The Friends of the Concord Free Public Library present CFA Mystery Night 2024, moderated by Kate Flora! This year's event features authors Gary Braver, Joanna Schaffhausen, and James W. Ziskin. 

Kate Flora's fascination with people's criminal tendencies began in the Maine attorney general's office. Deadbeat dads, child abusers, and employment discrimination aroused her curiosity about human behavior. The author of twenty-four books spanning genres including crime fiction, true crime, memoir, nonfiction, and short stories, Flora's been a finalist for the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, and Derringer awards and twice won the Maine Literary Award for crime fiction. She's a former international president of Sisters in Crime, and a founder of the New England Crime Bake and Maine Crime Wave mystery conferences. She blogs with the Maine Crime Writers. When not conducting research for her novels and nonfiction, Kate can often be found in her garden, waging war against the woodchucks and her husband’s lawnmower. She divides her time between Maine and Massachusetts. The CFA Team thanks Kate for her many years leading Mystery Night! For more info, visit kateclarkflora.com.

Gary Braver, pen name of Gary Goshgarian, is the internationally best-selling and award-winning author of 10 critically acclaimed mysteries and medical thrillers including Elixir, Gray Matter, Choose Me (co-written with Tess Gerritsen), and Flashback, the first thriller to have won a prestigious Massachusetts Book Award. He is an award-winning Professor Emeritus from Northeastern University where he taught courses in Science Fiction, Horror Fiction, Detective Fiction, and Fiction Writing. For over 40 years he has also taught fiction-writing workshops at conferences in America and Europe. Gary’s novels have been translated into 18 languages, and three have been optioned for movies. His latest is the mystery, Rumor of Evil (2023), which Bookreporter called “a phenomenal thriller.” His essays on writing and travel have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and Writer Magazine, among others. He is also the author of five popular college writing textbooks, now in 38 editions. He lives with his family in Arlington, MA. For more info, visit www.garybraver.com.

Joanna Schaffhausen wields a mean scalpel, skills she developed in her years studying neuroscience. She has a doctorate in psychology, which reflects her long-standing interest in the brain―how it develops and the many ways it can go wrong. Previously, she worked as a scientific editor in the field of drug development. Prior to that, she was an editorial producer for ABC News, writing for programs such as World News Tonight, Good Morning America, and 20/20. Joanna is the winner of the 2016, Mystery Writers of America/St. Martin’s Minotaur First Crime Novel Award. She lives in the Boston area with her husband, daughter, and an obstreperous basset hound named Winston. For more info, visit https://www.joannaschaffhausen.com/.

James W. Ziskin is the author of the Ellie Stone Mysteries, which have won the Anthony, Barry, and two Macavity awards. His books and stories have also been finalists for the Edgar® (twice), Anthony (five times), Lefty (five times), Agatha (once), and Sue Grafton Memorial awards (once). A linguist by training, he studied Romance languages and literature at the University of Pennsylvania. After completing his graduate degree, he worked in New York as a photo-news producer and writer, and then as Director of NYU’s Casa Italiana. He spent fifteen years in the Hollywood post production industry, running large international operations in the subtitling/localization and visual effects fields. His international experience includes two years working and studying in France, extensive time in Italy, and more than three years in India. He speaks Italian and French. James lives in Boston. He is represented by Kimberley Cameron of Kimberley Cameron and Associates. For more info, visit https://jameswziskin.com/.

For more information on CFA events, please visit www.concordfestivalofauthors.org. 

This program is made possible by the generous support of the Friends of the Concord Free Public Library, a patron-supported non-profit organization.