President: Valerie Burns
Valerie (V. M.) Burns is an Agatha, Anthony, Edgar, and Next Generation Award-finalist. Writing as V. M. Burns, she is the author of the Mystery Bookshop, Dog Club, and RJ Franklin Mystery series. As Valerie Burns, she writes the Baker Street Mystery series. She also writes the Bailey the Bloodhound Mystery series as Kallie E. Benjamin. In addition to writing, Valerie is an adjunct professor in the Writing Popular Fiction MFA Program at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA. Born and raised in northwestern Indiana, Valerie now lives in Northern Georgia with her two poodles. Connect with Valerie at vmburns.com.
Immediate Past President: Lynn Chandler Willis
Lynn is an award-winning, best selling author of the true crime book, Unholy Covenant, and fiction titles The Rising, Wink of an Eye, and the Ava Logan mystery series. Her upcoming projects include Raynor Beck, a PI series set on the NC Outerbanks, and Emily Gayle, an FBI agent battling crime deep in the Appalachian mountains. Both series are scheduled for release in Fall 2022. Lynn is the past president of Murder We Write/Triad Chapter of Sisters in Crime, past president of Piedmont Authors Network, a member of the Authors Guild, and has served in various board and volunteer roles for the Southeast Chapter of MWA. She recently joined the fun at the The Stiletto Gang as a regular blogger. She lives on a farm in the Triad region of North Carolina with her border collie, Finn, and a calico kitty named Jingles. You can visit her website at https://lynnchandlerwillis.com/
Vice President: Carla Damron
Carla Damron is a social worker, advocate and author whose last suspense novel, The Orchid Tattoo, won the 2023 winter Pencraft Award for Literary Excellence, the Literary Titan Gold Award, and the Firebird Award for best suspense. Her work The Stone Necklace (about grief and addiction) won the 2017 Women’s Fiction Writers Association Star Award and was selected the One Community Read for Columbia SC.
Damron is also the author of numerous short stories and the Caleb Knowles mystery novels Keeping Silent, Spider Blue, and Death In Zooville. The fourth in this series, Justice Be Done, will be released later this year. Damron holds an MSW and an MFA. Her careers of social worker and writer are intricately intertwined; all of her novels explore social issues like addiction, homelessness, and mental illness. She and her husband live in South Carolina with their large family of poorly behaved shelter animals.
Treasurer: Diane Kelly
Diane Kelly is a former CPA/business attorney, and author of six mystery series including the Death & Taxes, Paw Enforcement, House Flipper, Busted, Southern Homebrew, and Mountain Lodge Mysteries series. She has served on the board of numerous writing organizations and nonprofits, including Triangle Sisters in Crime, Murder We Write, Romance Writers of America, Dallas Area Romance Authors, Friends of the Mansfield Public Library, Friends of the Orange County Public Library, and Flat Tire Theater Company, as well as numerous PTAs at the school and district level.
Secretary: Dorothy McFalls
Dorothy McFalls (writing as Dorothy St. James) has been writing fulltime since 2001. Reading and books have been a lifelong passion. She’s been published with large presses, small presses, and independently. If there’s a way to get a book to the reader, she’s tried it. Also, if there’s a mistake to be made in publishing, she’s made it. Born in New York, Dorothy has spent nearly her entire life in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. She loves the quirky parts of the southern lifestyle and sets nearly all her books in small towns like the ones she’d worked with in her past as an urban planner. In the mystery genre, she’s written the White House Gardener Mysteries and the Beloved Bookroom Mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime, the Southern Chocolate Shop Mysteries for Crooked Lane Books, and indie published several mysteries. She’s currently working on a mainstream Southern mystery novel.
Eastern Area Rep (NC, SC, GA): Yasmin Angoe
Western Area Rep (TN, MS, AL): Jeffrey Philips
Jeffrey “Hammerhead” Philips strapped on a scuba cylinder (when Clorox bottles were BCD’s) for the first time in 1967. Dove for two years, decided he liked the water and obtained his scuba certification from NASDS, then became a PADI instructor. He hasn’t stopped diving since. In 1980 he married the prettiest mermaid in the ocean, Kitty. Today, he lives in Monterey, Tennessee, writing fictionalized events of his travels.
PR and Promotions Chair: Melissa Bourbon
Melissa Bourbon is the national bestselling author of more than twenty-eight mystery books, including the Book Magic mysteries, A Magical Dressmaking Mystery series, and the Bread Shop Mysteries, written as Winnie Archer. A former secondary English/Language Arts teacher and Creative Writing teacher with Southern Methodist University’s CAPE program and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institution with North Carolina State University, she has applied her love of teaching to the creation of WriterSpark Academy, an online school for aspiring and new writers seeking to hone their craft. Learn more about Melissa at her website, www.melissabourbon.com, on Facebook @MelissaBourbon/Winnie ArcherBooks, and on Instagram @bookishly_cozy, and learn about about WriterSpark at www.writersparkacademy.com.