Sharon A Crawford

Sharon A. Crawford has crossed the M line - from murder to memoir with her latest book The Enemies Within Us - a Memoir. Maybe that should be mystery, not murder, although murder might be closer to the bone for a few characters in Sharon's childhood. That was back in what she calls the "grey ages" the 1950s and 1960s when she was growing up (trying to anyway) as the only child of elderly parents, mostly in Toronto. Some of her time was spent riding the rails with Daddy and Mom. No, they weren't hobos; Daddy worked as a timekeeper for the CNR and so they got free train rides to visit family and sightsee in rural southwestern Ontario, Detroit, Buffalo and New York City. Daddy and Mom didn't drive anyway. What? They were supposed to take a bus?

But they did take a boat - sort of. In one trip to visit relatives in Detroit, the train crossed the Detroit River - on the river not the tunnel underneath. No the train didn't suddenly sport sails. It sat on top of the Landsdowne, a ferry that transported passengers from Windsor, Ontario to Detroit, Michigan for many years - until the service was scrapped for buses and they sure didn't travel on the river. Sharon and her parents just made that train/boat trip a year before the end of the Landsdowne. In spring 1969, Sharon, then 20 had to do the bus crossing and she was terrified. It was a year or so after the big race riots in Detroit and when the bus arrived early at the train station and her cousin arrived late to pick her up, she spent about 20 terrifying minutes imagining what might happen.

Well, these riding the rails stories, as well as many others such as Sharon dealing with a couple of bullies at school, Sharon, at age 13 teaching her 50-something Mom to play the piano, are all in The Enemies Within Us - a Memoir. But most of the memoir is about her relationships with eccentric family and friends and some of the funny things that happened. Not everything was funny though, because when Sharon was almost 10 her beloved Daddy got cancer. And her parents lied about it to her.

More details about The Enemies Within Us - a Memoir on Sharon's website at https://samcraw.com/ PI Dana Bowman, from the Beyond mystery series introduces the memoir - and she actually likes it. Sharon's memoir is here on Amazon. Just released. Brand new. Stay tuned for info about her virtual book launch in November. And yes, Sharon is hard at work writing the fourth Beyond book. She doesn't have any choice. Dana Bowman won't let her stop. Meantime, you can read more about the Beyond books just below here. Hint - there is more story there about growing up in the 1950s and 1960s,. And all three Beyond books are still available here at Amazon.

Sharon A. Crawford is the author of the Beyond mystery series - Beyond the Tripping Point (2012), Beyond Blood (2014) and Beyond Faith (October 2017).

Beyond Faith, Sharon's latest novel is featured in her interview on Liquid Lunch on thatchannel.com where host Hugh Reilly tries to get to the bottom of the Beyond books. Check the video out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEEbLqIdykI

Sharon now hosts her own TV show, Crime Beat Confidential on thatchannel.com. In this bi-monthly show, Sharon interviews people from different areas of crime and mystery. PI Dana Bowman, the main character in the Beyond mystery series does the intro.

Hot on thatchannel.com and Youtube is the latest episode of Crime Beat Confidential TV with guest prolific mystery, etc. novelist Lisa de Nikolits. Lisa writes and publishes one novel a year and each novel is unique. She also has a full time job. Lisa, who was born in South Africa talks about how she got to Canada, her writing process and finding time to do it all. You can watch the show, opened with the Beyond books' crazy main character, PI Dana Bowman, followed by Sharon interviewing Lisa at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo0nv5E0tNE&feature=youtu.be

Previous shows:

First guest is James G. Wigmore, forensic toxicologist.

Watch the first segment at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUKmfatnIlY

And the Crime Beat Confidential goes on with episode 2 featuring guest true crime author Nate Hendley talking about his latest book "The Boy on the Bicycle". And again PI Dana Bowman from the Beyond mystery series does the intro. Watch it at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuZotvXLStQ

And the Beat still goes on with guest licensed PI A.P. Cairns interviewed by both Sharon and her main Beyond book character PI Dana Bowman. Watch it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPzmna-K5Mw

And the first episode in 2019 of Crime Beat Confidential was taped April 2019 with guest Lorna Poplak who wrote the book "Drop Dead" a history of the noose when capital punishment existed in Canada. PI Dana Bowman gets her toonie's worth in at the beginning but Sharon does the whole interview this time round. Watch it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0lxHtTcSNw

Episode #5 of Crime Beat Confidential taped July 22, 2019, features guest Marian Misters, co-owner of Sleuth of Baker Street bookstore in Toronto. Marian talks about how she and her partner started the store (and its location changes), events there, authors, and the readers.

And of course, PI Dana Bowman from Sharon's Beyond mystery books started the show as usual with her usual sarcastic comments about Sharon and a brief intro about our guest. Watch it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rstiEWxYAx8&list=PLpK0Ik21wblVrU4pRGXHSkrCsJHReVQ

Episode #6 of Crime Beat Confidential featuring guest Cathy Dunphy, a former Toronto Star staff writer and now president of Mesdames of Mayhem, a group of mystery writing women and two men whose works are published in anthologies. Latest is "In the Key of 13". Watch the show to see what Cathy and Sharon are up to. Warning: two mystery reading addicts here. https://youtu.be/dAHvt08ipYk

And also in April 2019 Sharon was part of a Sisters in Crime panel Hogtown Homicides about authors who set their books in Toronto, Canada. Sharon's Beyond Faith is partly set in Toronto and most of the stories in Beyond the Tripping Point are set in Toronto. Here's the link to a very short video hosted by one of the panelists Lisa de Nikolits

https://youtu.be/pLRJe2qtweE

Sharon's background - where all this mystery writing came from.

Sharon grew up an only child in Toronto, Ontario, Canada during the 1950s and 1960s. Her early mystery influences were Agatha Christie, the Perry Mason TV series which she watched with her mother. So I guess "Mom" was a mystery influence too. But she started her working life as a secretary. She worked for the Ontario Government, an insurance agency and Toronto Police Services (the latter as a civilian clerk in Morality and a section called Departmental Support Services which did not sell hosiery). She later switched to writing. Sharon is a former journalist (35 years) and was Writer in Residence for the Canadian Authors Association Toronto Branch 2009-2014. Currently she writes mystery and memoir, teaches writing workshops and courses (memoir and fiction), and is a freelance editor. Sharon also channels PI Dana Bowman, the main character in her Beyond mystery series in comedy skits; sometimes Dana goes it alone and sometimes she is joined by George or some other character in one of the novels by literary novelist Shane Joseph or a short story by literary fiction author Michael Dyet. Then it's a case of literary mayhem.

A photo of PI Dana Bowman appears in Sharon's selection of photos on this page.

That photo better appease Ms. Bowman as she and Sharon are locked in a shall we say discussion about who wrote Beyond Faith. But it is Sharon's byline that appears on the cover of Beyond Faith. Perhaps the answer is Sharon channels Dana Bowman in her head although sometimes it seems like Dana has taken over her life. But they are not alike - except both are short, but Dana is two inches shorter than Sharon and Dana hates that. See what Sharon has to say about all of that on he website Beyond Faith page under Who Wrote the book of Beyond Faith? https://samcraw.com/books/beyond-faith/

Sharon founded and runs the East End Writers' Group, is a member of Crime Writers of Canada, Sisters in Crime and the Toronto Heliconian Club. She spends her spare time reading, walking and out in her Toronto garden where she dreams up new story ideas, especially those involving murder and mystery. Sharon also writes memoir and personal essays and teaches workshops in crime fiction writing and memoir writing. Does that make her slogan M and M? (Murder and Memoir).

Blog at http://www.sharonacrawfordauthor.com

Website http://samcraw.com/

Interview with Sharon A. Crawford about Beyond Blood on Liquid Lunch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2bBaePIWgY

Link to Sharon's other TV interviews at

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC505OMPiVNy27zCFfND_8WA