Half my life is an act of revision
– John IrvingWe make words sparkle
Creativity, organization, juggling time and years of experience make Sharon A. Crawford an excellent writer, writing instructor, consultant, editor, and blogger. Check out her credentials, comments, and other criteria.
Latest News
Upcoming Events for 2024
tMystery writers ad readers like to say “the plot thickens”. I will be one of the presenters/readers at an upcoming Sisters in Crime Toronto event Thursday, September 19 a5 7. p.m. on Zoom, called…
The Plot Thickens – an Evening of Author Readings More information on my Beyond Faith page and a peek at what I will be up to.
Toronto Sisters in Crime
I have decided to cancel East End Writer Zoom meetings on any fifth Wednesday of the month from August 1. The July 31 meeting is still on. However, our usual EEWG Zoom meeting the second Wednesday of the month continues. See East End Writers page for details.
RECENT
I will be at the Crime Writers of Canada booth at the Motive Mystery Festival at Harbourfront Centre by the Lakeshore in Toronto this Saturday June 8 from 1:30 p.m. at the Crime Writers of Canada booth to chat with readers, etc about murder and mayhem between the book covers, of course . Signed copies of my Beyond mystery novels and my memoir The Enemies Within Us will be for sale. PI Dana Bowman, the main character in my Beyond mystery books says she will make an appearance too, but we’ll see about that. Many more CWC members will be there with some of them doing readings. Also, more mysterious booths to see. Check the motive link for more info. Maybe I’ll see you there.
https://festivalofauthors.ca/motive/
More peeks at Sharon’s latest public ventures with her Beyond mysteries and The Enemies Within Us a Memoir will be posted as they come up. Take a gander to the Beyond Faith page and the Enemies Within us Page for updates as they will occur.
East End Writers Group News
Despite such sidelines as Zoom links misbehaving and snow storms interfering with in-person meetings in 2023, East End Writers continues to carry on. Despite mixed precipitation turning into heavy rain we kept the January 24, 2024 meeting at S. Walter Stewart open. Although only four of us members made it, it was a very productive meeting with good feedback for the three of us who read our writing-in- the-works. And we are now well into rewrites based on our feedback. See what and where for the rest of 2024 meetings here. Slowly web pages are being updated.
Past events 2023
Sharon will be at the Crime Writers of Canada booth at the Motive Mystery Festival at Harbourfront Centre by the Lakeshore in Toronto this Saturday June 3 from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Signed copies of her Beyond mystery novels and memoir The Enemies Within Us will be for sale. PI Dana Bowman, the main character in her Beyond mystery books says she will make an appearance too, but Sharon sees she’ll see about that. Many more CWC members will be there with some of them also doing readings Also more mysterious booths to see. Check the motive link for more info.
Sharon is now accepting book length manuscripts for evaluation. More information is here. The East End Writers’ Group page also has updates. Check here. Workshops & Courses page was updated recently with new workshops, and a few others were fined-tuned. Check out details here.
More News
Attention all mystery and memoir addicts – readers and writers. As part of your online shopping, Sharon’s books are available on Amazon.
Beyond Faith on Amazon
The Enemies Within US – a Memoir on Amazon
For those hitting the malls and other bricks-and-mortar stores, if you can’t find her books in-store, Sharon’s books can be ordered from any bookstore. Stay tuned for more book news as it pops up.
NOTE: CRIME BEAT CONFIDENTIAL SECTION BELOW IS CURRENTLY BEING UPDATED.
East End Writers’ Group 20th anniversary presentation on Zoom went well. See EEWG page for more info and links to the videos. Go to the same page for updates on East End Writers’ Groups including joining as a member (it is free) and upcoming virtual meeting under the heading UPDATE EAST END WRITERS VENUE
And the drumroll continues for the first anniversary of..
Book focuses on Sharon’s childhood, mainly in 1950s/1960s Toronto where she was bullied, and devastated by her beloved daddy’s cancer, so took refuge playing the piano and baseball, and reading murder mysteries, which eventually led to her writing them.Web page constantly being updated to tie in with the memoir. Includes photos and short memoir excerpts. Just uploaded on The Enemies Within Us page are a couple of gardening excerpts including a crime in my mother’s garden. Books available for e-copy and paperback at Amazon, Chapters/Indigo and paperback at Barnes and Noble.
Take a gander to The Enemies Within Us page for details on where it all began, how it evolved and perhaps what else is happening, including Sharon’s bookstore tours to get The Enemies Within Us in bricks and mortar bookstores. Also the video of a Memoir Writing Presentation Behind the Memoir – Pitfalls & Possibilities. Memoir authors Sharon A. Crawford and Linda-Hutzell-Manning blend humour and wisdom to take us through the “trenches” of memoir writing.
The virtual book launch was a big success. Lots of laughter and some seriousness too. Watch it now.
East End Writers’ Group Updates
Because of the COVID-19, Toronto Public Library had slowly been re-opening their services. Since then there has been a third big lock down, which has reached Step 3 in reopening, so currently you can return books in the book return drop boxes outside the branches and enter the library to browse and take out more books. You must wear a mask and social distance. And if you are like me, you put your books on hold online and collect them in the library when you get the notice that “holds are ready for pickup. However, in person library programs are still not resuming and may not resume until 2022 because we now have the COVID Delta variant running rampant. However, this time we can get vaccines. So, the East End Writers’ Group still cannot return to meeting at S. Walter Stewart branch. East End Writer’s Group has celebrated some of its 20th. anniversary, just differently, including doing our big anniversary celebration on Zoom. More details further down below. We also continue meeting virtually for writing critiques twice a month on Zoom.
For more info on the library branches’ reopening, check here. For more information on East End Writers’ Group just Zooming along, check here.
Meantime…
East End Writers’ Group had a successful 20 year celebration finally online May 26. For the videos from it and current meeting dates on Zoom, see the East End Writers’ Group page for more details here.
Crime Beat Confidential Recent Shows include
Crime Beat Confidential taped the last 2020 episode late December with guest Rosemary McCracken where we talked about her new Pat Tierney series release, Uncharted Waters and the joys and perils of writing, publishing, and doing book promo in pandemic times. See the video.
Crime Beat Confidential also video taped another episode with guest Judy Penz Sheluk who besides being the head honcho at Crime Writers of Canada is also a mystery author and publisher. See the video
Crime Beat Confidential finally returned in 2020 with the show’s Episode #8. Sharon A. Crawford interviews featuring guest mystery thriller author, David Albertyn, who, with another author started The Author Book Club online. This episode was taped remotely. Here is a still from the show.
Link to the actual show is here. Caveat – PI Dana Bowman gets carried away with her introduction as she takes over my office – for a bit.
Our previous guest, and the last guest in 2019 was prolific author Lisa de Nikolits who publishes one book annually. Here’s a still from that show.
More shots of Crime Beat Confidential on the Beyond Faith page as well as a link to some of the the show’s Episode #7 here. Warning: PI Dana Bowman again leads in with her introductory rant, but at least she isn’t in my office here.
Crime Beat Confidential hosted by Sharon A. Crawford with a little help from Private Investigator Dana Bowman from the Beyond mystery series, made its debut in June 2018 on thatchannel.com. This bi-monthly TV series has guests in various areas of “crime” being interviewed by Sharon. Dana? Well, you’ll have to check out the first segment to find out – with guest James Wigmore, forensic toxicologist. See here to watch the show on YouTube and here for more photos from the show.
Meantime, see the playlist for all episodes here.
Recent Past Events in Person – When We Still Could
The Beyond books gigs for 2020. First one, in person, was part of an Authors Reading presented by Toronto Sisters in Crime January 16, 2020. More details here. Scroll down beyond the info about Dana, me, and the book.
More murderous mayhem, this time in Toronto the Good? This Crime Writers of Canada panel on December 3, 2019, showed otherwise. Check it out here. Scroll down to 2019 Gigs for Sharon Crawford and the Beyond Gang.
East End Writers’ Group Wed May 29 – Special Presentation: Small Presses: Guerrilla Book Marketing in the Digital Age was a big success. Details here.
And here
Meantime
For other mystery fiction events featuring Sharon and her Beyond mystery characters, check here.
Workshops and Courses: Stay tuned for more of Sharon’s workshops here.
Editing and Manuscript Evaluation: Sharon A. Crawford welcomes new editing clients. Specializing in manuscript evaluation of books (fiction and non-fiction) , novellas, short stories, memoir and other non-fiction articles; and copy editing short stories, personal essays and articles. Please note: Sharon no longer edits book length manuscripts. More info here…
PI Dana Bowman, the main character in the Beyond mystery series is interviewed by Hugh Reilly on Liquid Lunch here. Dana in-studio photo here.
Links to a few past in-person events before COVID-19
Muskie and Murder debuts at library
Beyond Faith is also here…
Sharon A. Crawford at the beginning of her reading from Beyond Faith at SinC Toronto. This time PI Dana Bowman is confined to a photograph Sharon is holding.
Another SinC reading photo is on the Beyond Faith page. Scroll down the page.
And also here at the Ontario Librarian Association convention February 2, 2018 at Metro Toronto Convention Centre (Hint: Channeling PI Dana Bowman)
Beyond Faith offers secrets, lies and death with a connection to the Catholic Church, set in small-town and big-city Ontario. It’s a great story with a great pair of unlikely protagonists (a brother-sister pair of twin investigators), twists, surprises and Sharon Crawford’s distinctive tone and shining dialogue. Recommended for any detective-story fans yearning for Ontario-based tales.
– Nate Hendley, true-crime author (Steven Truscott: Decades of Injustice and The Big Con)
Check out the updated Beyond Faith page. Sharon A’s Gigs, including a kaleidoscope of 2018 and 2019 events, are now listed on this page as well as links to Amazon and Chapters/Indigo and Sharon’s author blog. For events, scroll down past the Crawford and Bowman profiles
And
Some More Past Events:
Book Launch for Beyond Faith at Supermarket, Sunday, October 22, 2017
Beyond Blood and Beyond the Tripping Point were at Word on the Street Sunday, Sept. 24, 2017
Sharon A. holding up the first two Beyond Books – Beyond Blood and Beyond the Tripping Point. Photo courtesy Lisa de Nikolits author of No Fury Like That
See and hear Sharon A. being interviewed about Beyond Blood on the Liquid Lunch
Sharon A. along with Ali Cunliffe and Susan Viets spoke and entertained on a panel about self-publishing from authors’ and editors’ perspectives. Panel was held by the Editors Canada in April 2016 and the video of it all is on You Tube
And One of my favourites: Sharon A. and four other Crime Writers of Canada authors packed them in for their crime (writing) presentation at Gerrard Ashdale library in Toronto, March 24, 2016
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