Do not go gentle into that good night, wrote Dylan Thomas, and Canadas notorious Ladies Killing Circle has taken his advice to heart. In Going Out With a Bang, the dangerous dames have brought together an explosive mix of authors from across the country. Whether its the boom of drums, the cacophony of a train wreck, or the thud of a body crashing down the stairs, no one goes out without a fight. Twenty authors, along with poet Joy Hewitt Mann, will chill you, entertain you or plain blow you away in this eclectic fictional brew.

Joan Boswell was born in Toronto and grew up in Ottawa, Edmonton, Oakville and Halifax. She received her BA from the University of New Brunswick, married and moved to the Northern Quebec bush. After two years she and her husband relocated to London, Ontario, where she attended Teachers’ College and taught on the Six Nations Oneida Indian Reserve. Moving to Ottawa, she obtained an MA in Canadian Studies from Carleton University and a PhD from the University of Ottawa. Her thesis grew out of her experience with and interest in the Six Nations. During her many years in academia she won several prizes as well as a Ford Foundation Fellowship, and Canada Council grants. These enabled her to continue her studies and pay for sitters to care for her four sons who grew up hating the sound of the typewriter. Throughout her life, she has painted and eventually the compulsion to improve and spend more time being creative overwhelmed her and she returned to the University of Ottawa to complete the course work for a BFA. After ten solo shows and four posters produced by Posters International, she again switched her focus. This time writing was the attraction. She attended the Humber School of Writing and took a Humber College Correspondence Course with Isabel Huggin. As a writer, Joan has had work published in magazines and anthologies in Canada and the United States. As a member of the Ladies’ Killing Circle, she has had stories in each of their six books: The Ladies’ Killing Circle, Cottage Country Killers, Menopause Is Murder, Fit to Die, Bone Dance and When Boomers Go Bad. She has also co-edited the last three books. In 2000, she won the $10,000 Toronto Sunday Star short story contest. Cut Off His Tale was her first novel. The second in the Hollis Grant series, Cut to the Quick, followed in 2007, and the third, Cut to the Chase, in 2009.

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Barbara Fradkin was born in Montreal and attended McGill, the University of Toronto and the University of Ottawa, where she obtained her PhD in psychology. Her work as a child psychologist has provided ample inspiration and insight for plotting murders, and she recently left full-time practice in order to be able to devote more time to writing. Barbara has an affinity for the dark side, and her compelling short stories haunt several anthologies and magazines, including Storyteller, Iced (Insomniac Press, 2001), and the Ladies Killing Circle anthologies, including Fit to Die, Bone Dance and When Boomers Go Bad, published by RendezVous Press. Her detective series features the exasperating, infuriating Ottawa Inspector Michael Green, whose love of the hunt often interferes with family, friends and police protocol. The series includes Do or Die (2000), Once Upon a Time (2002), Mist Walker (2003), and Fifth Son (Fall 2004). Once Upon a Time was nominated for Best Novel at the Arthur Ellis Awards, Canada’s top crime writing awards, and her latest title, Fifth Son won this prestigious award in 2005. The fifth in the series, Honour Among Men, (2006), repeated the honour, the only time that consecutive novels by the same author have won the award. The sixth and seventh novels, Dream Chasers and This Thing of Darkness, followed in 2007 and 2009.

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