Poe's Deadly Daughters to Say Goodbye on Poe's Birthday

After seven years of stimulating and enjoyable dialogue with each other and you, our readers, Poe's Deadly Daughters have decided to stop writing the blog and devote our attention to our many other projects. We published our first post on Poe's 198th birthday, January 19, 2007, having chosen our name to honor the father of the detective story.

On our first anniversary, we wrote, "What a year it's been!" Of the founding Daughters who have stuck around to post a new piece weekly for the whole seven years, Sandy won an Agatha for Best First Novel, Julia and Liz published their first short stories in anthologies, and the third book in Sharon's series came out. We were named "one of eight top mystery blogs" in Library Journal and praised as "schmooze-worthy" by J. Kingston Pierce of The Rap Sheet and January Magazine. "Most of all," we wrote, "we've had fun!"

We've never stopped having fun, and the pleasure of interacting with our readers has played an enormous part in that. But as 21st-century life gets more and more hectic, reading a favorite blog daily or even weekly has become harder for even the most devoted followers. And writing a 500-800 word post that's entertaining, informative, and polished every week for seven years--well, do the math: 52 x 7 = 364 posts from each of us. And 364 x 700 words (let's be conservative and use an estimated average) = 254,800 words per blogger, or the equivalent of 3½ novels apiece.

We've also interviewed a host of mystery luminaries and welcomed a dazzling array of guest bloggers, far too many to name but ranging from bestsellers to debut authors. For several years, Sharon hosted a Canadian mystery author every month. All those posts, along with ours, will remain available to all in our archives.

Please don't quit now, because we'll still be here till January 19th, Poe's 205th birthday, for another two rounds of blogging, including guest posts from our Deadly Daughters emerita. Here's the full roster of blog sisters, past and present:

Julia Buckley
Sharon Wildwind
Sandra Parshall
Elizabeth Zelvin
Sheila Connolly
Jeri Westerson
Darlene Ryan (aka Sofie Kelly)
Lonnie Cruse

Before we say goodbye, we'll give you full information about our other projects and links to our websites, books, and, in some cases, blogs to which we'll still be contributing. All that information will remain visible when you click on http://poesdeadlydaughters.blogspot.com

It's been fun!