The 2025 - 2026
Executive Committee
Kristin Kisska
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President
Kristin Kisska used to be a finance geek, complete with her MBA and Wall Street pedigree, but now she is a self-proclaimed #SuspenseGirl. She has contributed over a dozen short stories to crime and mystery anthologies. Her debut novel, The Hint of Light, was an Agatha Award finalist for Best First Mystery Novel. Kristin is a Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, Sisters in Crime, and James River Writers member. She loves hearing from friends, readers, and book clubs at www.KristinKisska.com
A long-time resident of Glen Allen, Kristin has been a member of Sisters in Crime—Central Virginia for ten years—four of which she served as the chapter’s Vice President and Programming Chair. She’s also contributed short stories to four of the chapter’s anthologies. For her, Virginia will always be for mysteries!
Jackie Hilles
Vice President and Program Chair
Jackie Hilles was raised in Chesterfield County, Virginia and received her BA in English from Virginia Commonwealth University. She has traveled to Ireland, Canada, Mexico, England (spending a summer working as a chambermaid in one of London’s oldest hotels), and particularly Paris. She says she would go back in a trice.
Jackie has been published in Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazines and hopes to hit the big time with her new cozy, Cat Call. She was previously involved with the Mystery Writers of America chapter when she lived in New Jersey and happily joined the Central Virginia chapter of Sisters in Crime in 2023.
She has been owned by many cats in her lifetime and has happily fostered kittens for Richmond Animal Care and Control. Currently, her number of cat companions remains steady at four.
Judy Chalkley
Treasurer
J. A. Chalkley is a native Virginian. She is a writer, retired public safety communications officer, and a member of Sisters in Crime.
G.M. Malliet
Recording Secretary
G.M. Malliet is the author of three mystery series; a dozen or more short stories published in The Strand, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine; and a standalone suspense novel.
Her Agatha Award-winning Death of a Cozy Writer (2008), the first installment of the DCI St. Just mysteries, was named one of the ten best novels of the year by Kirkus Reviews.
She has been a member of SinC for over fifteen years, serving as Member at Large on the SinC National Board for five years.
Support Committees
Social Media/Publicity Chair
Jackie Layton
Jackie Layton is the author of cozy mysteries with Spunky Southern Sleuths. Her stories are set in Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina. She lives on the coast of South Carolina, where she enjoys walks on the beach and golf cart rides around the marsh. Reading, gardening, and traveling are some of her favorite hobbies.
Jackie always keeps a notebook handy to write down ideas for future stories. Many of her ideas come from observing people and watching Dateline and American Greed.
Membership Chair/Webmaster
Leah Price
(Immediate Past President)
Leah Price has served in a wide variety of roles during her working career—from baker, to FBI program manager, to newspaper columnist. Writing as Leah St. James, she draws on these experiences to fuel her stories of good and evil, mystery and suspense, and the redeeming power of love.
A member of Sisters in Crime, Central Virginia Chapter, and the Alliance of Independent Authors, Leah is a native of the Central Jersey Shore but now resides in the Richmond area where she spends her free time with twin infant granddaughters.
Anthology Co-editor
Josh Pachter
Josh Pachter is the editor of two dozen anthologies and single-author collections, including the Anthony Award finalists The Beat of Black Wings: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Joni Mitchell, Paranoia Blues: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Paul Simon, and Happiness is a Warm Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of the Beatles. More than a hundred and thirty of his own short crime stories have appeared in EQMM, AHMM, and elsewhere. His first novel, Dutch Threat, was published by Genius Book Publishing in 2023, and his first chapter book for younger readers, First Week Free at the Roomy Toilet, was published by Level Best in 2024. In 2020, he received the Short Mystery Fiction Society’s Golden Derringer Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Anthology Co-editor
K. L. Murphy
K.L. Murphy is the author of Last Girl Missing and the forthcoming The Murderer’s Girl (July 2025) as well as the award-nominated Her Sister’s Death, a January 2023 Once Upon a Book Club Pick. Of Her Sister’s Death, Publishers Weekly said, “Murphy keeps the tension high…” and “readers will eagerly turn the pages,” and Library Journal called the book “[A] riveting tale…”
In addition, she is the author of the Detective Cancini Mystery Series featuring A Guilty Mind, Stay of Execution, and The Last Sin. Her short stories are featured in Deadly Southern Charm, Murder by the Glass, First Comes Love, Then Comes Murder and Friend of the Devil: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of the Grateful Dead. She also co-edited and is featured in Crime in the Old Dominion. K.L. makes her home in Richmond, VA, where she loves spending time with her family, friends, and two amazing dogs.