I know all the Chicks and most mystery writers reading this are already members of Sisters in Crime, but did you know you can join as a reader, bookseller, or librarian? And you don’t even have to be a woman?
Their mission statement reads, “Sisters in Crime was founded in 1986 to promote the ongoing advancement, recognition and professional development of women crime writers.”
That’s it. That’s all they want to do. Of course, they do so much more. There are chapters in Canada and London and in almost every state. Here’s the complete list.
Cynthia Kuhn launched our vibrant Colorado chapter in 2015. I didn’t know Cynthia at the time, but a friend, Peg Brantley, invited me to come along to their organizational meeting. We both vowed, driving to it, that we’d be happy to join, but no way were we going to volunteer for anything. Spoiler alert—we left as the inaugural Programming Chairs. Honestly, that meeting was so much fun I absolutely had to be fully immersed with these women!
The beauty of starting an organization from scratch is that you get to design your role exactly how you want.
Peg and I decided our meetings would be on Saturdays because we watch football on Sundays. I recall a bit of pushback from Cynthia until she accepted that this was indeed a hill we were willing to die on.
We’ve been involved in lots of groups over the years, so we knew how easy it was to blow off a monthly meeting, vowing to attend next month instead. We also knew there were twelve months in a year and that’s a lot of speakers, so we decided to schedule ours for a full day four times a year. We’re a statewide organization so we have people coming from all corners. We wanted it to be worth their while to drive across the state.
We also decided we wouldn’t call them “meetings” because meetings are boring. The Colorado Chapter of Sisters in Crime holds “quarterly events.” Pretty fancy, huh? We also have field trips to museums or Escape Rooms or K9 exhibitions; we have a January Kick-Off-the-Year party; and we meet for guest speakers like Ellen Byron, Nancy Picard, and Hank Phillippi Ryan.
We meet at a library and have a morning speaker talking to us about the craft or business of writing. We break for lunch and gabbing with our Sisters and Misters, then reconvene in the afternoon to hear from industry professionals. After the event, many of us convene elsewhere to continue the party over a glass of wine or pizza.
Here are just some of the fascinating folks we’ve heard from and/or topics we’ve covered in the afternoon: psychologist talking about stalkers; CBI Communications Director; FBI profiler; gun expert; arson investigator; polygraph expert; private/professional soldiers who extract people from kidnappers and pirates; forensic anthropologist; human trafficking task force personnel; private investigators; all kinds of cops with all kinds of expertise; crime scene analysts; forensic biologist; retired NCIS director; attorneys; county jail officer; retired Chief of Police; DA investigator; poisons experts … my notebook is filled with fascinating tidbits to help with my writing and satisfy my curiosity.
Peg and I completed our term with Programming, but recently got sucked back in, because—truly—it’s a fun job.
But the reason I’m telling you all of this is because we’re rounding up speakers for our November event and we thought it would be helpful to our membership to hear from a chiropractor in the morning. My chiropractor, to be precise. I’ve known him for at least 20 years and he’s very practical so I knew he’d have tips and tricks to help a group of writers keep our hands, wrists, and backs healthy so we can write every day.
I also knew that when I asked if he could save the last thirty minutes to teach us how to kill someone, he wouldn’t report me to the police. Of course, writers need to know this stuff so our bad guys can be realistically bad, and our good guys can defend themselves and thwart danger.
When I saw him this morning, he did a little jig and said, “I’m so excited about this!”
So, if you find yourself in the Denver area on November 16th and want to know how to kill someone with your bare hands, let me know.
Do you belong to your local Sisters in Crime chapter? Do you have any regular meetings—I mean events—that you look forward to attending? If you could launch any organization, what would it involve?