Members
Sisters in Crime Connecticut has a growing list of professional women crime writers.
We are a group of mystery writers committed to improving our craft, supporting one another, connecting regularly, and sharing resources, wins and opportunities for growth and connection. We would love for you to join us!
Meet Our Members
Meet the current members of the Sisters in Crime Connecticut Chapter.
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Rhonda Barnat
Member
Rhonda Barnat is a business executive and writes crime fiction under the pen name Rona Bell. Her short story, Prey of New York received special mention in Best Mystery Stories, 2018, published by Houghton Mifflin and edited by Louise Penney and Otto Penzler. She has also published in Mystery Readers Journal and has a forthcoming piece appearing about John Le Carré. She lives in Rye, New York and is a member of Mystery Writers of America.
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Sarah P. Blanchard
Member
Raised on what used to be a dairy-and-horse farm in North Stamford, Sarah earned her BA at UConn. After earning an MBA, she moved to Hawaii and taught at the University of Hawaii-Hilo before working at Gemini Observatory as a facility supervisor.
After writing three non-fiction books on horse training, she turned her attention to poetry and fiction. In 2010, she moved to North Carolina, where her novel Drawn from Life and many of her short stories are set. Several of her shorter works have been published in literary journals; in 2021 she was a finalist for the Doris Betts Fiction Prize.
In her writing, Sarah creates compassionate characters who believe they must battle their demons alone, and antagonists who think they have nothing left to lose. Rural life and the natural world are also strong influences in Sarah's work.
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Warren Bromberg
Member
Warren retired from a wonderful 3 decades plus career as an adult and pediatric urologist to fulfill a lifelong desire to write a first novel. In the spirit of sharing some of his intimate experiences as a physician, the book naturally falls into the genre of a medical whodunnit.
Forty-one years of blissful marriage produced two daughters, a pair of sons-in-law, four grandchildren, and a loyal rescue hound. Warren and his wife Beth split their time between Stamford (when they need time with the little ones) and Longboat Key, FL (when the latter isn’t inundated by a storm surge).
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Liz Bullard
Member
Liz Bullard is a multi‑genre author, therapist, and coach who helps creatives move from stuck to started with clarity and confidence. Known for her captivating storytelling, Liz’s notable works include The Prophecy Series and the Lira Somers Mysteries, praised for fast‑paced plots, vivid characters, and movie‑like imagery.
Liz’s love of reading and writing is evident in the eReads Podcast, where she celebrates the power of creativity and storytelling. When she’s not writing, coaching or recording the podcast, she’s cooking, reading or spending time with Preston the corgi. -
Lucy Burdette/A.K.A. Roberta Isleib
Member
Clinical psychologist Lucy Burdette aka Roberta Isleib is the author of 23 mysteries, including USA Today bestseller A Clue in the Crumbs (Crooked Lane Books.) Both the twelfth book in her Key West series, A Dish to Die For, and the tenth, The Key Lime Crime, won the Florida Book Award’s bronze medal for popular fiction. Her first women’s fiction title, The Ingredients of Happiness and her first thriller, Unsafe Haven, have been published by Severn House. Her books and stories have been short-listed for Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards. She's a past president of Sisters in Crime, and currently president of the Friends of the Key West Library. Visit her website, or follow her on Facebook and Instagram.
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Lyn Liao Butler
Member
Lyn Liao Butler is a Taiwanese American author of thrillers, upmarket fiction, and rom-coms. Her most recent thriller, Someone Else’s Life, was an Amazon bestseller and her second book Red Thread of Fate is a finalist in the WFWA Star Awards for 2023. Before becoming an author, she was a professional ballet and modern dancer, and is still a fitness and yoga instructor.
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J.A. Dayton
Member
Jennifer A. Dayton is an artist and writer. She lives on a former cranberry farm in a small, New England town. Dayton, a former newspaper columnist and supporter of local journalism, has long experience as a policy advocate on public issues. She held several elected offices, which developed her love of writing and public speaking. Her passion for culture, history and travel inspires her life and writing. When not traveling, she loses sleep reading spine-tingling, mind-bending, heart-racing thrillers. Set In Stone is her debut novel.
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Devon Delaney
Member
Devon is a wife, mother of three, grandmother to four, accomplished cooking contester, and author of a cooking competition murder mystery series. She has won many cooking contests and cook-offs, and has won prizes such as a full kitchen of major appliances, five-figure cash prizes and four trips to Disney World. Combining her beloved cooking contesting hobby with her enthusiasm for writing was the next logical step. Season with a touch of murder and mayhem, her cook-off mystery series was born. Devon’s latest release is Farm Fresh and Fatal.
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Eileen Doyle
President
Eileen Doyle writes mysteries set in the art world, with a particular interest in stories of hijinks such as thefts, counterfeiting, and other swindles. Before she ill-advisedly quit her day job to write full-time, she earned a Ph.D. in art history, taught courses in modern and contemporary art, and held various and sundry positions in visual arts organizations in New York City and Connecticut. She has published non-fiction articles on contemporary art. When Eileen isn’t writing, she can usually be found coaxing her lovable, but lazy, goldendoodle Ginger out for a walk or digging herself out from the mountains of laundry produced by her three children.
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Samantha DuBois
Member
Samantha DuBois is a writer and communications specialist whose work has taken her from the Nicaraguan rain forest to the Colorado foothills and beyond. She enjoys writing about her travels on her personal blog, as well as penning character-driven mysteries. Her first mystery novel, Dead Letter, is currently out on submission (yikes!)
In her spare time, she enjoys teaching yoga, finding new trails to hike, and perfecting her chocolate chip cookie recipe. After spending the last two years as unintentional nomads, she and her husband have recently settled in southeastern Connecticut with their two cats, Ollie and Pip.
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Sharon Dukett
Vice-President & Facebook Manager
Sharon Dukett is the award-winning author of the environmental thriller The Shutdown List and No Rules: A Memoir.
She worked in information technology as a consultant, programmer and project manager in the private sector, and as a deputy director for the State of Connecticut Judicial Branch. Running technology projects taught her about the infinite possibilities of how plans can go awry, and the creativity needed to rescue them: a useful insight for writing thrillers.
Sharon is also a member of International Thriller Writers, Mystery Writers of America, and Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association.
Sharon lives in central Connecticut with her husband, near her children and grandchildren. She is currently working on another thriller.
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Patricia Dunn
Member
Patricia Dunn/T.M. Dunn is author of Her Father's Daughter, a psychological thriller (Crooked Lane Books, July 18, 2023), Rebels by Accident (Sourcebooks Fire), and Last Stop on the 6 (Bordighera Press). Her writing has appeared in Salon, The Village Voice, The Nation, LA Weekly, and The Christian Science Monitor. She has also been published in the New York Times best-selling anthology, Love, InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women (Soft Skull); and elsewhere. Dunn has served as Senior Director of the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College, where she holds an MFA in creative writing. She teaches and coaches aspiring and established writers. Dunn lives in Stamford, Connecticut where she is currently working on her next novel, with her rescue puppy Blanqui snuggled at her side.
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Glen Ebisch
Member
Glen Ebisch has been writing for over thirty years. Most of his books are edgy, cozy mysteries with a touch of humor. They are usually set in New Jersey shore communities or in western Massachusetts. A former professor of philosophy, he now writes full-time and lives in central Connecticut.
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Christine Falcone
Newsletter Manager
Christine Falcone’s short stories have appeared in publications such as Imagine, Lancrom Review, and Deadfall: Crime Stories by New England Writers. After working for nearly forty years as an RN in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Christine is delighted that retirement coincides with the publication of her first full-length mystery, Ex’d Out published in 2022. She lives on the Connecticut Shoreline with her family and a dog who is not nearly as well behaved as Bruno, the beloved canine in her novel.
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Gerri Lewis
Treasurer
Gerri Lewis is an award-winning feature writer, former stringer and columnist who began her career getting her fingers smudged on newsprint at the Ridgefield Press and its syndicated newspapers. Later she turned to magazines and was a contributing writer for Morris Media Group, Inc with regularly appearing cover features in Ridgefield Magazine. With over 1600 published features, news stories and obituaries under her belt, Gerri continues to write for 068 Magazine, focusing on Connecticut towns with the 068 zip code. Her debut Deadly Deadlines Mystery, The Last Word, was released by Crooked Lane Books in 2024.
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Ang Pompano
Membership Secretary
Ang Pompano’s stories have appeared in many anthologies, including the Anthony Award-winning Mystery Most Edible. His novel When It’s Time for Leaving was nominated for an Agatha Best First Novel Award. Diet of Death is his latest novel. A founder of Crime Spell Books, Ang co-edited Bloodroot: Best New England Crime Stories. A member of MWA, he’s been on the New England Crime Bake committee for sixteen years. A long-time SinCNE board member, he is now on the board of the Connecticut chapter. Ang lives in Guilford with his wife Annette and their two rescue dogs.
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Carole B. Shmurak
Library Liaison
Carole B. Shmurak is Professor Emerita at Central Connecticut State University and the author of 11 books. Under her own name, she writes the Susan Lombardi Academic Mystery Series. As Carroll Thomas, she is the co-author of the Matty Trescott Young Adult Historical Novels, one of which (Ring Out Wild Bells) was an Agatha nominee for best young adult mystery. Carole also leads monthly mystery groups at the Simsbury, Wallingford and Southington libraries.
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Louise Talotta
Secretary
Louise Talotta’s career background is in Human Resources and operations management for two CT insurance companies. A UCONN grad, she also has a Business Mastery Certification from UCONN and CPC accreditation from the International Coaching Academy for life and business coaching. She is a contributing author in Coaching for Powerful Change, published in 2015 and past winner of a fiction award for a boating humor story, Toddler on Board published by Offshore Magazine.
An avid reader of cozy mysteries, she has just completed her first mystery, The Blue Fate Special, where hidden secrets come to the surface to solve the thirty-year disappearance of a local high school girl.
Louise, a native of Avon, lives with her husband Bruno, and is happily surrounded with her son and his family and nieces and nephews in near-by towns. When she isn’t writing, she is cooking and entertaining family and friends or setting up an easel painting landscapes throughout Connecticut.
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Katie Tietjen
Vice President
Katie Tietjen is an award-winning writer, teacher, and school librarian. Her debut novel Death in the Details—inspired by the real-life mother of forensic science, Frances Glessner Lee—was published in 2024 by Crooked Lane Books. Two of Katie’s manuscripts won the Tassy Walden Award in 2019 and 2020. Her short story Ivy appeared in Seascape: The Best New England Crime Stories. A lifelong Connecticut resident, Katie loves reading, spending time with her husband and sons, and snuggling with their four pets. She is an unrepentant tea snob, but otherwise a very nice person.
Committee Heads and Volunteers
EVENTS
Programming: Patricia Dunn/T.M. Dunn, Deborah Levison
Library Liaison: Carole B. Shmurak
WEBSITE MANAGER
Manju Soni
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGERS
Instagram: Korina Moss, Mary Karnes
Facebook: Shari Randall, Eileen Doyle
Twitter: Tessa Wegert
QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER MANAGER
Amy Kierce
WRITE-INS
Patricia Dunn/T.M. Dunn
Download a copy of the Sisters in Crime Connecticut Chapter Bylaws in either pdf or Word format below.
Download Our Bylaws
Contact Us
We want to hear from current and future members, and connect with our Connecticut writing community, so please contact us with any questions you have or things you’d like to discuss.