Denise Baton

Creator, Founder

MYSTERICAL-E is not merely the name of a mystery E-zine but rather a passion. Created by a think-tank of mystery writers the intention of MYSTERICAL-E is to nurture new and exploratory mystery writing. It's mission is to provide a venue for up-and-coming authors while honoring the traditional celebrity mystery greats like Michael Connelly, Sue Grafton, Dennis Lehane, Robert Eversz, Patricial Cornwell and others. MYSTERICAL-E is the sanctuary of mystery lovers of every variety.

Denise Baton was the publisher and Editor-In-Chief for MYSTERICAL-E for five years. She ran contests, set up a CD anthology and interviewed a number of respected mystery authors. Denise Baton began writing professionally when she was hired as researcher for a small production company in Santa Monica.The position evolved into writer/producer on the project, The Shaping Of America, a series of historical spots on American history. A forerunner to the popular Ken Burns style of dramatic portrayals of historical figures and events, The Shaping Of America featured narrators, Sally Kellerman, Robert Guillaume, Dennis Weaver and was voted Favorite Series.

Denise has a journalistic background and has worked for Brentwood News and Venice Art Magazine interviewing and reviewing the work of personalities as illustrious as the beloved Dizzy Gillespie and the well-respected Chris Connelly, editor of Premiere Magazine.

Denise is working on a short film based on the MYSTERICAL-E story, THE ARROW by Nancy Sweetland. A mystery/art film, it is now in post-production.

Phil Mann

Acquisition Editor

Phil Mann is the author of textbooks in mathematics and computer programming. He has two film script sales to his credit and has written a variety of short pieces that have been published in magazines and in book form. His mystery story "Touch of a Vanish'd Hand" is included in the anthology A DEADLY DOZEN, which was produced by the Los Angeles chapter of Sisters in Crime. He has been editing both fiction and nonfiction for the past decade and has also found work as a ghost writer.

In his spare time, he is a lawyer, though he hopes this fact will not be held against him.

Jeffrey Marks

Promotions Director

Jeffrey Marks was born in Georgetown, Ohio, the boyhood home of Ulysses S. Grant. Although he moved with his family at an early age, the family frequently told stories about Grant and the people of the small farming community. At the age of twelve, he was introduced to the works of Agatha Christie via her short story collection, The Underdog and Other Stories. He finished all her books by the age of sixteen and had begun to collect mystery first editions.

After stints on the high school and college newspapers, he began to freelance. After numerous author profiles, he chose to chronicle the short but full life of mystery writer Craig Rice. That biography (which came out in April 2001 as Who Was That Lady?) encouraged him to write mystery fiction. The Ambush of My Name is the first mystery novel by Marks to be published although he has several mystery short story anthologies on the market. His work has won a number of awards including the Barnes and Noble Prize and he was nominated for an Edgar (MWA), an Agatha (Malice Domestic), a Maxwell award (DWAA), and an Anthony award (Bouchercon). Today, he writes from his home in Cincinnati, which he shares with his dog.

Nadine Bozon-Vialle

Photographer

Born in France, Nadine Bozon-Vialle studied art at the BEAUX ARTS ACADEMY in Lyon. She developed an interest in black and white photography.

A photography contract in New York brought her to the states in the eighties. Ultimately, she has established herself in the artistic communicty of Topanga Canyon just south of Malibu in Southern California where she co-owns a design company.

Bob Stevens

Columnist

During a career spanning more than thirty-five years as a private investigator, manager and trainer of investigators, Robert A. Stevens has worked cases involving organized crime, commercial frauds, drugs, gangs, murders, burglaries, domestic disputes and insurance claims. He was the investigator for a cruise ship, consulted with federal task forces on organized crime, and served three terms as a District Governor of the California Association of Licensed Investigators.

His short stories have been published in RED HERRING Mystery Magazine, FUTURES Magazine and ORCHARD PRESS MYSTERIES. He's co-president of the Orange County California Chapter of Sisters in Crime. He is working on a novel featuring a cruise ship investigator.

Byron McAllister

Columnist

Byron McAllister has always been intrigued by whatever appeared to be "fundamental." This led him,successively, into chemistry, physics, mathematics, philosophy, and now mystery writing.

These days he usually teams up with his spouse to write, though the columns in MYSTERICAL-E are his own. He's published some technical and historical papers, a couple of dozen poems, and half a dozen mystery short stories, and has written lots more, including some unpublished novels. He feels that all that qualifies him to have strong, if variable, opinions on everything.

Benjamin Jones

Reviewer

Benjamin Jones, born in Toronto, Ontario, has lived in Rhode Island for most of his life and graduated from Rhode Island College, class of '94.

He has sorted mail for the state, cashiered in a discount bookstore, and entered date for a social service agency. He angrily denies rumors of having "a beautiful soul."

Jodie L. Ball

Reviewer

Jodie L. Ball lives in a suburb of Denver. During the day, she's a paralegal for a mergers and acquisitions attorney. She uses her free time to pen short mysteries and the occasional mainstream short story.

Lee Lipps

Reviewer

Lee Lipps, born in 1950, began reading at an early age because he had no friends. He read his first book at the age of six, Black Beauty by Anna Sewell.

Lee taught high school and junior high school English and history for twenty years and began collecting first edition hardback fiction of his favorite authors. Today he has a library of over 1000 volumes and over eighty authors including the complete works of Robert B. Parker, Robert Crais, James Crumley, Michael Connelly, Joseph Wambaugh, Carl Hiaasen, Edna Buchanan, Laurence Shames, Kinky Friedman, Stephen Hunter, and Dan Jenkins, all alias's for AS.

Depending on his workload, Lee reads about eighty novels a year and arbitrarily ranks them for his colleagues and others. While working for the California Teachers Association as a negotiator for the local teacher unions, Lee has been working on his first book, The Autobiography of Anna Sewell.

He still has no friends.

Janell Schiffbauer

Web Design/Administration

For over a decade Janell has authored educational and special interest web sites, articles, and newsletters. She is a staff writer/columnist for NightsandWeekends.com and contributing editor for tvtome.com. A college anatomy major, she writes for her college paper as well.

Her combined interests in writing and background in computers led to web design specializing in author and writing promotional sites. Her work was recently recognized with a Web Writer News award. She is currently working on her first novel and some short fiction.

Janell currently resides in Southern California with actor/prop maker Mike Logan Schiffbauer and is the mother of six children.

Patricia "Pat" Harrington

Associate

Pat Harrington began a lifelong interest in mysteries as a kid. Like many a mystery fan, she began as an avid reader of the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy Mysteries. She has spun that interest into her writing as a professional grant writer and as a mystery author. She writes grant programs to help communities and organizations fight crime and drug and gang activity. She writes mysteries in the traditional/cozy genre that often have social and historical issues as subplots.


Pat's first novel, Death Stalks the Khmer, is a traditional mystery. She has a work-in-progress novel set in Ireland, Death at Athenry.