May 4 – 10: “What are the considerations when adopting a title for a series?”

This week we’re joined by ITW Members Michael J. Martinez, Larry D. Sweazy, J. L. Abramo, Ralph Pezzullo, Cat Connor, Layton Green, Robert Wilson, Penny Clover Petersen, Suzanne Johnson, Adrian Magson, Gary Grossman and Jean Heller as they discuss the things one must consider when adopting a title for a series?

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J. L. Abramo was born in Brooklyn on Raymond Chandler’s 59^th birthday. He is the author of Catching Water in a Net, winner of the SMP/PWA award for Best First Private Eye Novel, the subsequent Jake Diamond mysteries Clutching at Straws and Counting to Infinity, the stand-alone thriller, Gravesend, and Chasing Charlie Chan, a prequel to the Jake Diamond series. His latest Jake Diamond novel, fourth in the series, is Circling the Runway.

Layton Green is a mystery/suspense/thriller writer and the author of the bestselling Dominic Grey series, as well as other works of fiction. His novels have been nominated for several awards and have reached #1 on numerous lists in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany. In addition to writing, Layton attended law school in New Orleans and was a practicing attorney for the better part of a decade. He has also been an intern for the United Nations, an ESL teacher in Central America, a bartender in London, a seller of cheap knives on the streets of Brixton, a door to door phone book deliverer in Florida, and the list goes downhill from there. Layton lives with his wife and children in North Carolina. Please visit him on Facebook, Goodreads, Library Thing, or on his website.

Most of Jean Heller’s career was as an investigative and projects reporter and editor in New York City, Washington, D.C. and St. Petersburg Florida. Her career as a novelist began in the 1990s with the publication of the thrillers, “Maximum Impact” and “Handyman” by St. Martin’s Press. Then life intervened and postponed her new book, “The Someday File,” to publication in late 2014. Jean has won the Worth Bingham Prize, the Polk Award, and is an eight-time Pulitzer Prize nominee.

Michael J. Martinez is the author of, most recently, The Venusian Gambit, the final volume in the thrilling Daedalus series of historical fantasy-slash-space opera novels from Night Shade Books. When not making things up and writing them down, Mike enjoys homebrewing, travel and spending time with his family in the New York City suburbs. He can be found on his website and on Twitter at @mikemartinez72.

Larry D. Sweazy has been a freelance indexer for seventeen years and is also a two-time WWA  Spur  Award winner, a two-time winner of the Will Rogers Medallion Award, Best Books of Indiana award winner, and the 2013 Elmer Kelton Book Award. Larry is the author of the Josiah Wolfe, Texas Ranger western series, the Lucas Fume western series, The Devil’s Bones, and See Also Murder. He lives in the Midwest with his wife, Rose.

Penny Clover Petersen draws on a lifetime living in the suburbs of Washington DC surrounded by her somewhat peculiar family, to create her Daisy&Rose cozy mystery series. Her second novel, ROSES ARE DEAD, MY LOVE once again features cocktail loving sisters Daisy and Rose Forrest as small town shop owners who just can’t seem to get through a day without attracting malicious pranksters, stumbling onto blackmail plots, or tripping over dead bodies.

Robert Wilson has written thirteen novels. A Small Death in Lisbon, won the CWA Gold Dagger in 1999 and the International Deutsche Krimi prize in 2003. Capital Punishment, the first novel in his latest series featuring kidnap consultant, Charles Boxer, was published in 2013 and was nominated for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. You Will Never Find Me is now out in the US and UK. The next, Stealing People, will be published in 2015.

Suzanne Johnson is the author of the award-winning Sentinels of New Orleans urban fantasy series from TOR Books. Book four, PIRATE’S ALLEY, was released in April 2015. Writing as Susannah Sandlin, she is the author of the best-selling Penton Legacy paranormal thriller series, as well as The Collectors romantic thriller series, both for Montlake Romance, as well as several standalones. A displaced New Orleanian, Suzanne currently lives in Alabama.

Ralph Pezzullo is a New York Times bestselling author, and an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. His books have been published in over twenty languages and include Jawbreaker (with CIA operative Gary Berntsen), Inside SEAL Team Six (with Don Mann), The Walk-In, At the Fall of Somoza, The Chopin Manuscript (winner of the 2008 Audio Book of the Year), Plunging Into Haiti (winner of the 2006 Douglas Dillon Prize for American Diplomacy), Eve Missing, Blood of My Blood, Most Evil (with Steve Hodel), the SEAL Team Six thrillers Hunt the Wolf, Hunt the Scorpion, Hunt the Falcon, Hunt the Jackal, and The Navy SEAL Survival Handbook (also with Don Mann).

Cat Connor is a Cantabrian who’s lived most of her life as a northerner. (Makes it a bit hard when the Crusaders play the Hurricanes but apart from that it’s not too bad.) She shares her office with a retired racing greyhound called Romeo and Missy the fat grey cat. Luckily the animals don’t mind loud music. Hosting a fortnightly writing workshop at the Upper Hutt City Library: A Writer’s Plot, is something Cat truly enjoys, and she’s been doing so for 3 years. A coffee addict, lover of pinot, and Jose Cuervo tequila, Cat has been described as irresistible, infectious, and addictive. She believes music is as essential to life as breathing. Cat is a member of The New Zealand Society of Authors and International Thriller Writers. Her latest book, databyte, is longlisted for the 2015 Ngaio Marsh best crime novel Award.

Gary Grossman is an Emmy Award–winning television producer, a journalist, college teacher, and author of the bestselling thrillers Executive Actions, Executive Treason, and Executive Command, from Diversion Books. As a member of the International Thriller Writers he has participated in numerous ThrillerFest panels. He credits Michael Palmer for helping launch his career and thanks other ITW members W. G. Griffiths, Steve Berry, and C. J. Lyons, among others, for their help and inspiration. Grossman teaches at Loyola Marymount University’s Graduate School of Film and Television and is a contributing editor to Media Ethics Magazine.

Adrian Magson is the author of 17 crime/thriller novels and hundreds of short stories and articles. Author of the Riley Gavin crime series, the Harry Tate spy thriller series and the Inspector Lucas Rocco crime series set in France in the 1960, his latest novel is Close Quarters – follow-on to the highly successful The Watchman, which saw the introduction of a new hero in close protection specialist Marc Portman. A regular reviewer for Shots Magazine, he writes the ‘Beginners’ and ‘New Author’ pages for Writing Magazine, and is the author of Write On! – The Writer’s Help Book (Accent Press).