Writer's Corner

Annamaria Alfieri is the pen name of Patricia King, a New York City-based novelist who dreamed of being a writer since she was nine.

Alfieri has penned two historical mystery series, one set in British East Africa in the early 1900s, and the other set in South America.

Stanley Trollip is one half of a team (with Michael Sears) that writes the internationally famous Detective Kubu series.

The series features David “Kubu” Bengu, a senior police detective in Gabarone, Botswana. Kubu, the word for hippopotamus in the Setswana language, is the unlikely hero of the eight-book series.

Trollip has also just released Wolfman, a thriller set in northern Minnesota that is the prequel to a new Trollip/Sears series featuring investigative reporter Crystal Nguyen.

David Housewright is one of the nation’s top authors.A former President of the Mystery Writers of America, winner of three Minnesota Book Awards for crime fiction, and the prestigious Edgar Award.

He has two new novels for this year, “Girl in a Dumpster” in his Holland Taylor series, and “Them Bones,” the 22nd book in his Rushmore McKenzie series, due for release four days after his interview with Alan on June 20th.

He discussed the difference between the two main characters and many of the choices he faced in completing these two books, each destined to be a best seller.

“This book should accompany every AARP registration,” was part of the introduction of Andrea Gilats’ memoir “Radical Endurance” about “growing old in the age of longevity.” Gilats, who holds a Ph.D., nearing 80 years old, is a writer, educator and former Yoga instructor and who authors a very personal story of her aging process filled with quotations from a variety of experts, philosophers, and writers, and offers suggestions about dealing with old age, and even facing the prospect of death.

Jeffrey Burton, a return guest, has written several previous series, his latest in the Chicago K-9 novel, “The Second Grave,” in which his two “cadaver dogs” uncover a suicide and then discover two graves, on with three bodies and one with only one. This leads to the difficulty of finding the story behind the killings and an intriguing twist involving a decades old bank robbery.

The prolific MARY SEIFERT, author of the Katie & Maverick Cozy mystery, discussed her writing career with Alan, and disclosed that she has just completed her tenth novel.

From upstate Minnesota, she spoke of the fact that familiar surroundings aided her writing, in addition to friends and family, many of whom she included in her novels using other names, Mary talked of the rigors of the editing process, disclosed that she did not do complete outlines, and how she always knows how her stories would end.

She has won multiple awards for her work.

Roger Stelljes’ books have graced both the New York Times and USA Today best seller lists. He is the author of two series, the McRyan Mystery Series and the Tori Hunter-Manchester Bay series. His books have been downloaded more than three million times. His most recent book, Taken in the Cold, is the seventh book featuring FBI special agent Tori Hunter.

Doug Dorow is the author of two FBI series. The first series is set in Minnesota and features FBI Special Agent Jack Miller. The second, the Critical Incident Series, is a three-book series of novellas features a rotating cast of characters that comprise the FBI Hostage Rescue Team. Dorow is a graduate of the FBI Citizens Academy.