Calendar

Books for the book sale will be provided by Aesop's Fable. You can PREORDER books by any of our authors and Aesop's will bring your books to the Fest - easy peasy and no worries that they'll sell out! 

Walk-ins are welcome, but we're also requesting registration so we know how many chairs to have out (and you'll receive reminders). Please REGISTER HERE.

Schedule of events:

12:30-1:30pm - Panel with Leslie, Maddie, Barbara, and Barb

1:30-2:00pm - Dedicated book sale/signing

2:00-2:30 - Small discussion group with Leslie and Barbara

2:30-3pm - Small discussion group with Maddie and Barb

3-3:30pm - Dedicated book sale/signing 

About our authors:

Leslie Meier

I started writing in the late '80s when I was attending graduate classes at Bridgewater State College. I wanted to become certified to teach high school English and one of the required courses was Writing and the Teaching of Writing. My professor suggested that one of the papers I wrote for that course was good enough to be published and I sent it off to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine's Department of First Stories. I got $100 for the story and I've been writing ever since. The teaching, however, didn't work out. Learn more about Leslie and the Lucy Stone series on her website. 

Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell)

Maddie Day is another name Edith Maxwell writes under. Her Country Store Mystery series has been a smashing success. Maddie Day’s more recent Cozy Capers Book Group series launched to readers excited about a series that takes place on Cape Cod. 

Edith Maxwell is an Agatha-Award winning and national bestselling mystery author. She writes the historical Quaker Midwife Mysteries. Charity's Burden won the the Agatha Award for Best Historical Novel. Her story, "The Mayor and the Midwife," was the second Rose Carroll story to be nominated for an Agatha Award for Best Short Story. Edith also writes the Local Foods Foods Mysteries. Edith once owned and operated the smallest certified-organic farm in Essex County, Massachusetts. 

Edith's short stories have appeared in nearly two dozen juried anthologies and magazines. She is active in Mystery Writers of America and a lifetime member of Sisters in Crime. Learn more about Edith on her website. 

Barbara Ross

Barbara Ross is the author of the Maine Clambake Mysteries. Her books have been nominated for multiple Agatha Awards for Best Contemporary Novel and have won the Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction. Barbara’s novellas are included in holiday anthologies from Kensington. Visit her website at www.maineclambakemysteries.com.

She has also written the Jane Darrowfield Mysteries. Barbara’s first mystery novel, The Death of an Ambitious Woman, was published by Five Star/Gale/Cengage in August 2010.  In her former life, Barbara was a co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of successful start-ups in educational technology. She and her husband live in Portland, Maine.

Barb Tanner Wallace

During the course of my life, I’ve held many jobs, from writing corporate communications for a law firm to being a public relations freelancer.  In 2010, I published my first novel, The Cinderella Bride, with Harlequin/Mills & Boon.  Since then, I’ve gone on to write over two dozen novels and sold over 1 million books world wide. In 2017 I created The Sadie McIntyre Mysteries, an independently published cozy mystery series. In 2021 I decided to indulge in a long-time goal and jumped to bookclub fiction.

In addition to being a writer, I am — in no particular order — a wife, a bookseller, the mother of cats, a lover of coffee, cocktails, true crime, history, and social psychology and am a tenth-generation New Englander (you read that right; my family was on the other ship, the one that came after the Mayflower).  I’m also overly obsessed with the woodchucks, squirrels and birds that live in my backyard. I also host the bimonthly review show Off the Shelf with the extraordinary Renee Ryan.

This program is sponsored by the Friends of the Ashland Public Library.

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