GREETINGS FROM DOROTHY FRANCIS!

Dorothy Francis was born and raised in the Midwest and was graduated cum laude from University of Kansas with a Bachelor of Music degree. Playing trumpet, she traveled with an all-girl swing band before beginning a public school music career that took her to California, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Iowa. After marriage to her musician husband Richard, she taught from her private studio and helped raise their two daughters.

Francis started her literary career by writing humorous quatrains, short stories, and books for children. Sixteen of her children's books from Perfection Learning Corp. remain in print. Thorndike Press in the US and Chivers Press in the UK have recently re-issued twelve of her young adult novels in large print.

When Francis and her husband began spending winters in the Florida Keys, she knew she had to write about that area. So she did. And she still does. In addition to her two novels Published in 2003 (Conch Shell Murder) and 2005 (Pier Pressure), the second book in her Keely Moreno mystery series (Cold Case Killer) will appear in 2007.

Francis also writes short stories for adult readers that have received national publication. In 1999, "When in Rome," published in "Murderous Intent Mystery Magazine," won a Derringer Award from the Short Mystery Fiction Society.

Francis is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and Short Mystery Fiction Society.

Please let her share with you her books and short stories.