It’s a new year and we’re excited to get back in the swing of things, and we have a fantastic speaker to start off the year. Jon Talton, a well recognized journalist on economics and finance, as well as author of eight mystery novels including the David Mapstone Mysteries and the Cincinnati Casebooks.

We’re also going to be trying out a new location in the north end of the Sound this time, at the Celtic Bayou in Lynnwood, a great Irish/Cajun bar with a good selection of both types of food as well as a good list of beers and other drinks. A map for Celtic Bayou in Lynnwood can be found at our registration page and as you’ll see, it’s a straight shot down 196th off of I-5.

So get your 2012 off to the right (or write) start with an evening of great conversation with fellow mystery writers, good food and a fascinating talk with Seattle’s own Jon Talton. If you would like to come, please take 1 minute to register here for you and your guests so we can have an accurate count of attendees.

See you there!

What: An evening with Jon Talton

Where: Celtic Bayou

When: 6-8 PM on Saturday, January 14th

Please take one minute to register for a free ticket so we can let the restaurant know how many to expect. See you there!

Sorry for the late notice folks.  We had some hiccups planning this month’s meeting, but have no fear, we are going to have a meeting next week!

This one will be great, with MWA’s own President, Pat Harrington, giving a fascinating presentation entitled History Meets Mystery.  So make sure to join us for networking with other mystery writers, food and drink, and an entertaining presentation about history and mystery!

Please register here for your free ticket if you plan to attend (it takes just two minutes and is necessary for headcount).  Meeting is open both MWA members and non-members.

Here are the details.

Title: History Meets Mystery

When: June 11th

What: MWA Northwest President Pat Harrington will give a compelling presentation that not only entertains by encapsulating the story within Harrington’s own amateur sleuth mystery, Death Stalks the Khmer, but educates about the fascinating history of Cambodia.  The mystery features Bridget O’Hern, consultant and non-profit volunteer, who seeks bliss along the Oregon coast, but can’t help but stumble over dead bodies along the way.

In real life, the author also consults with non-profits helping those on the fringes of mainstream society.  And Pat has written over 55 million dollars in funded grants for these groups.

Where: Duke’s Southcenter. Get directions here.

Schedule:

5:30 Officers arrive

5:30-6:00 Speaker arrives.

6:00-6:30 light conversation, drink orders (schmoozing/networking)

6:30-7:00/7:15 Speaker’s presentation.

7:00-7:15 to 7:30-7:45 Q & A

7:30-7:45 until we have to give the room back (used to be 8:00 PM) more schmoozing/networking

Registration: Reserve your free ticket here.

See you there!

On Saturday, October 2nd, Michael Wolf presented to a group of 30 mystery writers on the topic of social media and blogging. The talk, entitled “Social Media, Blog and Website Strategies for Writers” was a highly interactive conversation about how writers can best extend their presence online. Mike also talked about eBooks and how they are the new frontier for online promotion.

The presentation can be viewed here. Feel free to share the link with other writers and download the presentation.

This Saturday, March 13th, none other than Bill Farley, founder of Seattle Mystery Bookshop, will come and about the “10 Things Authors Do At Signings That They Shouldn’t.”  In addition to hearing Bill’s tips for book signings, we’ll hear first hand from Bill about working with different authors over the years.

From the Seattle Mystery Bookshop website:

“Bill Farley has been a bookseller for almost 25 years, and a mystery reader since childhood, which is a lot longer ago than that. The reading began with the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew; the selling began when he and his wife B Jo bought a sleepy little general bookstore in Kalamazoo, Mich. The plan was for Bill to keep his day job and B Jo to run the store, but they discovered that Bill wanted to sell books and B Jo wanted her daytime career back. This meant a move to Philadelphia, where B Jo worked in encephalography, and Bill worked at Whodunit? mystery bookshop.

The event on Saturday is at Duke’s at Southcenter, from 6-8 PM. A map of Duke’s can be found here.

See you on Saturday!

This month’s chapter event takes place this coming Saturday, May 23rd, right after Seattle Mystery Books’ SEATTLE NOIR Anthology Launch Party.

We have several MWA-Northwest Chapter members, including Patricia Harrington, Thomas Hopp, G.M. Ford and Skye Moody and chapter board member (and collection editor) Curt Colbert have work that is featured in this anthology, and will all be on hand to sign!

MWA-Northwest is planning to take the party down the street to Fado, where the first round for all MWA Members in attendance will be picked up by the chapter.

Here are the particulars:

WHAT: SEATTLE NOIR Anthology Launch Party Followed By MWA-Northwest Post-Party

WHEN: Begins at 2:00 PM on Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 (After Party to begin following the conclusion of this first event)

WHERE: Seattle Mystery Books 113 Cherry St Seattle, WA 98104 (206) 587-5737 Then up the street to: Fado Irish Pub www.fadoirishpub.com 801 1st Ave Seattle, WA 98104 (206) 264-2700

Please RSVP to me here (bthorntonwriter@gmail.com) if you plan to attend.

[UPDATED WITH SPEAKER INFO!] Exciting news, folks, we have found a new location. We will be having this month’s meeting at Atlas Foods in University Village at 6PM. Map is here. 

The MWA-Northwest Chapter Board is very pleased to have as our featured guest speaker for this month a true renaissance man: former screenwriter, best-selling author, and current Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor for the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office Mark Lindquist. A bit more about him from his biography page at www.marklindquist.net :

In 2004 Mark Lindquist became the trial team chief of the drug unit for the Prosecuting Attorney in Pierce County and focused on aggressively prosecuting methamphetamine labs. Since that time meth labs have been reduced by over 90% in Pierce County. Mark was also one of the attorneys who successfully prosecuted the Tacoma mall shooter, Dominick Maldonado. Mark’s fourth novel, THE KING OF METHLEHEM, was published by Simon & Schuster in May of 2007. By the end of the month it was on the Pacific Northwest Bestseller list. In 2009 Mark became the Chief Criminal Deputy in the prosecutor’s office. He is married and lives with his wife in Tacoma.

Here are the details:

In light of the *second* Saturday of the month falling on Easter weekend this year, we’re moving our standard meeting date to *Saturday, April 18th*this one time only. Beginning in May we will return to our regularly-scheduled second Saturday of the month meetings. 

The meeting is at the usual time (6ish to 7:30-8ish), but we’ve finally found a workable permanent meeting place. This new venue is at Atlas Foods in the University Village (see map above).

Ok, so I sound like a broken record here, but WordPress really is great. This new site, based on WordPress, allows you to subscribe to any posts on the MWA Northwest website using an RSS feed. All you need to do is download or use whatever RSS reader you have (go here for RSS Reader info) and, once you have a reader (or if you already have one), just click on the red RSS icon on the far right of this page for the MWA Northwest RSS Feed link.  This will allow you to get notified any time we have a new post, and specifically will allow you to be notified of any events.