The Greater Los Angeles Writers Conference (GLAWS) has been going full steam ahead this past week. Tonight at 5PM PDT, I’ll be at a panel about the subgenres of suspense fiction. My supernatural suspense novel, The Ghosts of Thorwald Place, will be released in October.

I’ll be having a conversation about the key elements of the genre with fellow CamCat authors Pat Broderick (Dead on My Feet, a cozy mystery), J. A. Crawford (Jove Brand is Near Death, an amateur sleuth mystery), Marcy McCreary (The Disappearance of Trudy Solomon, a police procedural), and Emily C. Whitson (Beneath the Marigolds, a thriller/amateur sleuth mystery). Editorial Director, Helga Schier, will be moderating. Check out the full description below!

Make Your Genre Work for You: A Closer Look at the Subgenres of Suspense Fiction

Genres have a purpose, a structure, a pattern, a style. Readers expect certain tropes when they buy a romance or a fantasy or a mystery. If writers stray too far from these expectations, they risk alienating their potential readers, but if they follow the norms too closely, they risk boring them. Authors Pat Broderick, J. A. Crawford, Marcy McCreary, Helen Power, and Emily Whitson will discuss how they make use of the pillars of their subgenres – cozy mystery, detective fiction, police procedural, amateur sleuth, and thriller – to draw readers in and fulfill expectations while stretching the limits of genre to tell their unique stories. CamCat representative Helga Schier will touch upon the relevance of genre for acquisitions and marketing.

Check out the program and register here.