Have you always wanted to write that crime story or do you have a mystery novel idea tucked in the back of your mind just waiting for a push? This workshop might just be the thing you need. We’ll look at some classic examples from the mystery greats and learn a thing or two about how to take that idea toward publication. We’ll talk about beginnings, endings, dialogue and plot. We’ll ask and answer the question, “what makes a good mystery story?” There will be time for generative writing from provided prompts too.

Kevin Carey’s mystery stories have been published in the anthologies Riptide and Still Waters: Crime Stories by New England Writers, Cactus Heart Press, Silk Road, Red Mountain Review and recently recorded by The Shade Chronicles Podcast. His crime novel Murder in the Marsh (Dark Stroke Books, 2020) is set in his hometown of Revere, MA in the 1980s. Kevin has written the murder mystery comedy play The Stand or Sal is Dead which premiered at the Actor’s Playhouse in Newburyport, MA, and a recent screenplay and film collaboration of yet another murder-mystery comedy, MFA: The Terminal Degree, which premiered in Salem, MA in the spring of 2025 and recently won an Indie Feature Honorable Mention in the LA Film Awards.

Other works include three collections of poetry, and two collaborative poetry chapbooks, and two other works of fiction, The Beach People and Junior Miles and the Junkman, which has been featured in the Pen Faulkner Writers in the Schools Program in Washington D.C. and won the Paterson Prize for Books for Young Readers. Kevin is a recent finalist for the Montana Prize in fiction and co-editor of Molecule: a tiny lit mag. He is the coordinator of creative writing at Salem State University. Read more: kevincareywriter.com

Class is limited to 12.

Tuition: Members $40 | Non-members $55 | Students $20 (only 2 students seats available)

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