About Shannon

Shannon Taft is an attorney in the Washington, D.C. area. She fell into writing short fiction mysteries after being told that it could hone her writing skills in preparation for drafting “The Great American Novel.” When she discovered that publishers were willing to buy her short stories, she decided to keep writing those until it stopped being fun. (As you can see, that hasn’t happened yet.) In the meantime, she wrote a novel and won the 2026 St. Martin’s Minotaur / Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition. That book, Ghost of a Clue, is expected to arrive in stores and online in late 2027 (or early 2028).

Shannon enjoys hiking (operating on the theory that chocolate has no calories as long as you’re wearing trail boots), photography (because she can take 1,000 snaps and pretend the single one that looks good was the result of her immense talent), and baking (for the obvious reason that cakes, cookies, and sourdough bread are the reason any kitchen needs an oven—otherwise we could all just use the microwave).