Mystery Writers of America, New England Chapter

Beyond the Black Dahlia – Matt Berger (Dr. Noir)
Wednesday, January 8, 2025
6:30 to socialize
The meeting proper starts at 7pm

Matt Berger (Dr. Noir) will discuss Elizabeth Short, AKA The Black Dahlia. His talk will go beyond the details of the 1947 homicide and its still ongoing investigation to also look at Elizabeth Short the person and Medford native as well as his experience managing the YouTube channel Doctor Noir.

Dr. Matthew Berger was born in Philadelphia and raised in its suburbs. After earning political science degrees from Yale (BA) and Harvard (MA), he spent nearly two decades as a public health data analyst and project manager. During this time, he earned an MA in biostatistics and a PhD in epidemiology from Boston University. In 2016, Dr. Berger launched his non-fiction storytelling website Just Bear With Me. Essays he published there led him to write his first book, Interrogating Memory: Film Noir Spurs a Deep Dive Into My Family History…and My Own, which he published in 2022. Dr. Berger plans two additional books – one about his Philadelphia Jewish ancestors and one about his idiosyncratic life – to complete an “interrogating memory” trilogy. In 2023, he started the Doctor Noir YouTube channel. Dr. Berger lives in Brookline with his wife Nell, two daughters, and Casper the Friendly Golden.

To join in person:
The Public Library of Brookline
361 Washington St
Brookline, MA 02445

Home

(617-730-2370)

Season of the Witch – Bridget M. Marshall
Wednesday, October 9, 2024
6:30 to socialize
The meeting proper starts at 7pm

In the spirit of Halloween, Marshall will discuss the lesser known witch trials of western Massachusetts.

Bridget M. Marshall is Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell where she teaches courses on Gothic novels, disability in literature, witchcraft trials, and American literature. Her most recent book is Industrial Gothic: Workers, Exploitation and Urbanization in Transatlantic Nineteenth-Century Literature (2021, University of Wales Press). In it she explores how nineteenth-century British and American literature reflects anxieties about the Industrial Revolution and how authors used Gothic stock characters and imagery – vampires, ghosts, and haunted buildings – to explore some of the real-life terrors of the world’s industrial transformation.

NEXT MEETING:

Twenty Plus Years in the FBI – David Nadolski
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
6:30 to socialize
The meeting proper starts at 7pm

Hear what a retired Supervisory Special Agent from the Boston Division of the FBI has to say about investigating property crimes, violent crimes, public corruption, civil rights violations, white collar crimes, foreign counter intelligence, crime scene investigations, and conducting surveillance operations.

Nadolski was a member of the elite FBI Evidence Response Team (ERT) investigating the 1998 bombing of the American Embassy by members of al-Qaeda and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. It was considered a dangerous mission which resulted in operation Infinite Reach, a series of missile strikes ordered by President Bill Clinton.

Closer to home, he was the primary case agent on numerous Boston Division investigations including the 1996 theft of priceless historical books from the John Quincy library in Quincy, MA.

To join in person:
The Public Library of Brookline
361 Washington St
Brookline, MA 02445

NEXT MEETING:

Celebrate!
Wednesday, June 12, 2024
6:30 to socialize
The meeting proper starts at 7pm

Read two pages of something you’ve written or recently published whether you’re coming to the library or joining via Zoom. Let me know by Tuesday to get on the reading list. (Name and title.)

More on the Marathon Bombing – Susan Clare Zalkind
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
6:30 to socialize
The meeting proper starts at 7pm

The Waltham Murders by Susan Clare Zalkind: A crusade to find a killer becomes a gripping, intensely personal investigation into a shocking cold case and the radicalization of a terrorist.

Susan Clare Zalkind is a journalist, writer, producer and New Englander. Her work has appeared in This American Life, the Guardian, CityLab, VICE, the Daily Beast, The Irish Times, and Boston magazine. She also wrote and produced the 2022 Hulu docuseries The Murders Before the Marathon, named one of the best shows of the year by The Wall Street Journal. She likes to swim in the ocean.

You can follow reactions and updates on Susan’s investigation at: https://susanzalkind.substack.com/

To join in person:
The Public Library of Brookline
361 Washington St
Brookline, MA 02445

Home

(617-730-2370)

Poetic Imagery and Narrative Fiction: The Mystery Novel Considered – Charles Coe
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
6:30 to socialize
The meeting proper starts at 7pm

An engaging mystery novel pulls the reader in with a solid plot and interesting characters. It also conveys a mood that “paints a picture” of the story’s setting. Please join Charles Coe in a conversation about how the writer of narrative fiction can borrow from the poet’s toolbox to help create that mood. We’ll look at and discuss examples of how poetic techniques such as imagery, metaphor, and simile have been used by mystery novelists Rex Stout, Raymond Chandler, Sue Grafton, Mickey Spillane and others to enrich and enhance their “created worlds.”

Charles Coe is the author of four books of poetry: All Sins Forgiven: Poems for my Parents, Picnic on the Moon, Memento Mori, and Purgatory Road, all published by Leapfrog Press. Charles Coe: New and Selected Works will be published by Leapfrog in the summer of 2024. He is also author of 2014’s Spin Cycles, a novella published by Gemma Media that tells the story of a homeless man surviving on the streets of Boston.

Charles was a 2017 artist-in-residence for the city of Boston, where he created an oral history project focused on residents of Mission Hill. He has been chosen as a “Literary Light” by the Associates of the Boston Public Library. He is an adjunct professor of English at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island, and at Bay Path University, in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, where he teaches in both MFA writing programs. He serves on the Steering Committee of the Boston Chapter of the National Writers Union, a labor union that serves freelance writers.

To join in person:
The Public Library of Brookline
361 Washington St
Brookline, MA 02445

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