MWA-NY Panel at Philly’s Parkway Central Library
SAVE THE DATE: Saturday, October 17, 2026, 1:30 – 3:30
Parkway Central Library
1901 Vine St., Philadelphia, PA 19103
The panel is titled: “A ticking clock: how do mystery writers keep the pace moving to raise the stakes of the story and create suspense?”
Panelists:
Ann Aptaker’s Cantor Gold Crime series has been the recipient of Lambda Literary and multiple Golden Crown Literary Society’s Goldie Awards. Her short stories have appeared in the anthologies Fedora, Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir, Private Dicks & Disco Balls, Scattered Smothered Covered & Chunked, Our Happy Hours: LGBT Voices from the Gay Bars, Switchblade Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, the Guns & Tacos novella series, and the online zine Punk Soul Poet. Her short story “Neon Women,” was selected for inclusion in the 2025 Best American Mystery and Suspense anthology.
Mark McNease is the author of fifteen novels, including the Kyle Callahan Mysteries, the Maggie Dahl Mysteries, and the Marshall James Thrillers, alongside standalone works of horror such as A House in the Woods (1 and 2), I, Warlock, and the upcoming Devil’s Wood. Beyond his novels, McNease is a two-time Emmy Award winner for Outstanding Children’s Program as co- creator and writer on the series Into the Outdoors. He is a former board member of the Mystery Writer of America-New York and currently serves on the communications team. He teaches adult workshops in writing and journaling.
Rich Zahradnik is the author of the crime novel The Bone Records, which was named one of the Top 30 Mysteries of 2022 by the Strand Magazine. That project followed the four-book Coleridge Taylor Mystery series, including Lights Out Summer, winner of the Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America. He is the former executive director of the nonprofit Hudson Valley Local News Lab, publisher of the Pelham Examiner, a community newspaper that is run, edited, reported, and written by people under the age of eighteen. He has worked in journalism
for forty years.
Moderator:
James McCrone’s stories pose questions about the nature of power, the choices we make and the lessons we don’t learn. He’s the author of the thriller trilogy Faithless Elector, Dark Network and Emergency Powers, about stealing the presidency and creating a puppet government, and Bastard Verdict, where a looming second referendum on Scottish Independence threatens to expose irregularities in the first. He’s the current president of the Delaware Valley
Sisters in Crime chapter, a member of Mystery Writers of America, and the International Association of Crime
Writers. He lives in Philadelphia. His latest novel, WITNESS TREE, is out on submission. You can learn more at his website: JamesMcCrone.com
library website: https://www.freelibrary.org/
