By DAVE SCHULTZ
In keeping with the season, five mystery writers came to Bluffton Thursday night to promote the art of writing.
The quintet — Janet Williams, Michael Dabney, Ross Carley, Mary Ann Koontz, and Stephen Terrell — read excerpts from their writings and talked about the creative process.
And in keeping with the season of spooky things, the number of people present at the Wells County Public Library’s Bluffton branch was … 13.
The writers are members of the Speed City Sisters in Crime, the Indiana chapter of the broader mystery and crime writers’ association Sisters in Crime. And yes, there are males in the group; Terrell called himself, Carley, and Dabney “the mister sisters.”
Terrell was probably more familiar with Wells County than any of the other writers. He’s a distant relative of John Terrell, a Wells County businessman who was tried in 1903 for the murder of his son-in-law, Melvin Wolfe. Stephen Terrell — a former lawyer — is in the process of writing something in the “narrative non-fiction” genre about John Terrell.
To accomplish that, he’s looked at the 2,500-page trial transcript, family histories, and information from the Randolph County Historical Society and the Wells County Public Library, the Indiana State Library and Archives, and the Wells County recorder’s, auditor’s, and clerk’s offices.
John Terrell’s trial was the subject of a Internet series, “Of Sound Mind,” produced during the COVID-19 pandemic as a fundraiser for the Pulse Opera House in Warren.
The first person to read was Koontz, who is from Fort Wayne. Terrell said she was up first because what she had written actually included the word “Bluffton.” In context, however, Koontz actually referred to Bluffton Road.
As a group, the writers encouraged anyone who wanted to join them in their craft to be persistent and to be voracious readers. They also encouraged others to continually ask “what if?” as they wrote. Terrell explained that by calling to mind a murder trial. What if the person on trial was a boy? What if he was a family member? What if he had autism? What if he couldn’t communicate with his defense attorney?
The group was in Bluffton to promote their individual and the anthology the group published a year ago, “Trick or Treats: A Speed City Crime Writers Anthology.”
daves@news-banner.com
