April 13 – 19: “What are we learning from the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak?

This week we’re joined by ITW members Humphrey Hawksley, Tim Waggoner, Alex Lettau, Richard Z. Santos, Ed Ruggero, Cara Putman and Carole Lawrence while they discuss the coronavirus: As thriller writers, what are we learning from the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak? Scroll down to the “comments” section to follow along. You won’t want to miss it!

Humphrey Hawksley is an author and foreign correspondent. His work with the BBC has taken him to crises all over the world, and he lectures widely at venues such as Center of Strategic and International Studies in D.C. and the RAND Corporation in California. MAN ON EDGE is the second in the much-praised Rake Ozenna series which was launched in 2018 with MAN ON ICE, set on the US-Russian border.

Ed Ruggero is a West Point graduate and former Army officer who has studied, practiced, and taught leadership for more than twenty-five years. His client list includes the FBI, the New York City Police Department, CEO Conference Europe, the CIA, the Young Presidents Organization, and Forbes, among many others. He has appeared on CNN, The History Channel, the Discovery Channel, and CNBC. Ruggero’s previous work includes the nonfiction books Duty First: West Point and the Making of American Leaders and The First Men In: U.S. Paratroopers and the Fight to Save D-Day. He lives in Philadelphia.

Alex Lettau is the pen name of Ludwig Alexander Lettau MD, a former medical epidemiologist with the CDC and current infectious disease specialist based in Charleston SC where he writes infection-related medical thrillers. In his Indie award-winning debut novel Yellow Death, the protagonist Kris Jensen, infected with an unknown lethal hepatitis virus, has only five days left to find answers to its origin. She survives to become a series protagonist! Look for Night Plague coming in 2020 in which a virus that causes insomnia triggers widespread violence in a Southern town. Kris Jensen races to solve the epidemic before it spreads nationwide.

Carole Lawrence (Carole Buggé, Elizabeth Blake) is a New York-based suspense writer, performer, composer and prize-winning playwright and poet.  Edinburgh Twilight, Book 1 of the Ian Hamilton mysteries, is a best seller on Amazon.  Titan Press recently reissued her two Sherlock Holmes novels, The Star of India and The Haunting of Torre Abbey.  Her Lee Campbell thrillers, under the name C.E. Lawrence, include Silent Screams and its sequels, are about a criminal profiler chasing serial killers in New York City.  The first book of her Jane Austen Society Mysteries is Pride, Prejudice and Poison.

Tim Waggoner has published nearly fifty novels and seven collections of short stories. He writes original dark fantasy and horror, as well as media tie-ins, and his articles on writing have appeared in numerous publications. He’s won the Bram Stoker Award, the Horror Writers Association’s Mentor of the Year Award, and he’s been a multiple finalist for both the Shirley Jackson Award and the Scribe Award. He’s also a full-time tenured professor who teaches creative writing at Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio.

Richard Z. Santos received an MFA from Texas State University. He is a board member of The National Book Critics Circle, and his fiction, essays, and reviews have appeared in multiple publications, including The San Antonio Express-News, Kirkus Reviews, The Rumpus, The Morning News and The Texas Observer. Previously, he was a political campaign operative. A high school English teacher in Austin, Texas, this is his first novel.

Cara Putman is the author of more than thirty legal thrillers, historical romances, and romantic suspense novels. She has won or been a finalist for honors including the ACFW Book of the Year and the Christian Retailing’s BEST Award. Cara graduated high school at sixteen, college at twenty, completed her law degree at twenty-seven, and received her MBA. She is a practicing attorney and teaches undergraduate and graduate law courses at a Big Ten business school.