Susan McCormick and Michael Erdahl shared their experiences producing audiobooks and starting a podcast. Their PowerPoint highlights their discussion of the pros and cons of various audiobook platforms, audiobook covers, getting a narrator, and production costs. Download their PowerPoint presentation here. In addition, they talked about the joys of creating their podcast with two other … Read more

For twenty-one years Michael Crowley listened to criminals petitioning to be paroled. As a member of the Parole Board of Canada, he met them all: murderers, rapists, young, old, men, women and child murderers. There is no capital punishment in Canada, just life imprisonment. His views are conditioned by that rule. Also, most murderers plead … Read more

We began our Holiday party with an inspiring and witty original carol sung by Cynthia Blair: A Writer’s Twelve Days of Christmas. Our Build A Story activity did not end with the identification of a murderer, but it produced some hearty laughter along the way. A monestery in a desert wilderness provided the starting point … Read more

Based on writing prompts from Agatha Christie novels, members wrote and presented 250 word stories. For example: I was standing at the window… looking idly on the street below… Mrs. Oliver looked at herself in the glass… One story included references to six of Christie’s novels. Some stories were loosely connected to the theme. Some … Read more

Elizabeth George talked about her process for creating a novel, starting with choosing the unique settings that characterize her novels. Her overview included a discussion of how she researches her book’s location, develops her characters, and turns scenes into a rolling plot that becomes the draft for her novel. She is known for the accuracy … Read more