Elaine Viets is a

Midwestern The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

American newspaperwoman and

mystery Mystery, The Mystery, Mysteries or The Mysteries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters *Mystery, a cat character in ''Emily the Strange'' Films * ''Mystery'' (2012 film), a 2012 Chinese drama film * ''Mystery'' ( ...

writer.

Life and career

A native of

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

, Viets has a degree in journalism and became a longtime popular media figure in St. Louis. She was a regular columnist for the ''

St. Louis Post-Dispatch The ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' is a major regional newspaper based in St. Louis, Missouri, serving the St. Louis metropolitan area. It is the largest daily newspaper in the metropolitan area by circulation, surpassing the ''Belleville News-De ...

'' for twenty-five years, her columns focusing mostly on local issues and human-interest fare. She also hosted the local light-news television program ''Viets Beat'', for which she won

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

s in 1989 and 1990. After moving to Washington, D.C. and leaving the ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'', Viets wrote a syndicated column carried by

United Feature Syndicate United Feature Syndicate (UFS) is a large American editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States and established in 1919. Originally part of E. W. Scripps Company, it was part of United Media (along wit ...

and later by

United Media United Media was a large Column (periodical), editorial column and comic strip newspaper print syndication, syndication service based in the United States, owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, that operated from 1978 to 2011. It syndicated 150 comi ...

. She also began writing mystery novels and eventually left the newspaper business almost entirely to become a full-time novelist. Viets first drew on her professional experience to produce four novels set in St. Louis and featuring fictional St. Louis newspaper columnist Francesca Vierling (and exciting speculation over which characters might represent real-life ''Post-Dispatch'' figures). By the time she had written the last of these, Viets had relocated to

Fort Lauderdale A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

, Florida, in 1997, which became the locale for her next novels, the Dead-End Jobs series. Viets researches these books herself by taking the same sort of low-level dead-end jobs—

telemarketer Telemarketing (sometimes known as inside sales, or telesales in the UK and Ireland) is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent f ...

, shop

clerk A clerk is a white-collar worker who conducts general office tasks, or a worker who performs similar sales-related tasks in a retail environment. The responsibilities of clerical workers commonly include record keeping, filing, staffing service ...

, and so forth—as the series' protagonist, Helen Hawthorne. Viets, married for over thirty years to author and actor Don Crinklaw, is active in the trade organizations

Mystery Writers of America Mystery Writers of America (MWA) is an organization of mystery and crime writers, based in New York City. The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday. It presents the Edgar Award ...

and Sisters in Crime. She is a board member of the Mystery Writers of America. In 2004 she was nominated for three

Agatha Award The Agatha Awards, named for Agatha Christie, are literary awards for mystery and crime writers who write in the traditional mystery subgenre: "books typified by the works of Agatha Christie . . . loosely defined as mysteries that contain no expli ...

s. In 2005, she won awards presented for Best Short Story at two notable mystery conventions: an

at Malice Domestic Ltd and an

Anthony Award The Anthony Awards are literary awards for mystery writers presented at the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention since 1986. The awards are named for Anthony Boucher (1911–1968), one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America. Among the m ...

at Bouchercon, both for her story ''Wedding Knife''. On April 11, 2007, Viets's fellow contributors to The Lipstick Chronicles reported that Viets had suffered a stroke. According to a subsequent update, Viets is recovering well and is again creating mysteries based on real life and the people who live it. She appeared one the very first episode of Mythbusters during the "Biscuit Bullet" story.

Publications

Francesca Vierling, Newspaper Columnist

Dead-End Job

Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper

Angela Richman, Death Investigator

Anthologies and collections

Other books

Related publications

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References

External links

Elaine Viets' websiteCrescent Blues interview with Elaine Viets
{{DEFAULTSORT:Viets, Elaine Year of birth missing (living people) Agatha Award winners American columnists American television journalists American mystery writers Emmy Award winners Novelists from Florida Living people Writers from St. Louis St. Louis Post-Dispatch people Anthony Award winners American women columnists Women mystery writers American women novelists 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers Novelists from Missouri American women non-fiction writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American women television journalists