Meet the Authors: Jess Lourey

Jess Lourey spent her formative years in Paynesville, Minnesota, a small town not unlike her Murder by Month series' Battle Lake. She currently lives in St. Cloud, Minnesota, where she teaches writing and sociology full time at the local college. When not raising her wonderful kids, teaching, or writing, you can find her gardening and navigating the niceties and meanities of small-town life. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, The Loft, and Lake Superior Writers.

"The Locked Fish-Cleaning-House," her short story contribution to Resort to Murder, is set in Battle Lake--the same town her series is set in--and features Mrs. Berns, a recurring but peripheral character in the series. The story puts a Minnesota spin on the classic locked room mystery. And for the record, writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a novel. Her website has information about her newest release Knee-High by the Fourth of July.