Mystery Lovers Corner

Nancy Means Wright is the author of eleven books of fiction, nonfiction and poetry, including five mystery novels from St. Martin’s Minotaur: MAD SEASON, HARVEST OF BONES, POISON APPLES, STOLEN HONEY, and just out in April ‘05, MAD COW NIGHTMARE—all set in the fictional town of Branbury, Vermont, and featuring earthy, hot-tempered, fiercely independent dairy farmer Ruth Willmarth.  Nancy’s novella, “Fire and Ice,” set during the 1998 northeastern ice storm, appeared in Worldwide Mystery’s CRIMES OF PASSION.  Her stories and poems have appeared in numerous literary and mystery magazines—most recently, Wind Chill, an Anthology of Crime Fiction from Level Best Books, and Poetry from Sojourner: A Feminist Anthology (Univ. of Illinois Press).  A former teacher, Bread Loaf Scholar, and current scholar for the Vermont Humanities Council, Nancy lives and writes on a dirt road in bucolic Cornwall, Vermont.

Descriptions, reviews, and excerpts from her mystery novels can be found at her website, along with a piece on how she hooked an agent and published her first novel, MAD SEASON.

She is currently working on a sixth Ruth Willmarth novel, featuring goats, cheese and foster children; completing a juvenile mystery: THE PEA SOUP POISONINGS, based on a spy club begun by her four children that swept their Vermont neighborhood; and is waiting for feedback from her agent on a novel starring 18^th century feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, dubbed “a hyena in petticoats” by her male contemporaries.