The Craft of Crime Writing

Event Details

Join a stellar panel of award-winning Midwestern crime writers for a conversation on the craft of writing a good mystery, moderated by Shamus Award-winning author James D.F. Hannah.

About the panelists

Valerie (V. M.) Burns is an Agatha, Anthony, Edgar, and Next Generation Award Finalist. She is the author of the Mystery Bookshop, Dog Club, RJ Franklin, Baker Street Mystery, and Bailey the Bloodhound mystery series. Valerie is a member of Crime Writers of Color, Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, Dog Writers of America, Thriller Writers International, and the Crime Writers Association. Valerie has a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University, a master’s degree in business from the University of Notre Dame, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Seton Hill University. In addition to writing, Valerie works as a manager at a call center and is also a mentor in the Writing Popular Fiction MFA Program at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Born and raised in northwest Indiana, Valerie now lives in northern Georgia with her two poodles.

Lori Rader-Day is the Edgar Award–nominated and Agatha, Anthony, and Mary Higgins Clark award-winning author of Wreck Your Heart (forthcoming January 2026), The Death of Us, Death at Greenway, The Lucky One, Under a Dark Sky, and others. Lori earned a master of arts degree in creative nonfiction and a master of fine arts degree in creative writing. She lives in Chicago, where she cochairs the crime fiction readers’ event Midwest Mystery Conference and teaches creative writing at Northwestern University. Visit her at www.LoriRaderDay.com.

Erin Flanagan is the author of two short-story collections and three novels, including Deer Season, winner of the 2022 Edgar for Best First Novel, and the most recent Come with Me. She has held fellowships at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the Ucross Foundation and has been awarded two Individual Excellence Grants from the Ohio Arts Council. She is a board member of the Mystery Writers of America Midwest chapter, a regular book reviewer for Publishers Weekly, and an English professor at Wright State University. For more information about her and her writing, visit www.erinflanagan.net.

James D.F. Hannah is the Shamus Award–winning author of the Henry Malone series, including the novels Because the Night and Behind the Wall of Sleep. His short fiction has twice been selected for Best American Mysteries and Suspense by series editor Steph Cha and guest editors Jess Walter in 2022 and Don Winslow in 2025. His work has received multiple Anthony Award nominations and appeared in publications including Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Vautrin, as well as anthologies edited by Tod Goldberg, S.A. Cosby, and Lawrence Block. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where all the bourbon is.

Larry D. Sweazy is the author of 19 novels, one short-story collection, and 40 short stories. He is a two-time recipient of the WWA (Western Writers of America) Spur Award and a four-time recipient of the Will Rogers Medallion Award. His writing has also been recognized with awards from the Best Books of Indiana literary competition, the Elmer Kelton Book Award, the Willa Literary Award, and the Western Fictioneers Peacemaker Award. He has been shortlisted for the Indiana Authors Award two times and has been a finalist for several national writing awards. His short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, The Adventure of the Missing Detective, Hoosier Noir, Boys’ Life, Hardboiled, and several other publications and anthologies. Larry lives in Noblesville, Indiana, with his wife, Rose, where he is hard at work on his next story.