April Meeting Announcement

Hello, Sisters and Brothers in Crime.

Trauma nurse Mike Cox will provide a presentation based on his thirty years’ experience at our next meeting scheduled for Thursday April 5th.

A Greenville native, Mike graduated from Warren Wilson College, a liberal arts college near Asheville, North Carolina. After a time working in landscaping, he wanted something more substantial and went back to nursing school. His thirty years’ experience includes three years with the Greenville Hospital System, fourteen at Mission Hospital in Asheville, and thirteen at the Asheville VA Medical Center. He’s dealt with gunshot wounds, knifings, and psychotic breakdowns as well as accident victims and hysterical family members. 

Mike currently works as a hospice nurse at the VA. He enjoys the outdoors and most recently hiked Blood Mountain in Georgia. His sideline is growing hostas in his greenhouse. Mike is married to Heather Newton, author of Under the Mercy Trees: A Novel.

The monthly Upstate SC SinC meeting will take place Thursday, April 5, at The Runway Café, 21 Airport Rd, Greenville, SC.  Be there at 6:15 p.m. to meet the Mike and enjoy chapter fellowship. Supper should be served at 6:30. Mike’s talk will begin after new and old business at about 7 p.m. Both dinner and the meeting are open to the public.

In order for the Runway Café to speed service, dinner orders must be emailed by noon the day of the meeting. If you can't dine with us, we would still like to know you plan to attend so we can be sure you have a seat. If possible, please join us for dinner as our dinner orders help to ensure we can book our meeting room for free. To see the special menu for our group, go to the Advance Order Menu, make your selection and please e-mail your order to Ellis Vidler at ellisvidler1@gmail.com.

If you place an order and do not attend or fail to cancel by noon, you will be charged for the meal. And like always, we'll enjoy it.

Look forward to seeing you April 5th.

Sincerely,

Sally Handley

President, Upstate SC SinC

Minutes for the February and March 2018 meetings

Minutes for February and March 2018 meetings

Your delinquent secretary is catching up! Here goes:

28 people attended our meeting on February 1, 2018 at our usual spot, the Runway Café. The only new business was our president Sally Handley explaining the benefits of becoming a member of Sisters in Crime national organization. Then our super duper guests took the stage. Jane Tucker, retired funeral director at Stribling Funeral Home in Duncan, SC, discussed a lot of very interesting aspects of her career as a funeral director, and then her husband Don Tucker discussed his 20-year career with the NYC Department of Corrections as a prison guard on Riker’s Island. Boy, this couple must have interesting dinnertime conversations!

We enjoyed what must have been a record turn out of 35 on March 1, 2018, when retired FBI special agent in charge, Charles Middleton, joined us at the Runway Café. But first our President Sally Handley discussed some old business—namely a promise to help facilitate critique groups for those of our members who are interested. (Sally has since sent out an e-mail on this topic) Sally also mentioned that the Guppies group does some critique group partnering up on line. Check it out!

In new business Linda Lovely reminded us registration for this years Writer’s Police Academy is now open! And the Writer’s Police Academy’s annual short story contest, The Golden Donut, is now accepting submissions of short stories of EXACTLY 200 words. (See WPA website for further details and the photo your story should be based on.) Good luck to all those who give this one a try! Linda also mentioned she has contacted Jill Hendrix, owner of local bookstore Fiction Addiction, who will be spearheading a Mystery Book Club at the store. Linda has volunteered to lead the new club for the first three months, and we hope other members of our SinC group will also volunteer for a 3-month stint leading the club. Sounds like a fun way to read and talk about mysteries!

And last but certainly not least, Charles Middleton took the podium and offered MANY fascinating and intriguing tales of his days in the FBI. Wow! I can see why we invited him back to talk to us and hope he joins us again. A great speaker!

Be sure to join us every 1^st Thursday of the month at the Runway Café for dinner and discussion of all things mystery and more!

Respectfully (and belatedly) Submitted,

Cindy Blackburn

Upstate SinC Secretary