Ellen Kirschman is an award-winning police and public safety psychologist. She is the author of three non-fiction books and the Dot Meyerhoff mystery series. Ellen finds writing fiction to be therapeutic. She gets to take potshots at nasty cops, incompetent psychologists, and her two ex-husbands. Dot Meyerhoff, her protagonist, is named after her mother and maternal grandmother.

Too dedicated for her own good, Dot takes orders from no one, including her chief, and persists in solving crimes when she should be counseling cops—often using methods that would have cost Ellen her license. Ellen lives in Redwood City, California, with her husband, whose entire life she has plagiarized for Dot’s love interest, Frank. She adores Zumba, dogs, cats, and ice cream. Sign up for her occasional newsletter at www.ellenkirschman.com and receive a mini-memoir of her time as a dance hall hostess in Times Square.

Call Me Carmela – When the adopted teenage goddaughter of Dot’s dear friend needs Dot’s help locating her birth parents, Dot is drawn into a murky world of illegal adoptions. What she finds will heal one family and destroy another.

In 2021, on this very blog, I wrote about my path to publishing. It was a dismal time. My traditional publisher had rejected the third book in my Dot Meyerhoff mystery series. I had taken my rights back, hired an online marketer, and jumped into the world of self-publishing. I told readers to “stay tuned.” I’m happy to have the opportunity to pick up the story again.

My online marketer, her staff, and I designed new covers. They did the formatting, and she did the marketing. The initial sales exceeded those of my traditional publisher but dropped off after the initial burst of enthusiasm. Then came a happy accident. A kind writer friend mentioned me to Open Road Media. My agent contacted them, and they adopted the first four books in the series and agreed to publish the fifth, Call Me Carmela, all with gorgeous new covers that tie the series together in a new way.

This brings me to today. Call Me Carmela is up for pre-order and launching on November 26. I’m having two official launch events: December 7, 2:00 p.m. at the Beyond Text bookshop in Los Gatos, CA. Local book blogger Lloyd Russell, a great supporter of our writing community, will ask me questions. On December 8, at 4:00 p.m., award-winning thriller writer Samantha Downing will be hosting me at Book Passage in Corte Madera. I’ve also scheduled a ton of online book tours and interviews. They’re on my website, www.ellenkirschman.com.

What am I currently working on? I am noodling a sixth Dot Meyerhoff. I love to explore unfamiliar worlds, and I have one in mind. I don’t want to reveal more other than to say it’s hiding in plain view. I’ve also finished a draft of the first book in a new series. The book is tentatively titled Iris is Missing. It evolved from my story, published in Jewish Noir. V2, titled “The Almost Sisters,” is about two elderly sisters-in-law who run a car hire service, like an Uber, to make some extra money. I fell in love with them and decided to get them into more trouble. What kind of trouble? They take their friend Iris to the airport to visit her daughter, but she never returns. Is she hiding out while recovering from plastic surgery? Or has she been kidnapped by someone she met at one of the many social clubs for seniors to which she belongs? It’s up to Sofi and Nomi to find out because no one else seems to care. Next step? Finish the revisions and run it by my agent.

Do I base my characters on real people? Rumor had it that when I published my first Dot Meyerhoff mystery, Burying Ben, there was a lottery at a local police department where I worked for many years as a consultant. The officers were betting on which of them I based my cantankerous cop character, Eddie Rimbauer. All my fiction and non-fiction books are inspired by the first responders and first responder families I have had the privilege to know. But I’m very careful to disguise any revealing details. My characters are often a composite of several people.

Do I have advice for new writers? Of course I do. I’m a psychologist. Becoming a published writer is a long game. Everything takes longer than you would imagine: writing a good book, finding an agent and/or a publisher, building a newsletter list, and connecting with your readers. Those overnight success stories of writers bursting into film? Most of them have been at it for years.

It helps to learn patience and grow a thick skin because there’s a lot of rejection on the way. Get used to it. Balance the negative with the positive. Hang out with other writers, especially crime writers; they are kind, funny, and supportive. Back in 2020 and 2021, when the pandemic was in full swing, I mentioned on the blog that I was part of an online writing group sponsored by Sisters-in-Crime. The group is still flourishing, and I’m still showing up. In addition to Sisters-in-Crime, I belong to Mystery Writers of America, The Public Safety Writers Association, Pen America, and the Authors’ Guild.

If you have money, spend it on your writing. Go to conferences where you hang out with other writers and meet folks who can help you with your career and craft. Buy editorial consultation to make your book better. Take classes to improve your skills. And sub out the tasks you hate. For me, that would be the technical stuff, newsletter design, website management and help with marketing.

Here’s the link to my website where you can pre-order Call Me Carmela.  You can buy my other books, and/or sign up for my occasional newsletter:  www.ellenkirschman.com

Email: efkphd@gmail.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ellen.kirschman/,

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