Join us for the Darcy Scott Award Fundraiser featuring a reading and signing by the award-winning Bruce Robert Coffin, author of the bestselling Detective Byron mystery series, at Longfellow Books on Friday, May 5th, at 5:30 p.m.

The Darcy Scott Award is given in memory of Darcy Scott, author of the Island Mystery series, part of the book sales proceeds will be used to support the Darcy Scott Award for Young Mystery Writers. This award provides one young writer with a full scholarship to attend the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance Maine Crime Wave and a travel/hotel stipend to stay in Portland. A $10 donation is suggested.

Open to the public, and refreshments will be provided. For more information, visit www.maineauthorspublishing.com/darcyscottaward

To be eligible for The Darcy Scott Award all applicants must:

• live in Maine at least 6 months a year

• and be under the age of 40 at the time of application.

Note: There is no limitation on what the award recipient has previously published, or if they have not published any work yet.

Bruce Coffin Bruce Robert Coffin is the award-winning author of the Detective Byron mystery series and former detective sergeant with more than twenty-seven years in law enforcement. At the time of his retirement, from the Portland, Maine police department, he supervised all homicide and violent crime investigations for Maine’s largest city. Following the terror attacks of September 11th, Bruce spent four years working counter-terrorism with the FBI, earning the Director’s Award, the highest honor a non-agent can receive.

Winner of Killer Nashville’s Silver Falchion Awards for Best Procedural and Best Investigator, and the Maine Literary Award for Best Crime Fiction Novel, Bruce was also a finalist for the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel.

Bruce’s short fiction appears in many anthologies, including The Best American Mystery Stories 2016.

He is a member of International Thriller Writers, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. He is a regular blog contributor to Murder Books blog.

He lives and writes in Maine.

Award-winning author Darcy Scott (Best Mystery, 2013 Indie Book Awards; Silver Award, 2013 Readers Favorite Book Awards; Bronze Award, 2013 IPPY Awards; Winner, 2019 National Indie Excellence Award) was a live-aboard sailor and experienced ocean cruiser who’s sailed to Grenada and back on a whim, island-hopped through the Caribbean, and was struck by lightning in the middle of the Gulf Stream. For all her wandering, her summer home and favorite cruising grounds remained along the coast of Maine—the history and rugged beauty of its sparsely populated out-islands serving as inspiration for much of her fiction, including Margel’s Madness and her popular Island Mystery Series (Matinicus, Reese’s Leap, and Ragged Island). Her debut novel, Hunter Huntress, was published in 2010 by Snowbooks, Ltd., UK.

The Maine Crime Wave won't be happening this year, but that won't stop Maine's crime writers from getting together online to cause some mayhem. Please save the evening of Thursday, June 25 for a free reading, Q&A, book-buying extravaganza, and celebration of the winners of the Two Minutes in Quarantine flash fiction contest!

Maine crime writers sharing their work will include recent Maine Literary Award winners and finalists Gerry Boyle, Richard Cass, Kate Flora, Vaughn Hardacker, Bruce Coffin, and Joseph Souza as well as flash fiction judge and NYT bestseller Julia Spencer-Fleming.

To RSVP and receive the Zoom link, please fill out this form: https://bit.ly/Maine_Crime_Online

To order the books of all of the participating crime writers listed below, please visit to Kelly’s Books to Go, our bookseller partner for this event.

A former military brat, New York Times and USA Today bestselling novelist Julia Spencer-Fleming grew up in places as diverse as Montgomery, Rome, Stuttgart and Syracuse. A graduate of Ithaca College, George Washington University and the University of Maine School of Law, she took up writing while still a stay-at-home mother of two. Julia didn’t want to write yet another lawyer-sleuth, so she used her army past and a keen eye for the goings-on at her Episcopal church to create Clare Fergusson, first female priest in the small Adirondack town of Millers Kill. The resulting series has won or been nominated for almost every American mystery award available, including the Edgar, the Anthony, and the Agatha. The 9th book in her series, Hid From Our Eyes, was released in April by Minotaur Books.

Gerry Boyle is the author of 15 mystery novels, including the dozen installments in the Jack McMorrow series. A former newspaper reporter and columnist, Boyle draws on his journalist experience as McMorrow leads him down the backroads of Maine and beyond. Faded crossroads, small towns, gritty cities—Boyle knows the darkest reaches of his home state. McMorrow novels have garnered critical acclaim and have been translated into a half-dozen languages. They are available at bookstores, Islandport Press, and Amazon. Audiobooks are available on Audible. Boyle is also the author of the Brandon Blake series, which includes Port City Crossfire, and lives in a small village on a lake in Central Maine.

Richard Cass is the author of the Elder Darrow jazz mystery series: Solo Act was a finalist for the 2017 Maine Literary Awards in Crime Fiction. Its prequel, In Solo Time, won the 2018 Maine Literary Award in Crime Fiction. The fourth book in the series, Last Call at the Esposito, was released in 2019. Cass has been an Individual Artist's Fellow for the state of New Hampshire and a Fellow at the Fishtrap Writers' Conference in Oregon. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Playboy, Gray’s Sporting Journal, ZZYZVA, and Best Short Stories of the American West. He lives in Cape Elizabeth, ME.

The author of more than twenty books and many short stories, Kate Clark Flora has been a finalist for the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, and Derringer awards. She won the Public Safety Writers Association award for nonfiction. She’s a five time finalist, and twice won the Maine Literary Award for crime fiction. Her latest fiction includes, Schooled in Death her 9th Thea Kozak mystery, and A Child Shall Lead Them, her 6th Joe Burgess mystery.

Bruce Robert Coffin is the award-winning author of the bestselling Detective Byron mystery series. A former detective sergeant with more than twenty-seven years in law enforcement, he supervised all homicide and violent crime investigations for Maine's largest city. Following the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, Bruce spent four years investigating counter-terrorism cases for the FBI, earning the Director's Award, the highest award a non-agent can receive. His novel, Beyond the Truth, winner of Killer Nashville's Silver Falchion Award for Best Procedural, was a finalist for the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel and a finalist for the Maine Literary Award for Best Crime Fiction. His short fiction appears in several anthologies, including Best American Mystery Stories 2016. Bruce is a member of International Thriller Writers, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. He is a regular contributor to Murder Books blogs.

Vaughn C. Hardacker is a member of the New England Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. Three of his novels, SNIPER, THE FISHERMAN, and WENDIGO were finalists in the Crime Fiction category of the 2015, 2016, and 2018 Maine Literary Awards. His fifth novel, MY BROTHER'S KEEPER, was released in 2019, and THE EXCHANGE, his next thriller, will be released in September 2020. He is a veteran of the U. S. Marines and served in Vietnam. He holds degrees from Northern Maine Technical College, the University of Maine and Southern New Hampshire University.

Joseph Souza worked on the South Boston docks during Whitey Bulger’s criminal reign. He has a degree from Northeastern University and once worked in the Organized Crime division of the DEA. His award winning short fiction and essays have published in various literary journals throughout the country. In 2004 he was awarded the Andre Dubus Award in short fiction from the University of Southern Maine for his short story “Loss Prevention.” His most recent books are The Perfect Daughter (Kensington, 2020) and Pray for the GIrl (Kensington, 2019), which was a finalist for the 2020 Maine Literary Award.

Sandra Neily’ s been chased by moose, river otters, and angry partridges. Her unsupervised childhood exploring Maine’s forests grew into a conservation career and her Mystery in Maine novels, Deadly Trespass and Deadly Turn (due out in July). She’s been a whitewater river outfitter, licensed Maine Guide, co-founder of a coalition to protect the Penobscot River from a dam, and director of the Maine Conservation School. Sandra was a 2018 finalist for a Maine Literary Award, the recipient of a national Mystery Writers of America McCloy award, and a national finalist in the Women’s Fiction Writers Association’s “Rising Star” competition. She lives on Moosehead Lake.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

• The competition is open to all Maine residents.*

• There is no fee to enter.

• Please follow the submission instructions carefully. Incomplete or late applications cannot be considered.

• Submit up to 500-words max (including the opening line, but not your title) as a Word or PDF document via MWPA’s Submittable by clicking HERE.

• Submissions will only be accepted online through Submittable. If you do not have a Submittable account, you will be required to register, which is free and requires only your name and email.

• Your name and contact information should not appear on your submission (which may be a Word doc or PDF).

• Please Note: As the winning entry will be published in the Maine Sunday Telegram, general newspaper standards around cursing, excessive violence, etcetera will be taken into consideration when selecting a winner.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

• The competition is open to all Maine residents.*

• There is no fee to enter.

• Please follow the submission instructions carefully. Incomplete or late applications cannot be considered.

• Submit up to 500-words max (including the opening line, but not your title) as a Word or PDF document via MWPA’s Submittable by clicking HERE.

• Submissions will only be accepted online through Submittable. If you do not have a Submittable account, you will be required to register, which is free and requires only your name and email.

• Your name and contact information should not appear on your submission (which may be a Word doc or PDF).

• Please Note: As the winning entry will be published in the Maine Sunday Telegram, general newspaper standards around cursing, excessive violence, etcetera will be taken into consideration when selecting a winner.