Dilys Winn (1939-2016) was an American bookseller who was one of the first to open a bookstore devoted to mystery and detective fiction. Dilys Barbara Winn was born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

on September 8, 1939 and was brought to the United States one year later. She grew up in

Perth Amboy, NJ Perth Amboy is a city in Middlesex County, New Jersey. Perth Amboy is part of the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 55,436. Perth Amboy has a Hispanic majority population. In the 2010 census, t ...

, and graduated from Pembroke College. Winn worked as an advertising copywriter in the late 1960s and then opened her own bookstore, Murder Ink, located on the

Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. In 1972, she appeared on the game show '' To Tell the Truth''. In 1977, she published an anthology, ''Murder Ink'', (Workman Publishers) which won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers Association of America. Like

Otto Penzler Otto Penzler (born July 8, 1942) is a German-born American editor of mystery fiction, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City. Biography Born in Germany to a German-American mother and a German father, Penzler moved to The ...

, proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop, Winn was a bookseller, editor, and anthologist who did much to develop a sense of tradition and self-consciousness in the genre while also giving access to its entertainment value and sense of fun. She was an advocate of the humorous, high-spirited work of

Phoebe Atwood Taylor Phoebe Atwood Taylor (Boston 18 May 1909–Boston 9 January 1976) was an American writer of mystery novels. She graduated from Barnard College in 1930 and married surgeon Grantley Walder Taylor in December 1951. Phoebe Atwood Taylor wrote mystery ...

. Winn transferred the proprietorship of the bookshop to Carol Brener in 1977. The bookshop continued, under various ownerships, until 2006. Winn lived for many years in New Paltz, NY. Winn continued to be active in the field as an editor, anthologist, and organizer. In the 1990s, she operated a mystery bookshop in Key West. After 2000, she moved to

Asheville Asheville ( ) is a city in, and the county seat of, Buncombe County, North Carolina. Located at the confluence of the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers, it is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the state's 11th-most populous ci ...

, North Carolina, where she died in 2016. The

Dilys Award The Dilys Award was presented every year from 1992 to 2014 by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. It was given to the mystery title of the year which the member booksellers have most enjoyed selling. The Independent Mystery Bookseller ...

is named after her.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Winn, Dilys American booksellers 1939 births 2016 deaths 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American businesswomen Businesspeople from Dublin (city) Irish emigrants to the United States People from Perth Amboy, New Jersey Businesspeople from New Jersey Pembroke College in Brown University alumni