Returning author Juliet B Madison – Crime/Thriller

Today I’m pleased to welcome back Crime Author Juliet B Madison to talk about her latest DI Frank Lyle related project Alternate Voices.  Over to you Juliet.

Last year my friend and fellow crime writer, Andrew Scorah put together an anthology to raise money for the UK charity Women’s Aid and to raise awareness of the thorny issue of domestic violence. In this day and age, where same sex marriage is legal, domestic violence is not necessarily confined to heterosexual relationships. I contributed a story to Andrew’s anthology, Shadows and Light, and am pleased to have been associated with the project.

Those who know me well will be aware that my long term partner, David, died of renal cancer in 2008. Taking care of him was tough, both emotionally and financially, but we had a Macmillan nurse who gave us both tremendous support and enabled us to get access to resources we could not use ourselves given that we did not have a computer or internet access. I decided to try and collect stories for a similar anthology and donate some of the proceeds to Macmillan to enable them to continue their great support of people living with cancer as well as their relatives and carers.

You can learn more about Macmillan cancer support and the work they do here

I launched an online appeal for stories, but this is the twist, the stories are not run of the mill. I wanted to set people the challenge of writing a DI Frank Lyle story of their own. The story does not need to be crime based, it can be in any genre as long as it utilises characters from the main DI Frank Lyle Mystery Series. All stories, as long as I’m not inundated with responses, will find their way into the anthology, which I have titled Alternate voices as this does not only echo the fact that the contents are written by other authors, but it also reflects the multiple first person POV of the series itself. You can write in British or American English and use first or third person.  You can read more about the requirements here.

I have to admit that the entries I have received thus far have really captured and done justice to the fiction series I have created. It’s quite fun to see what people have done with my characters.  The closing date for submissions is 1^st July 2015 so still plenty of time. Even if you have never read a DI Frank Lyle book before you can get plenty of fan fiction scope from my DI Frank Lyle efanzine and my website

I am extremely impressed with the calibre of stories received so far and look forward to reading many more DI Lyle fan fiction pieces in the next few weeks.

At present the provisional release date for the anthology is 23^rd September 2015. I chose this date because it’s the seventh anniversary of David’s death and as such a bad day for me. I thought I would give myself something more positive to focus on to help me through. The anthology will be dedicated to David’s memory.

If you feel like checking out a DI Lyle book or two then please visit Amazon’s Juliet B Madison page