Guest of Honor

Lisa Unger is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of twenty-one novels. With books published in thirty-three languages and millions of copies sold worldwide, she is regarded as a master of suspense.

Unger’s critically acclaimed novels have been featured on “Best Book” lists from the Today Show, Good Morning America, Entertainment Weekly, People, Amazon, Goodreads, L.A. Times, The Boston Globe, Sun Sentinel, Tampa Bay Times and many others. She has been nominated for, or won, numerous awards including the Strand Critics, Audie, Hammett, Macavity, ITW Thriller, and Goodreads Choice. In 2019, she received two Edgar Award nominations, an honor held by only a few authors, including Agatha Christie. Her short fiction has been anthologized in The Best American Mystery and Suspense, and her non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, and Travel+Leisure. 

Forensic Guest of Honor

Dr. Katherine Ramsland teaches forensic psychology and behavioral criminology in the graduate program at DeSales University, where she is Professor Emerita. She has appeared as an expert on more than 200 crime documentaries and was an executive producer on Murder House Flip and A&E’s Confession of a Serial killer: BTK. The author of more than 1,500 articles and 72 books, including The Serial Killer’s Apprentice, I Scream Man, and How to Catch a Killer, she is known for her expertise on extreme offenders. She has also published a fiction series based on a female forensic psychologist, Annie Hunter, who consults on death investigations.

Faculty

Isabella Maldonado wore a gun and badge in real life before turning to crime writing. A graduate of the FBI National Academy in Quantico and the first Latina to attain the rank of captain in the Fairfax County Police Department just outside DC, she retired as the Commander of Special Investigations and Forensics. During more than two decades on the force, her assignments included hostage negotiator, department spokesperson, and precinct commander. She uses her law enforcement background to bring a realistic edge to her writing, which includes the bestselling FBI Special Agent Nina Guerrera series (soon to be a Netflix feature film starring Jennifer Lopez), the award-winning Detective Veranda Cruz series, the FBI Agent Daniela Vega series, and the Sanchez and Heron series with Jeffery Deaver. Her books have been translated into 22 languages.

Faculty

Lou Berney is the author of the novels Dark Ride, November Road, The Long and Faraway Gone, Whiplash River, and Gutshot Straight. His books have won the Edgar, Hammett, Steel Dagger, Barry, Macavity, Lefty, and Anthony awards, and he has been a finalist twice for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His short fiction has appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, Ploughshares, and the Pushcart Prize anthology. He teaches in the MFA program at Oklahoma City University.

Agent

Jill Marr is an agent at the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency. Jill is looking for fiction and non-fiction by unrepresented voices, BIPOC and Latinx writers, disabled persons, and people identifying as LGBTQ+, among others. She is interested in commercial and upmarket fiction, with an emphasis on mysteries, thrillers, Gothic, horror, romantasy, romance, fantasy, speculative fiction, and historical fiction. She loves food-centric novels, no matter what the genre. She is looking to find more rom coms with a fresh voice, perspective and a strong hook. When it comes to suspense she likes it dark and psychological. She is a sucker for novels with grounded magical realism, and is always looking for a new take on mythology or folklore.

She is also looking for non-fiction by authors with a big, timely, smart message. She’d like to see work that does a deep dive into subcultures and social commentary as well as historical projects that look at big picture issues. Jill is looking for non-fiction projects in the areas of current events, true crime, science, history, narrative non-fiction, sports, politics, health & nutrition, pop culture, humor, music, and very select memoir.

Agent

Kat Foxx joined The Rights Factory as an editorial assistant in early 2023 and was promoted to Assistant Agent in the fall of the same year. She has an editorial background, running a freelance fiction editing company. Kat is also a writer and is heavily involved in the online writing community.

In fiction, she’s looking for Adult and YA thriller/mystery/suspense, gothic and supernatural horror, historical fiction, historical fantasy/magical realism, and romcom and romance. For nonfiction, Kat is seeking compelling memoirs that read like fiction, motherhood/natural pregnancy and childbirth/midwifery/planned unassisted births, single parenthood, past life/reincarnation, the “brotherhood” mentality of law enforcement, narcissistic abuse recovery, true crime, wine/food/travel, a history of witches and witchcraft, and ancient locations/civilizations.

Editor

Terri Bischoff is a senior editor at Crooked Lane. In her twenty-six years working in the book world, she has been a bookseller, bookstore manager, mystery bookstore owner, and finally, an acquiring editor. Previous to CLB, she spent ten years at Midnight Ink as their acquiring editor. Her authors have won many awards, including the Anthony, Agatha, Lefty, and IPPY.

Terri’s interests run the gamut of crime fiction from cozies to serial killers. She is looking for domestic and psychological suspense, thrillers, LGBTQIA2S+, marginalized voices, plots that have an underlying social commentary, cults, and strong female protagonists. Terri has often been heard saying, the more bodies the better.

Editor

Alexa Wejko is an editor at Soho Press. She has an eye to acquiring a range of voices, moods, and narrative structures. She is actively looking to acquire books by writers of color and voices and perspectives that are routinely marginalized or silenced.

She loves so-called quiet and literary books, as well as manuscripts that exist in in-between spaces, whether that be genre or readership (books that cannot be easily “classified”). She is looking for intimate voices and bold voices. She loves high stakes. Even more so, she loves small stakes that are made to feel big.

SleuthFest Editor in Residence

Neil S. Nyren is the former executive vice president, associate publisher, and editor in chief of G.P. Putnam’s Sons, and the winner of the 2017 Ellery Queen Award from Mystery Writers of America.