Charles Ardai, a lifelong New Yorker, spent his first thirty years living either at 51st and Second or 52nd and First, before packing the Conestoga and lighting out for the wilds of 10021. His first novel, Little Girl Lost (written under the pen name Richard Aleas), was nominated for both the Edgar and Shamus awards. Ardai is also the cofounder and editor of the award-winning pulp-revival imprint Hard Case Crime.
Carol Lea Benjamin, once an undercover agent for the William J. Burns Detective Agency, a teacher, and a dog trainer, is the author of the Shamus Award–winning Rachel Alexander mystery series, as well as eight acclaimed books on dog training and behavior. Recently elected to the International Association of Canine Professionals Hall of Fame, she lives in Greenwich Village with her husband and three swell dogs.
Thomas H. Cook is the author of twenty novels and two works of nonfiction. He has been nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award five times in four separate categories. His novel The Chatham School Affair won the Edgar for Best Novel in 1996. He splits his time between Manhattan and Cape Cod.
Jeffery Deaver, a former journalist, folk singer, and attorney, is an international number-one best-selling author. His novels have appeared on best-seller lists around the world, including the New York Times, the Times of London, Italy’s Corriere della Sera, the Sydney Morning Herald, and the Los Angeles Times. His books are sold in 150 countries and have been translated into twenty-five languages. His most recent novels are XO, a Kathryn Dance thriller, for which he wrote an album of country-western songs; and Carte Blanche, the latest James Bond continuation novel.
Robert Knightly is a trial lawyer in the Criminal Defense Division of the Legal Aid Society. In another life, he was a lieutenant in the New York City Police Department. This is his first published fiction, which is a piece of a first novel, Bodies in Winter. He was born and raised in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the locale of the story.
Maan Meyers(Annette and Martin Meyers) have written six books and multiple short stories in the Dutchman series of historical mysteries set in New York in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.
Martin Meyers grew up on Madison Street, a couple of blocks from the East River where the Manhattan Bridge hovers—the Lower East Side then, now. He currently lives on the Upper West Side with his wife, author Annette Meyers. In 1975, when he was still an actor, he wrote the first book in his Patrick Hardy P.I. series, Kiss and Kill.
Justin Scott was born on West 76th Street between Riverside and West End, grew up in a small town, and came back to Manhattan to write mysteries, thrillers, and the occasional short story in Midtown, the Upper West Side, the Village, and Chelsea. Twice nominated for Edgar Awards, his New York stories include Many Happy Returns, Treasure for Treasure, Normandie Triangle, and Rampage.
C.J. Sullivan lived in Brooklyn on the Ridgewood/ Bushwick border for seven years and loved the neighborhood. He has worked as a Court Clerk in Brooklyn Supreme since 1994. He has also been a freelance writer for the last ten years. Sullivan has a regular column in the New York Press called “The Bronx Stroll.” He now lives in Ridgewood, New Jersey with his wife Lisa and his twin daughters, Olivia and Luisa.
Xu Xi is the author of six books, including the novel The Unwalled City and Overleaf Hong Kong (stories and essays), and has edited two anthologies of Hong Kong literature. She teaches at Vermont College’s MFA program, and lives and writes primarily between Manhattan, upstate New York, Hong Kong, and the South Island of New Zealand. For more information, visit www.xuxiwriter.com.
