dan Levy works from his Lincoln, Nebraska home as a freelance writer for the aviation and financial industries. His first novel, THE BLOWDOWN LIMIT, is an aviation-thriller winging its way in search of representation and publication. Bestselling author Jon Land noted, "Dan Levy's THE BLOWDOWN LIMIT reminded me of Michael Crichton's AIRFRAME and Thomas Block's MAYDAY in all the right ways. Levy pilots his tale in a smooth and seasoned fashion that will make this the next book to make people think twice before flying the friendly skies."
Mary Kennedy is a clinical psychologist in private practice and the author of The Talk Radio Mysteries. She lives on the east coast with her husband and eight neurotic cats. The cats have resisted all her efforts to psychoanalyze them, but she remains optimistic.
George Ebey is the author of Broken Clock, Dimensions: Tales of Suspense, The Red Bag, and Widowfield. He is a graduate of Kent State University with a bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice and a minor in writing. He lives with his wife, Gail, in Northeast Ohio.
L.J. Sellers is an award-winning journalist and the author of the Detective Jackson mystery/suspense series based in Eugene, OR. Her books, The Sex Club, Secrets to Die For, and Thrilled to Death, have been highly praised by Mystery Scene and Spinetingler magazines. Her fourth Jackson story, Passions of the Dead, will be released soon. L.J. also has two standalone thrillers, The Baby Thief and The Suicide Effect. When not plotting murders, L.J. enjoys performing standup comedy, cycling, social networking, attending mystery conferences, and editing fiction manuscripts. She's also been known to jump out of airplanes.
Clea Simon gave up journalism after three nonfiction books for a life of crime (fiction). The author of two traditional ("cozy") mystery series, her sixth and most recent release is GREY MATTERS (Severn House, March 2010).
When L. Dean Murphy's spinal injury ended his career as a medical research paralegal, he began reviewing books for Bookreporter. The MWA, FWA and ITW member's first novel, The Art of Murder, is in its third trimester. Two Bodies is embryonic. His maxim is "When there's nothing left, write."
Tracy March is a recovering pharmaceutical sales executive and award-winning writer. Her novels draw from her experiences and encounters in the medical field and her love/hate relationship with politics. They feature characters who face ethical dilemmas in unethical times, and powerful elitists willing to kill to keep their secrets. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband who works for NASA.
Dana Granger is an award-winning former newspaper reporter who lives in Florida with her family. She is currently working as a freelancer writer, writing a YA thriller, and pursuing a career in emergency medicine.
Gary Kriss's THE ZODIAC DECEPTION, about a con artist who having learned the art of illusion from Houdini is recruited by the OSS to use his skills for the ultimate deception: infiltrate the Nazi Occult Bureau and persuade Himmler to plot the assassination of Hitler, and its prequel, THE HOUDINI KILLER, will be published by TOR/Forge in 2011 and 2012 respectively. A writer for longer than he cares to remember, including a respectible stint with THE NEW YORK TIMES, Kriss now exists solely to make his lovely wife, Pat, his publisher, his editor, his agents, his dog and his cats proud of him. He still holds out hope that he can win over the dog.
Aaron L Brown is the author of the upcoming novel, The Shepherd, and the CTO for a national auction franchise. He is currently hard at work on his next novel, an action thriller for fans of James Rollins and Brad Thor.
A native of Honduras, J. H. Bográn fell under the thriller's spell at young age. He has published short e-stories, a thriller book in Spanish and even had a go at screen-plays with two TV miniseries. A lifelong movie buff, he writes reviews for a local newspaper. He is currently working on his second full-length thriller novel.
Sandra Parshall is the Agatha Award-winning author of the Rachel Goddard mysteries: The Heat of the Moon, Disturbing the Dead, and Broken Places. A member of the national board of Sisters in Crime, she lives in the Washington, DC, area with her journalist husband. Visit her website and her blog, Poe's Deadly Daughters.
Virna DePaul is a former criminal prosecutor who sold her debut paranormal romantic suspense series to Berkley. The first book, Chosen By Blood, comes out in May of 2011. In addition, Virna recently became an author for the Silhouette Romantic Suspense line, and self-published a craft book called "Love Writing: A Guide To Writing & Publishing Your Romance Novel (Without Losing Your Perspective, Passion, Or Sanity)." For more information, go to www.virnadepaul.com and www.lovewritingbook.com
Jeannie Holmes is a native of southwest Mississippi. A total caffeine junkie, she currently lives in Mobile, Alabama with her husband, four neurotic cats, a shaggy arthritic dog, and is hard to find during hurricane season.
Samhain author Selena Robins considers herself to be a dragon slayer, chocoholic, loves her family, friends, laughing & writing sassy heroines and caliente hero's. Her published books are as eclectic as her taste in reading, from romantic comedy, paranormal to her work in progress a suspense thriller.
New York Times and USA Today bestselling paranormal and romantic suspense author Caridad Pineiro wrote her first novel in the fifth grade when her teacher assigned a project - to write a book for a class lending library. Bitten by the writing bug, Caridad continued with her passion for the written word through high school, college and law school. In 1999, Caridad's first novel was released and a decade later, Caridad is the author of over twenty novels and novellas. For more information, please visit www.caridad.com.
Lori Andrews' thrillers involve geneticist Dr. Alexandra ("Alex") Blake. In Immunity, Alex is pitted against Homeland Security in battling an emerging epidemic. The American Bar Association Journal described Lori as "a lawyer with a literary bent who has the scientific chops to rival any CSI investigator." Lori has taught at Princeton, written for a television legal drama, appeared on Oprah, and advised government agencies from the U. S. Centers for Disease Control to the police department of Dubai. Read about Lori at www.loriandrews.com.
Brett King is an award-winning psychology professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His debut novel, THE RADIX, appeared in May 2010. New York Times bestselling author Jeffery Deaver calls it, "A topnotch thriller! Part Da Vinci Code, part 24, The Radix is roller-coaster storytelling at its best." King completed his second thriller and is at work on a third novel.
INTERNATIONAL CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Gerard Brennan is an emerging Northern Irish writer. When he is not tinkering with a novel, screenplay, stage play or short story he runs Crime Scene NI, a blog devoted primarily to Irish crime fiction. He is represented by Allan Guthrie of Jenny Brown Associates.
Russel D McLean is a Scottish bookseller working for a national chain. He has run webzines, agonized over reviews for various publications both in print and online, and written several short stories, several of which have been published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine as well as various other crime and noir markets. His debut noir novel, THE GOOD SON, will be available in the UK in November 2008 published by Five Leaves Press.
Mike Nicol is a journalist and writer and now a hard-core crime fiction addict. He's published two crime novels - PAYBACK and OUR TO SCORE (a co-authorship), and is a founder of the blog Crime Beat. He lives on Cape Town's peninsula, up a mountain, in the teeth of the wind.
EVENTS CALENDAR EDITOR
Leighton Gage has lived in Australia, Europe, and South America, traveled widely in Asia and Africa. He's been a copywriter, an advertising creative director, a magazine editor, and a writer/producer/director of documentary films and industrial videos. Leighton now writes full time. Sequels to his first book, BLOOD OF THE WICKED (Soho Press) are due for release in January of 2009, 2010 and 2111. He has two daughters in The Netherlands and two more in the United States. He and his wife spend much of their time in Brazil, her native country.
ThrillerFest
ITW's annual celebration of the thriller world is the largest event of its kind, a meeting place for authors, readers, budding writers, and publishing industry professionals.
For 2011, we’ll be back in the heart of New York in July with the ThrillerFest conference including CraftFest and AgentFest.
ThrillerFest VI will be held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City.
The dates will be July 6-9, 2011.
