A. M. Homes is the author of the memoir The Mistress’s Daughter and the novels This Book Will Save Your Life, Music for Torching, The End of Alice, In a Country of Mothers, and Jack, as well as the story collections The Safety of Objects and Things You Should Know. She lives in New York City. Also of note A.M. Homes was born in the Washington D.C. area and set some early stories in my neighborhood. (ed.)
-
Laura Lippman
Location – Maryland
Laura Lippman was a reporter for twenty years, including twelve years at The (Baltimore) Sun. She began writing novels while working full-time and published seven books about “accidental PI” Tess Monaghan before leaving daily journalism in 2001.
Her work has been awarded the Edgar ®, the Anthony, the Agatha, the Shamus, the Nero Wolfe, Gumshoe and Barry awards.
She also has been nominated for other prizes in the crime fiction field, including the Hammett and the Macavity. She was the first-ever recipient of the Mayor’s Prize for Literary Excellence and the first genre writer recognized as Author of the Year by the Maryland Library Association. Ms. Lippman grew up in Baltimore and attended city schools through ninth grade.
After graduating from Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, Md., Ms. Lippman attended Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Her other newspaper jobs included the Waco Tribune-Herald and the San Antonio Light.
-
Suzanne Redfearn
Suzanne Redfearn
Suzanne Redfearn is an award-winning and bestselling American author known for her emotionally resonant and character-driven novels. Before becoming a successful full-time writer, she had a diverse career path that included working as a commercial and residential architect, graphic designer, and copywriter. Her journey to becoming a novelist, which she began in her 30s, was self-taught and motivated by a desire to explore moral themes through fiction. This approach often involves exploring ethical dilemmas with no easy answers, leading to deeply moving and thought-provoking stories.
Redfearn’s writing style is noted for its ability to create heartfelt and emotional narratives, often featuring protagonists facing immense challenges. Readers frequently praise her ability to craft complex characters and build intense plots that keep them engaged. She draws inspiration from real people and relationships, often observing conversations while writing in cafes to capture authentic human experiences. This method helps create stories that feel both realistic and impactful, prompting readers to consider what they might do in similar difficult situations.
Suzanne Redfearn’s novel Call of the Camino is inspired by Redfearn’s own experience walking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route in Spain. The book explores themes of love, loss, and self-discovery. The novel was released on October 1, 2025.
2024 – Where Butterflies Wander — The moving story of a family grappling with grief and a woman with the power to help them through it–or stand in their way. (Goodreads) Told uniquely by six characters, each have a voice worth hearing. – Ed.
A 2020 favorite – Hadley & Grace — Two women. Three kids. One unforgettable journey.
One of the characters in the story is based on a special resident of Laguna Beach, Ca. — see article about Skipper Carrillo
Suzanne Redfearn, in addition to being an author, is also an architect specializing in residential and commercial design. She lives in Laguna Beach, California, where she and her husband own two restaurants: Lumberyard and Slice Pizza and Beer.
-
Joe R. Lansdale
Hap and Leonard series and Stand-alones.
Locations in Texas
Champion Mojo Storyteller Joe R. Lansdale has written novels and stories in many genres, including Western, horror, science fiction, mystery, and suspense. As of 2018, he has written 45 novels and published 30 short-story collections along with many chapbooks and comic-book adaptations. He has been inducted into The Texas Literary Hall of Fame, and several of his novels have been adapted to film.
His Hap and Leonard series of ten novels, four novellas, and three short-story collections feature two friends, Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, who live in the fictional town of Laborde, in East Texas, and find themselves solving a variety of often unpleasant crimes. The characters themselves are an unlikely pairing; Hap is a white, working-class laborer in his mid-forties who once protested against the war in Vietnam and spent time in federal prison rather than be drafted; Leonard is a gay, black Vietnam vet. Both of them are accomplished fighters, and the stories (told from Hap’s narrative point of view) feature a great deal of violence, profanity, and sex. Lansdale paints a picture of East Texas which is essentially “good” but blighted by racism, ignorance, urban and rural deprivation, and government corruption. Some of the subject matter is extremely dark, and includes scenes of brutal violence. These novels are also characterized by sharp humor and “wisecracking” dialogue. These books have been adapted into a TV series for the SundanceTV channel and a series of graphic novels began publication in 2017. Season 2 of the television series is based on the second Hap and Leonard novel, Mucho Mojo, and season 3, which premiered on 3/7/18, is based on the third novel, The Two-Bear Mambo. Much of Lansdale’s work has been issued and re-issued as limited editions by Subterranean Press and as trade paperbacks by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Publications. His current new-release publisher is Mulholland Books. Lansdale also publishes with Dark Regions Press and Tachyon Publications, and with his daughter Kasey he has started a new publishing company called Pandi Press to control the re-issue and publishing of his older works.
