November 9 – 15: “How to accurately write dialogue, settings or historical events.”

This week we’re making it real! Making dialogue, settings and historical events real, that is. We’re joined by a full house ITW members, including Paul McGoran, Jennifer Kincheloe, John Hegenberger, Erica Wright, Patrick Kendrick, J. D. Horn, Sherry Knowlton, Robert McClure, Anthony Schumacher, William Lemanski, Toby Tate, D. J. Niko, Earl Javorsky, Judy Penz Sheluk and Elizabeth Edmondson.

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Born and raised in the heart of the heartland, Columbus, Ohio, John Hegenberger is the author of several upcoming series: Stan Wade LAPI in 1959, Eliot Cross Columbus-based PI in 1988, Tripleye, the first PI agency on Mars, and Ace Hart, western gambler in Arizona in 1873. He’s the father of three, tennis enthusiast, collector of silent films and OTR, hiker, Francophile, B.A. Comparative Lit., Pop culture author, ex-Navy, ex-marketing exec at Exxon, AT&T, and IBM, happily married for 45 years and counting.

Paul McGoran lives in Newport, Rhode Island. In his lives before fiction, he was a Russian language interpreter for the Navy, a marketing executive, a management consultant, and a day trader. The most satisfactory aspect of fiction writing for Paul is disappearing into the heads of his characters. Writers like him suffer from a kind of multiple personality disorder–minus some of the negative clinical implications. Made For Murder, a noir thriller, is his first novel.

Judy Penz Sheluk’s debut mystery, The Hanged Man’s Noose, was published July 2015. Her short crime fiction is included in The Whole She-Bang 2, World Enough and Crime, and Flash and Bang. In addition to the ITW, Judy is a member of Sisters in Crime, Crime Writers of Canada, and the Short Mystery Fiction Society.

Earl Javorsky’s first novel, Down Solo, was released in December, 2014, followed by Trust Me this past July. After a long stint trying to make it as a musician in LA and clawing his way up to mid-level management in the chemical entertainment industry (just about killed him), he went back to his first love—writing. He had the good fortune to run into Lou Aronica, his editor at The Story Plant.

Tony Schumacher has written for the Guardian and the Huffington Post, and he is a regular contributor to BBC Radio and London’s LBC Radio. He has been a policeman, stand-up comedian, bouncer, jeweler, taxi driver, perfume salesman, actor, and garbage collector, among other occupations. He currently lives outside of Liverpool, The Darkest Hour and The British Lion, both WW2 thrillers, are published by Harper Collins.

Robert McClure read pulp fiction as a kid when he should have been studying, but ultimately cracked down enough to obtain a bachelor’s in criminology from Murray State University and a law degree from the University of Louisville. He is now an attorney and crime fiction writer who lives and works in Louisville, Kentucky. His story “My Son” appeared in The Best American Mystery Stories, and he has had other works published in MudRock: Stories & Tales, Hardboiled, Thug Lit, and Plots with Guns.

Patrick Kendrick is an award winning author of several thrillers, including: Papa’s Problem, a Florida Book Award and Hollywood Film Festival Award winner. Extended Family, which earned a starred review from Booklist. His newest crime thriller, Acoustic Shadows, was published by HarperCollins in June and is a Royal Palm Literary Award Finalist. The Savants, a sci-fi, political thriller is his first YA novel, and is published by Suspense Publishing. A former firefighter and freelance journalist, he lives in Florida close to the sea.

J.D. Horn was raised in rural Tennessee and has carried a bit of its red clay with him while traveling the world, from Hollywood to Paris to Tokyo. He studied comparative literature as an undergrad, focusing on French and Russian in particular. He also holds an MBA in international business and worked as a financial analyst before becoming a novelist. Along with his spouse, Rich, and his furry co-authors, Duke and Sugar, he divides his time between Black Butte Ranch, Oregon, and San Francisco, California.

Jennifer Kincheloe is a research scientist turned writer of historical fiction. She earned a Masters degree in Public Health from Loma Linda University and a PhD in Health Services from UCLA. She adores kickboxing, yoga, and developing complex statistical models. She was on the faculty at UCLA, where she spent 11 years conducting research to inform health policy. She currently lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband and two children. Follow Jennifer on Facebook.

Sherry Knowlton is the author of the successful Alexa Williams suspense novels, DEAD of AUTUMN and DEAD of SUMMER. Sherry was that kid who would sneak a flashlight to bed at night so she could read beneath the covers. All the local librarians knew her by name. Now retired from executive positions in the health insurance industry, Sherry runs her own consulting business.  When not traveling around the globe, Sherry lives with her husband in the mountains of South Central Pennsylvania, where her novels are set.

Erica Wright‘s debut crime novel The Red Chameleon (Pegasus Books) was one of O, The Oprah Magazine‘s Best Books of Summer 2014. A sequel, The Granite Moth (Pegasus Books), will be released on November 16th. She is also the author of the poetry collection Instructions for Killing the Jackal (Black Lawrence Press, 2011) as well as the poetry editor at Guernica Magazine.

An Air Force brat who never lived in one place more than five years, Toby Tate joined the Navy soon after high school and ended up on the east coast of the U.S. He has since worked as a cab driver, a pizza delivery man, a phone solicitor, a shipyard technician, a government contractor, a retail music salesman, a bookseller, a cell phone salesman and a recording studio engineer. After earning his English degree, he became a full-time graphic designer and newspaper reporter for five years and published hundreds of stories with the Associated Press and his local paper. He has since been published in The Pedestal Magazine, Voluted Tales magazine, Famous Monsters of Filmland, Scary Monsters Magazine, and websites like eHow.com. Owing to the inspiration of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury and Stephen King, Toby became an author of what he likes to call “high-octane sci-fi, fantasy and horror” and has published several books. Toby is also a songwriter and musician and lives with his family near the Great Dismal Swamp in northeastern North Carolina.

Daphne Nikolopoulos in an award-winning journalist, author, editor, and lecturer. Under the pen name D.J. Niko, she has written two novels in an archaeological thriller series titled The Sarah Weston Chronicles. Her debut novel, The Tenth Saint (Medallion Press, 2012), won the Gold Medal (popular fiction) in the prestigious, juried Florida Book Awards. Her follow-up release, The Riddle of Solomon, continues the story of British archaeologist Sarah Weston as she seeks the relics—and mystical secrets—left behind by the biblical King Solomon in remote Israel. Daphne’s coming releases include The Oracle, book 3 in The Sarah Weston Chronicles (November 2015) and The Judgment, which is set in Israel and Egypt in the tenth century BCE (May 2016). Born and raised in Athens, Greece, Daphne now resides in West Palm Beach with her husband and twin son and daughter.

Elizabeth Edmondson writes what she likes to call Vintage Mysteries, since they’re set in the nineteen-thirties, forties and fifties. They’re stories of love and marriage, families and friendship, in which the loyalties, feuds, secrets and betrayals of the past cast long shadows into the present. She’s fascinated by characters who are quirky, mysterious, funny, unexpected and interesting and wants readers to share, as she does, in their joys and sorrows. With dramatic and glamorous settings from icy lakes to Italian villas, from wintry Budapest to fashionable France, from Cornwall to the Lake District, the landscapes are as powerful as the stories are complex. The tense realities of life mingle with supernatural elements : ghosts, prophetic dreams and voices from the past, but fun and humour also dance in and out of the light and darkness of the stories. Elizabeth’s aim is to enthrall, delight and amuse readers as they are transported to a different era.

William Lemanski is an author of three books: a memoir of his adventurous travels in yacht sailing, war, big game hunting and fishing, a biography of Kermit Roosevelt and his new mystery novel. He has been a former freelance journalist for the Straus Newspaper Company, been associate editor for a medical journal and published in numerous technical and sporting magazines. Prior to his writing activities, he completed an engineering career in the nuclear power industry. He is a Vietnam War veteran.