Florida Writers Conference

This past weekend I attended the Florida Writers Conference. It was held in a Hilton Hotel in Altamonte Springs, north of Orlando. There were four hundred writers in attendance, so we all shared the common goal of wanting to learn more in order to be able to improve our craft.

I've been a member of the Florida Writers Association since last October. It was through them that I located a writers' critique group that meets weekly within 10 minutes of where I live. Although I'm the only mystery writer among that small group, we help each other with common issues of communication... assisting us in bringing the best of our writing skills to the forefront.

At the conference, it was great to meet an even wider circle of people who write mysteries. A few were from among those I've gotten to know during my involvement with the Florida Chapter of Mystery Writers of America. Others I met for the first time. I'm sure we will continue the connections we established via e-mail.

The conference organizers deserve credit for a packed agenda. I'm an early bird, and they had "genre" tables starting at 6:45 a.m.

Each year, the Florida Writers Association gives Royal Palm Literary Awards in a variety of genres and for published and unpublished works. In February, I entered LADY ON THE EDGE in the published mystery category, and while it was a "finalist" (scoring better than 80% in the judging) it did not win a prize in the published mystery genre category.

Since I know that life is a mystery, it was fun to be at the same table with one of the writers in my local critique group who won a second place award for his historical fiction novel.

You can read the opening chapter of LADY ON THE EDGE here.

Also, starting this week, my latest Brad Frame mystery will be available on Amazon.com