ONLINE: Rachel Howzell Hall, Libby Fischer Hellmann, Kelli Stanley

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Michael Allen Dymmoch

Chicago-based crime fiction writer Libby Fischer Hellmann.

Mystery to Me hosts this virtual conversation, via Crowdcast, about the debut anthology from nonprofit Nasty Woman Press. Shattering Glass collects short fiction, essays, interviews and other works on the theme of women's empowerment, and all profits from the book will be donated to Planned Parenthood. For this talk, Nasty Woman Press founder Kelli Stanley is joined by two expert crime fiction authors, Libby Fischer Hellmann and Rachel Howzell Hall, and while many contributors will be familiar names to readers of the suspense field the book also includes writing from Sen. Barbara Boxer and former CIA officer Valerie Plame.

press release: Shattering Glass is the first in a series of remarkable anthologies published by a most unique publisher: Nasty Woman Press, a non-profit, 501(c)(4) founded to help fund other non-profits threatened by the rise of autocracy and the ongoing war against civil and human rights. A scintillating mixture of top-flight fiction from bestselling authors in multiple genres, fascinating articles and thought-provoking essays, conversations and interviews, Shattering Glass takes as its broad theme the empowerment of women, with all profits from the book donated to Planned Parenthood.

Nasty Woman Press is a 501(c)(4) non-profit publisher pledged to fight fascism, racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia, and bigotry while promoting human rights and civil rights in the United States and around the globe. As writers, readers, editors, artists, librarians, designers, publishing professionals and creative, principled human beings, we cherish the planet and our fragile environment, support science and education and value health and social services. We believe in taking care of each other. We believe in a better, kinder, world.

About the authors:

RACHEL HOWZELL HALL, author of the bestseller and Anthony Award-, Lefty Award- and ITW-award nominated They All Fall Down (Forge), writes the acclaimed Lou Norton series, including Land of Shadows, Skies of Ash, Trail of Echoes, and City of Saviors. She is also the co-author of The Good Sister with James Patterson, which was included in the New York Times bestseller The Family Lawyer. She is currently on the board of directors for the Southern California chapter of Mystery Writers of America, and lives in Los Angeles.  Her next novel And Now She’s Gone will be published in September 2020. You can find her at www.rachelhowzell.com and on Twitter @RachelHowzell.

KELLI STANLEY is the Macavity Award-winning creator of the Miranda Corbie series (CITY OF DRAGONS, CITY OF SECRETS, CITY OF GHOSTS, CITY OF SHARKS), literary noir novels set in 1940 San Francisco and featuring "one of crime's most arresting heroines" (Library Journal). She is also a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist. 

Named a literary heir of Dashiell Hammett by his granddaughter in a Publisher's Weekly article, Kelli has also been honored to have critics compare her work to icons Raymond Chandler, Norman Corwin, and Herb Caen. She’s published five novels and numerous short stories and essays and was a contributor to BOOKS TO DIE FOR: WORLD’S GREATEST MYSTERY WRITERS ON THE WORLD’S GREATEST MYSTERY NOVELS, edited by Declan Burke and John Connolly.  

Kelli holds a Master’s Degree in Classics, a background she put to good use with her creation of “Roman Noir”: her first book, NOX DORMIENDA, won the Bruce Alexander Award for best historical mystery. The City and County of San Francisco awarded her a Certificate of Merit for her contributions to literature.

Kelli next novel is RED HARVEST. She founded Nasty Woman Press, a unique genre-based non-profit publisher, on November 9th, 2016.

LIBBY FISCHER HELLMANN left a career in broadcast news in Washington, D.C., and moved to Chicago over 35 years ago, where she, naturally, began to write gritty crime fiction. Fifteen novels and twenty-five short stories later, she claims they’ll take her out of the Windy City feet first. She has been nominated for many awards in the mystery and crime writing community and has even won a few. She has been a finalist twice for the Anthony and four times for Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year. She has also been nominated for the Agatha, the Shamus, the Daphne, and has won the IPPY and the Readers Choice Award multiple times. 

Her novels include the now five-volume Ellie Foreman series, which she describes as a cross between “Desperate Housewives” and “24;” the hard-boiled 5-volume Georgia Davis PI series, and four stand-alone historical thrillers set during Revolutionary Iran, Cuba, the Sixties, and WW2. Her short stories have been published in a dozen anthologies, the Saturday Evening Post, and Ed Gorman’s “25 Criminally Good Short Stories” collection. Her books have been translated into Spanish, German, Italian, and Chinese. All her books are available in print, ebook, and audiobook. Libby also hosts Second Sunday Books, a monthly podcast where she interviews bestselling and emerging authors. In 2006 she was the National President of Sisters in Crime, a 4000 member organization committed to the advancement of female crime fiction authors.