Tis May in Montana and lovely, lively things are bursting forth all around us — including in our writing rooms and those secret places in our hearts and brains where stories live. Here’s a bit of what’s going on:

LESLIE BUDEWITZ is attending the Malice Domestic Mystery Convention—home of the Agatha Awards—this weekend. She’ll be helping celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Sisters in Crime Guppies chapter for new and unpublished writers, and awarding the first annual Dorothy Cannell Guppy Scholarship, established by agent Meg Ruley in honor of her fabulous mystery author client, Dorothy Cannell, to allow a Guppy to attend Malice Domestic. (Leslie is vice president of SinC.) She’ll also participate in a panel discussion of small town crime—of which she knows a thing or two!

On May 20, Leslie will be speaking at the West Shore Community Library in Lakeside, Montana, at 6 pm. Join in the spring book fun!

CHRISTINE CARBO has been busy getting ready to launch her debut novel of suspense, THE WILD INSIDE, on June 16th.

She is excited to learn that it has been selected as a Mystery Guild Featured Alternate Selection for the month of July, and that PUBLISHERS WEEKLY has called the novel an “evocative debut,” that “paints a moving picture of complex, flawed people fighting to make their way in a wilderness where little is black or white, except the smoky chiaroscuro of the sweeping Montana sky.”

Christine will be visiting several Montana cities/towns after the book hits the shelves, and will be posting events on her website, christinecarbo.com when her schedule gets nailed down. THE WILD INSIDE is available for pre-order in most of your favorite stores and on most of your favorite sites (Please see pre-order tabs). Please feel free to join in the book-launching fun!