So You Want to Be a Writer?

media release: Mystery To Me Books is hosting it's first ever panel discussion! We will be joined by four local authors, Laura Bird, Maggie Ginsberg, Sean Patrick Little and Cayce Osbourne. They range in genre, writing style, and publishing experience. Come ask them any questions you have about writing, reading or what its like to publish a book! Still come even if you aren't writing a book and aren't planning to but you just want to hear these authors talk about their work!

Laura Bird- A Milwaukee native, Laura Anne Bird graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in English. She lives in Madison with her husband, three big kids, and little dog. When she's not reading, writing, or reviewing books, she loves to exercise, explore the outdoors, and serve as an ambassador for Wisconsin Book Festival and a board member for Madison Public Library Foundation. 

Marvelous Jackson, which launched in September, is a follow-up to Laura's middle grade debut, Crossing the Pressure Line. 

Join Laura on Instagram @laura_at_the_library, where she celebrates all things literary. 

Maggie Ginsberg- Maggie Ginsberg is the author of Still True, winner of the 2023 WLA Literary Award for Fiction. She's the former managing editor of Madison Magazine, where over the last nearly 20 years her nonfiction work earned honors from the City Regional Magazine Association, the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the Milwaukee Press Club. She now works full-time as a writer at UW–Madison.

Cayce Osborne- Cayce Osborne is a writer, graphic designer, and native Madisonian. She writes about women who find themselves in difficult situations and then have to figure their way out—which often makes them ornery and involves occasional swearing. Her debut novel, I Know What You Did, came out in 2023. You can learn more at cayceosborne.com

Sean Patrick Little- ​Sean Patrick Little is a writer, speaker, editor, educator, and general literary dude from Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.

He is the author of the best-selling Survivor Journals series and the critically praised Abe & Duff mystery series. He has also authored one book in the Shelby Ree mystery series, a space opera called Strange Angels​, and is always at work on the next project.

After losing his mom, a struggling thirteen-year-old boy in northern Wisconsin rediscovers the love of baking he once shared with her and decides to audition for the world-famous Marvelous Midwest Kids Baking Championship television show in Chicago. Jack is sure that his new sense of purpose will help him stay out of trouble, so he throws himself into learning the finer points of sprinkles and scones—and hopefully even mending his broken relationship with his dad.

Nathan Pageant doesn't have much. He has his antique long-haul transport ship, a small but loyal crew, and he's free and independent of the powerful corporations taking control of deep space exploration. That's all he really needs when it comes down to it. Pageant and his crew find a frail young woman alone on a nearly barren rock in the middle of nowhere. They know something isn't quite right. Pageant brings her on board his ship, despite his better judgement, and everything goes a little haywire after that. Now pursued by a powerful corporation, hauling something more precious than all the credits in the universe, and amassing a crew of misfits with nowhere else to go, Pageant must solve the mystery surrounding this woman before the corps find him because the fate of the universe might just be at stake. This is not exactly what he wanted out of life, but trouble has a way of finding Pageant no matter how much he tries to hide from it. With a little luck and the help of his friends, Pageant might just survive.

When a bestselling novel fictionalizes the death of her childhood best friend--and accuses her of the murder--Petal Woznewski must figure out who wrote it and why. Truth and fiction collide in this captivating debut novel by Cayce Osborne.Petal Woznewski is content with her quiet, introverted life in New York City: she has her junk food, her movies, and her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Gus. That peace is shattered when her name appears on the dedication page of an anonymously written thriller with a cryptic note: "I know what you did, Petal Woznewski. And now everyone else will, too."As she reads, Petal realizes the story is rooted in a secret she buried thirty years earlier, when she was fourteen. A secret involving the tragic death of her friend, Megan. A secret that only one other person knows--their old friend, Jenny. Armed with a copy of the book and her own suspicions, Petal returns to her hometown of Madison, Wisconsin. There, she discovers more questions than answers. Jenny has disappeared, and Petal's old high school crush, Ben, doesn't know anything about the book--at least not anything he's telling.As sinister clues pile up, and the thriller's plot detours dangerously from the facts, Petal has no choice but to confront her past and solve the mystery of who wrote it--before her very real life ends as tragically as the novel.