OFF THE SHELF

Off the Shelf is an author-to-readers program developed and hosted by the Sisters in Crime Atlanta Chapter. Every month we bring a recently published author to our reader audience via Zoom for engaging conversation to learn about their life, their writing, their characters, their stories.

The program is free and open to the public. Please check out our Events list for upcoming guests and registration information.

If you are an author and would like to be considered for Off The Shelf, please fill out our Speaker Form with your information.

Katherine Ramsland

INovember's Off the Shelf is with PenCraft Award winner and Agatha Award finalist, Elle Jauffret, author of the Suddenly French Mystery series. A former criminal attorney for the California Attorney General’s Office, she now blends her legal expertise with a love of culinary and character-driven storytelling. Her debut, Threads of Deception, was blurbed by Jonathan Maberry and Hank Phillippi Ryan, and was introduced by Michael Connelly at Bouchercon’s Debut Breakfast. An active member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and International Thriller Writers, Elle regularly appears at literary conferences across the country. You can find at https://ellejauffret.com/ or on social media Elle Jauffret.

Mary Anna Evans

September's Off the Shelf is with Mary Anna Evans, an award-winning author and university professor with an Engineering Physics degree and a PhD in English Literature. With 20 published works to her credit, which includes 2 series, 3 standalones, 2 non-fiction books and 1 collection of short fiction and essays, her writing has earned recognition with the Oklahoma Book Award, the Will Rogers Medallion Awards Gold Medal, the Mississippi Author Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award, the Florida Historical Society’s Patrick D. Smith Florida Literature Award, three Florida Book Awards bronze medals, inclusion in the Voice of Young America’s “Adult Mysteries with Young Adult Appeal” and a writer’s residency from The Studios of Key West. When not teaching or writing, Mary Anna enjoys reading, gardening, cooking, spending time with her family and playing her 7-and-a-half-foot-long monster of a grand piano.

Sarah K. Stephens

Sarah K. Stephens is the author of seven psychological thrillers with a day job as a developmental psychologist at Penn State University. Her writing has appeared in LitHub, The Writer’s Chronicle, Hazlitt, and The Millions. Sarah’s books include the psychological thrillers "A Flash of Red", "It Was Always You", "The Anniversary", "Isolation", "The Good Life", "The Killing Kind" and her most recent release, "The Girl in the Fire". Sarah loves using her psychological training to craft darkly human stories with killer twists. When she’s not plotting death and betrayal, she can be found enjoying the pleasures of country life with her husband and children in Central Pennsylvania.

Emily Paige Skeen

May 2025's Off the Shelf is with author Emily Paige Skeen. An established novelist of romance and Christian fiction, Emily Paige is branching out into the mystery genre with her latest book, "Murder in Maple Grove." This is her fourth published novel and the first in a new series.

Carmen Amato

March's Off the Shelf is with author Carmen Amato, creator of the Detective Emilia Cruz mystery series, the Galliano Club Thrillers historical fiction series, and standalones "The Hidden Light of Mexico City" and "Awakening MacBeth". A 30-year veteran of the CIA where she focused on technical collection and counterdrug efforts, Carmen is a recipient of both the National Intelligence Award and the Career Intelligence Medal. Carmen has been a judge for the BookLife Prize and Killer Nashville’s Claymore Award. Her work has appeared in Huffpost, Criminal Element, Publishers Weekly, and other national publications. She writes thepopular Mystery Ahead newsletter on Substack. Originally from upstate New York, after years of globe-trotting she and her husband enjoy life in Tennessee.

Ann Michelle Harris

Our guest author is chapter member Ann Michelle Harris who is introducing and celebrating her debut novel "North." Born in Jamaica and raised in Atlanta, Ann Michelle writes romantic suspense and fantasy/speculative fiction with diverse characters and positive social justice themes. She is a lawyer by day and a writer by night with a B.A. in English from Penn and a J.D. from Emory. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, the Atlanta Writers Club, and Georgia Romance Writers and holds accolades of a Maggie finalist, a double finalist in the national Pages From the Heart contest, and a finalist for the 2023 Eleanor Taylor Bland Award for emerging crime writers of color from Sisters in Crime.

Mike Cobb

October 2024: Mike currently has two published books, Dead Beckoning and The Devil You Knew.He is currently working on a sequel to The Devil You Knew as well as a true crime account of an unsolved Atlanta murder from 1970.Mike Cobb is a writer, a native Atlantan, and a student of history. His body of literary work includes both fiction and nonfiction, short-form and long-form, as well as articles and blogs. While he is comfortable playing across a broad range of genres and topics, much of his focus is on historical fiction, Southern literary fiction, crime fiction, and true crime. Rigorous research is foundational to his writing. He gets that honestly, having spent much of his professional career as a scientist. Mike splits his time between Atlanta and Blue Ridge, Georgia.

Darryl Bollinger

August 2024: Darryl Bollinger and his wife, June, live in Western North Carolina. He spent twenty-eight years working in the health care industry and has a masters degree in health care administration from Trinity University. His novels, all medical thrillers, have won numerous awards. His latest, Treatment Plan, was released in November 2023 and goes back to South Florida where six of his novels are set. The Healing Tree and The Cure are set in the mountains of Western North Carolina.

Deb Ricjardson-Moore

July 2024: Deb Richardson-Moore has written and published five mysteries, which includes the Branigan Powers 3-book series and two standalones. A graduate of Wake Forest University, her early career involved ministering at Triune Mercy Center in Greenville, South Carolina which she writes about in her memoir, The Weight of Mercy. She is a popular speaker at book clubs, universities and churches and has won numerous awards for community involvement, including the 2020 Humanitarian Award and the 2017 Leadership Greenville Distinguished Alumni Award. Her fifth mystery – Through Any Window – was published in early 2024.

her sixth mystery, The Last Beach Town, is due out in 2025.

Katherine Ramsland

October's Off the Shelf is with the author of the Nut Cracker Investigations series, Katherine Ramsland, a professor of forensic psychology and expert on serial killers. As part of her "day job," she

consults for coroners, trains homicide investigators, and has appeared as an expert on more than 250 crime documentaries. She was an executive producer on Murder House Flip, A&E’s Confession of a Serial Killer: BTK, and ID’s The Serial Killer’s Apprentice. The author of more than 2,000 articles and 73 books, including I Scream Man and How to Catch a Killer, she also has a Substack and pens a blog for Psychology Today. Her book, The Serial Killer’s Apprentice won the Anthony Award for Best Nonfiction in 2025. Her latest crime fiction novel is "You Can't Hide". To learn more about Katherine, visit her website: www.katherine.ramsland.net.

Heather Weidner

August's Off the Shelf is with Heather Weidner, author of four (yes 4!) cozy series: the Pearly Girls Mysteries, the Delanie Fitzgerald Mysteries, the Jules Keen Glamping Mysteries and the Mermaid Bay Christmas Shoppe Mysteries. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Grand Canyon Writers, International Thriller Writers and James River Writers. When not writing cozies, she's a regular blog contributor for Writers Who Kill. Heather lives in Central Virginia with her husband and a crazy Jack Russell terrier.

Author Showcase

We’ve changed our MO for June’s OFF the SHELF: We’re bringing in 4 of our previous guest authors for re-questioning regarding their activities and whereabouts since our last conversation. We catch up with LM Whitaker, E C Tully Author, DL Mitchell and Mike Cobb.

Bret Hurst

April's Off the Shelf is with author and fellow chapter member, Bret Hurst, creator of the Arrowhead Thriller Series. He holds degrees from Auburn University and Florida International University and is the CIO of a healthcare company. Originally from Miami, he now resides outside Atlanta with his wife and three children.

Tenesha L. Curtis

Tenesha L. Curtis is an author, editor, and instructor. Not only is she Sisters in Crime Atlanta’s newly inducted Chapter President, she is also the president of Writerwerx University, an organization dedicated to teaching new writers how to become independently published authors. Tenesha holds a master’s degree in addictions psychotherapy, which led to her working in the mental health industry for over a decade. She uses this training and experience to influence straightforward books on writing made especially for newbie authors and thrilling works of fiction in various genres.

SC Merritt

November 2024: SC Merritt, Author, aka Sarah, as our guest on Off the Shelf. Sarah is the creator of two cozy mystery series - the Bucket List Mysteries and The Sweetwater Springs Southern Mysteries, which just released Book #7, "Hot Cars and Homicides."

Sharon Marchisello

September 2024: Sharon Marchisello is the author of 3 published books: “Live Well, Grow Wealth,” a non-fiction on personal finance, and 2 mysteries: “Going Home” and “Secrets of the Galapagos.” Her 4th book, “Trap, Neuter, Die” is a cozy mystery scheduled to be released this fall and is the first of a 3-book contract with Level Best Books. Her short stories have appeared in the anthologies Mystery, Atlanta Style, Shhhh…Murder, and Finally Home. Sharon is retired from a 27-year career with Delta Air Lines and spends her non-writing time traveling, volunteering and serving on the Sisters in Crime Atlanta Chapter’s Board as Treasurer.

Elizabeth Crownes

June 2024: Elizabeth Crowens is an entertainment industry veteran of both NY and LA for over 25 years. Writing credits include short stories and articles in Black Belt, Black Gate, and Sherlock Holmes Mystery magazines, stories in Hell’s Heart and the Bram Stoker Award-nominated A New York State of Fright. She is the recipient of the Mystery Writers of America-New York Leo B. Burstein Scholarship, NY Foundation of the Arts grant to produce a self-published, photo-illustrated anthology, a Glimmer Train Honorable Mention, an Eric Hoffer First Prize, two Grand Prize and four First Prize Chanticleer Review awards. After a successful science fiction fantasy series about a time traveling professor, Elizabeth has recently published the first novel of her new A Golden Age of Hollywood mystery series, "Hounds of the Hollywood Baskervilles," a soft-boiled crime with a touch of humor and some recognizable characters set in the glamorous old Hollywood.