• Aspiring writers with a cool idea for a mystery or thriller who need help developing their material into a  professional, complete story.
• Writers with a partial or whole manuscript who want to improve it.
• Writers whose work has been rejected by agents and editors.
• Writers who need an encouraging expert to help kick-start their work!
• Writers who have specific questions about writing mysteries or thrillers who want the expertise to add more professionalism to their stories.
• Writers who want to have a fun learning experience!
  

• Brainstorming sessions for writing useful chunks of draft material
• Television VS Reality: Make your story real!
• Newbie pitfalls and how to avoid them
• A Day in the Life of a Coroner: No Guts, No Glory
• Creating a compelling plot from one initial idea
  
• How to weave subplots into your main plot
  
• A Day in the Life of a Forensic Investigator
  
• What a crime scene tells you and HOW it tells you
  
• How to avoid clichés in descriptions
  
• Bringing Bones to Life: A true story
  
• You've Got a Book in You: How to publish
  
• How to make your charachters and settings come to vivid life
  

Elizabeth Sims learned the art of fiction by listening to tall tales on her father's knee, and by reading all sorts of books brought home by her mother, a teacher. (These ranged from Grimm's Fairy Tales to the Canterbury Tales, from Laura Ingalls Wilder to Ernest Hemingway.) She started life in Wyandotte, Michigan, and has lived in Detroit, San Francisco, rural Washington state, and currently Bradenton, Florida.

Elizabeth is the author of the Rita Farmer Mysteries, the Lambda and GCLS Goldie Award-winning Lillian Byrd Crime Series, and other fiction, including the standalone novel Crimes in a Second Language, which won the 2017 Florida Book Awards silver medal in general fiction. Her work has been published by a major press (Macmillan) as well as several smaller houses, and she’s written short works for numerous collections and magazines. She publishes independently under her personal imprint, Spruce Park Press.

In addition, Elizabeth is an internationally recognized authority on writing. She’s written dozens of feature articles on the craft of writing for Writer's Digest magazine, where she’s a contributing editor. Her instructional title, You've Got a Book in You: A Stress-Free Guide to Writing the Book of Your Dreams (Writer's Digest Books) has been specially recognized by National Novel Writing Month and hundreds of other web sites and bloggers. Her weekly blog, Zestful Writing (esimsauthor.blogspot) has been included in top-100 blog lists. When time permits, she teaches creative writing at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, as well as at conferences and workshops around the United States. Her signature teaching style combines solid information, workable techniques, humorous insights, and an extra dose of good cheer.

Elizabeth earned degrees in English from Michigan State University and Wayne State University, where she won the Tompkins Award for graduate fiction. She's worked as a reporter, photographer, technical writer, bookseller, street busker, ranch hand, corporate executive, certified lifeguard, and symphonic percussionist. She is represented by the Donald Maass Literary Agency. Elizabeth belongs to several literary societies as well as American Mensa.