The Good Girls are descending upon the DC area this weekend. We’ll be attending the Malice Domestic convention there - an event that’s more like a huge family reunion than a typical conference.

Malice Domestic celebrates the traditional mystery - think Agatha Christie - with a minimum of sex and violence. (Both can happen to their heart’s content, but offstage, please).

Of course, what I meant to say is that they celebrate mysteries that contain within them little sex or violence - not that they celebrate them with a bit of…

Never mind.

But what’s this about money?

Well, I had the good fortune to have the wondrous founders of this convention throw money at me one year. What did I have to do for it? Easy - what I always do - write something and be unpublished.

The Malice Domestic Grant for Unpublished Writers is a substantial $1000 grant to be used for furthering an unpublished author’s career training. Winners can use the money for classes, workshops, conferences, or - in the case of non-fiction - for research expenses.

I won in 2004 for the first three chapters of my McLean Jacobson pseudonymous humorous mystery, Extrasensory Deception (then titled Hypothesis for Murder). You can’t read the whole three chapters, but you can get a taste of it here.

If you, like me, are an unpublished mystery writer (or you play one on TV), consider sending off a sample to these guys. It can’t hurt, and $1000 surely helps with the costs of remaining contractless.

P.S. For many, including past winners Marcia Talley and Sujata Massey, that contractless part didn’t remain true for long. As for me…well, it’s still under consideration on one editor’s desk. Read the excerpt and post lots of fab comments below and maybe we can move it from the desk to the printing press!