Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here. Back in the 1970s, when I was first starting out and trying to write mysteries for middle-grades readers (ages 8-12), Phyllis A. Whitney's Writing Juvenile Stories and Novels was one of the go-to how-to books on the subject, along with Joan Lowry Nixon's Writing Mysteries for Young People and Jane…
Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here. Malice Domestic, a gathering of mystery readers and writers, has just wrapped up its thirty-fifth conference in Bethesda, Maryland. Although I would encourage anyone who writes mysteries, especially in the traditional and cozy genres, to attend, I was not there this year, nor have I been since 2019. The two…