Elizabeth Sims
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Elizabeth Sims is an American writer living on the West Coast. She is best known for her Lillian Byrd mysteries, a four-novel series published by Alyson Books (New York), beginning in 2002. The second book in the series, Damn Straight, won a 2003 Lambda Literary Award. The main character, Lillian Byrd, is a reporter turned sleuth whose quest for true love takes her into dangerous places. The series, set mostly in the Detroit, Michigan, area, is noted for its off-kilter characters and wry humor.
In 2008, Sims launched a new suspense series with St. Martin's Press Minotaur. The first novel, The Actress, was published in June, 2008. This new series represents Sims's departure from the gay-lesbian genre niche to mainstream suspense fiction. The main character, Rita Farmer, is a single mother and struggling Hollywood actress who is recruited to secretly coach the unsympathetic defendant in a high-profile murder trial.
Sims has written several articles for Writer's Digest Magazine.
Sims has degrees in English from Michigan State University and Wayne State University. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and American Mensa.
Novels
The Actress (2008, St. Martin's Minotaur)
Easy Street: A Lillian Byrd Crime Story (2005, Alyson Books)
Lucky Stiff: A Lillian Byrd Crime Story ( 2004, Alyson Books)
Damn Straight: A Lillian Byrd Crime Story (2003, Alyson Books)
Holy Hell: A Lillian Byrd Crime Story (2002, Alyson Books)
Short Fiction and Poetry
"I am Calico Jones," short story in Romance for Life, ed. by Lori L. Lake and Tara Young, Intaglio Publications, 2006.
"Play Money," short story in Best Lesbian Love Stories 2004, ed. by Angela Brown, Alyson Books, 2004.
"For Faye," short story in A Woman’s Touch, ed. by Valerie Reed, Alyson Books, 2003.
The Smudge, a populist-style literary journal based in Detroit (now defunct). Poems in Spring 1978, Summer 1978, Winter 1978-79.
Moving Out, a feminist literary annual (now defunct):
- Short story "Beautiful" vol. 13, 1987.
- Short story "Cleva" vol. 14, 1989. Co-winner, prose contest.
- Served on editorial board, 1992-93.
Nonfiction Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra: Seventy-Five Years of Music on the Strait, with Ned Thomas, published by the symphony, 2007.
Articles
"A New York Lunch," forthcoming feature in Writer's Digest.
"Learning from the Classics," forthcoming feature in Writer's Digest.
"A Hollywood Hunt for Deep Background," feature in Writer's Digest, December, 2007.
"Start Me Up!" feature in Writer's Digest, December, 2006.
"Store Wars," lead article in LOGOS: Journal of the World Book Community, vol. 13, issue 2, (2002).
Book reviews for The Detroit Free Press:, 1991-92.
Official Elizabeth Sims Author Website
References:
Peninsula Daily News, May 28 2005, Peninsula Woman, cover feature by Jim Thomsen
