Author Fan Clubs:
Camille Alexa
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Kevin David Anderson
Peter Andrews
Thomas Anselm
Carol Ayer
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Libby Fischer Hellmann
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Libby Fischer Hellmann is a transplant from Washington, D.C., where, she says, “When you’re sitting around
the dinner table gossiping about the neighbors, you’re talking politics.” Armed with a Masters Degree in Film Production from New York University, and a BA in
history from the University of Pennsylvania, she started her career in broadcast news. She began as an assistant film editor at NBC News in New York, but moved back to D.C.
where she worked with Robin McNeil and Jim Lehrer at N-PACT, the public affairs production arm of PBS. When Watergate broke, she was re-trained as an assistant director and
helped produce PBS’s night-time broadcasts of the hearings.
In 1978, Hellmann moved to Chicago (which would later be the backdrop of her novels) in order to work at Burson-Marsteller, the large public
relations firm, staying until 1985 when she founded Fischer Hellmann Communications. Currently, when not writing, she conducts speaker training programs in platform speaking,
presentation skills, media training, and crisis communications. Additionally, Libby also writes and produces videos.
By the end of 2010, Libby will have published seven novels. Her most recent, Set the Night On Fire, was
released in December 2010 and is a standalone thriller that goes back, in part, to the late ‘60s in Chicago.
About her fifth novel, Easy Innocence, the Chicago Tribune said,
“There’s a new no-nonsense detective in town...Tough and smart enough to give even the legendary V.I. Warshawski a run for her money.” They were
referring to Georgia Davis, Libby Hellmann’s new PI protagonist. Davis returned, paired with amateur sleuth Ellie Foreman, in Hellmann’s sixth crime fiction thriller,
Doubleback (2009), which was selected as a Great Lakes Booksellers’ Association “2009 Great Read.”
The Georgia Davis series was a spin-off of Hellmann’s Ellie Foreman series, which debuted in 2002 with An
Eye For Murder. Publishers Weekly called it a “masterful blend of politics, history, and suspense,” and it was
nominated for several awards. There are four books in the Ellie Foreman series, which Libby says is a cross between Desperate Housewives
and 24. Libby also edited a highly acclaimed crime fiction anthology, Chicago Blues (October, 2007).
In May 2010, she published an e-collection of her own short stories called Nice Girl Does Noir.
In 2005-2006 she was the National President of Sisters in Crime, a 3,400-plus member organization
committed to strengthening the voice of female mystery writers. She also blogs with The Outfit Collective.
January 23, 2012
11:30 a.m. - 2 p.m.
Presenting: What Keeps Us Turning the Pages?
The Nineteenth Century Club
178 Forest Avenue
Oak Park, Illinois
February 26
2 p.m.
Arlington Heights Library
Arlington Heights, Illinois
Writing workshop: The Elements of Fiction: How to Build Suspense
March 10-11
Tucson Festival of Books
Panels and Signings TBA
Tucson, Arizona
March 12
2 p.m.
Glendale Library, Velma Teague Branch
Glendale, Arizona
With Rhys Bowen and Cara Black
March 12
7 p.m.
With Rhys Bowen and Cara Black
The Poisoned Pen Bookstore
Scottsdale, Arizona
April 7
The Write of Spring
Once Upon A Crime
Minneapolis, Minnesota
April 11
Romantic Times Convention
Appearing with The Outfit
May 5
1 p.m.
Centuries and Sleuths Bookstore
Forest Park, Illinois
May 15
7 p.m.
Bartlett Public Library
Bartlett, Illinois
Writing workshop: How to Build Suspense
Links
Libby Fischer Hellmann's website
Mystery Writers of America Midwest Chapter
Sisters in Crime
The Outfit: A Collective of Chicago Crime Writers
How did it feel the first time you heard someone else read one of your stories? Did you discover anything about your story that surprised you in the reader's interpretation - and was that a good or a distressing thing? AS
I LOVE the way the Sniplits narrators interpret my stories. They are just right on. I wish I'd been able to talk to the narrator who did EASY INNOCENCE -- I imagine it might have turned out differently. That was the big surprise, btw. That I had no contact with the narrator or the producer of the audiotapes.
Who most influenced your writing process, style, or technique?
My writing group, The Red Herrings.
Q: Hey Libby. Got any more stories coming? Gave you a thumbs up rating on House Rules. D. Webb
LFH: As it happens, maybe. I just wrote a new story that explains how my two protagonists, Georgia Davis and Ellie Foreman, first met. I'm hoping it will debut when my new thriller, Doubleback, (which also pairs both protagonists), comes out in October. My third book, An Image of Death, (which again pairs both women) will be reprinted at the same time. So, stay tuned...and thanks for the thumbs up on House Rules, Dave.
Editors Note: The story Libby mentioned has now been published by Sniplits - it is The Murder of Katie Boyle
Q: As a fellow Sniplits author, I wonder if you prefer writing short stories to other forms of writing. Always interested in the opinion of a published writer. Thanks. Tom Anselm
LFH: I like short stories a lot. Maybe even more than novels. I think of a short story as an "affair" while a novel is more like a "marriage." Short stories let me experiment with voices, settings, and even plots more than a novel. However, I like the substance of a novel - the fact that it often says more than you think it will when you're writing it. So I try to do both forms. My original goal was to write 2 shorts stories a year, but I'm behind. Oh well.
Ask Libby Fischer Hellmann a Question
She's uncomfortable with her dad's old employer checking to see if she's gone into the family business, and then things get dangerous. Some violence and profanity.
Time: 27:08 / $0.99 Sample Add to Cart
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If Marge had known their trip to Las Vegas would break all the rules, she would have gone to the Wisconsin Dells. Her husband thinks his luck has changed when they find a valuable hidden cache, but when the box's owners come looking for it, it seems their
Time: 38:43 / $1.09 Sample Add to Cart
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The day Miriam Hirsch glides into his life, Jake begins to understand passion. The day she disappears, he begins to understand dangerous passions.
Time: 25:27 / $0.99 Sample Add to Cart
(4)
When the body of Katie Boyle tumbles out of a closet in a North Shore health club, it will take two women to solve the case. This story marks the first pairing of this author's two series' protagonists.
Time: 31:20 / $1.09 Sample Add to Cart
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Books and Anthologies
Libby Fischer Hellmann’s collection of short stories, Nice Girl Does Noir, Vol. 1, is now available for Kindle
and at Smashwords
Libby Fischer Hellmann’s collection of short stories, Nice Girl Does Noir, Vol. 2 (with an introduction by J.A. Konrath), is now available for Kindle
and at Smashwords
Books Edited by Libby Fischer Hellmann