Writing California Mysteries: Past and Present – Ellen Byron and Naomi Hirahara

Writing California Mysteries: Past and Present with Ellen Byron and Naomi Hirahara

Sisters in Crime Orange County – The Blood Orange and Book Carnival

Sunday, July 28, 2024

3:00 p.m. @ Book Carnival in Orange, CA

Ellen Byron Naomi Hirahara OC Sisters in Crime Book Carnival

A Summer Blockbuster Event featuring award-winning authors Ellen Byron and Naomi Hirahara!

Grab your shades, ditch your sunscreen, and join our talented guests for an afternoon of smart book talk, delicious snacks, and networking with mystery readers and writers like you!

Naomi Hirahara is an Edgar Award-winning author of multiple traditional mystery series and noir short stories. Her Mas Arai mysteries, which have been published in Japanese, Korean, and French, feature a Los Angeles gardener and Hiroshima survivor who solves crimes. Her first historical mystery, Clark and Division, which won a Mary Higgins Clark Award, follows a Japanese American family’s move to Chicago in 1944 after being released from a California wartime detention center. A former journalist with The Rafu Shimpo newspaper, Naomi has also written numerous non-fiction history books and curated exhibitions. She has also written a middle-grade novel, 1001 Cranes. Her follow-up to Clark and Division, Evergreen, was released in August 2023 and was on the USA Today bestseller list for two weeks.

USA Today bestselling author Ellen Byron’s Cajun Country Mysteries won multiple Agatha and Lefty awards. Bayou Book Thief, the first book in her new Vintage Cookbook Mysteries, was nominated for Agatha and Anthony awards and won the Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery. She writes the Catering Hall Mystery series (under the name Maria DiRico) and debuts the Golden Motel Mysteries with A Very Woodsy Murder in 2024.

Ellen is an award-winning playwright and non-award-winning TV writer of comedies like WINGS, JUST SHOOT ME, and FAIRLY ODD PARENTS. She has written over two hundred articles for national magazines but considers her most impressive credit working as a cater-waiter for Martha Stewart.

She blogs with Chicks on the Case, is a lifetime member of the Writers Guild of America, serves on the national board of Mystery Writers of America, and was the 2023 Left Coast Crime Toastmaster.