The Writer's Den
Gary Earl Ross-Mystery Writer
NEWS, PUBLICATIONS, APPEARANCES
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Appearance on Pete Palmisano's Off Road Podcast
Novelist, playwright, short story writer, essayist, audiobook narrator, director, and occasional actor, Gary Earl Ross is a University at Buffalo professor emeritus. He is a member of Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, Private Eye Writers of America, Crime Writers of Color, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, the Dramatist Guild, and the Just Buffalo Literary Center. He lives in Buffalo, nicknamed the Nickel City for the Bison Head five-cent piece. Contact: geross@buffalo.edu.
Novels, Collected Stories, Plays Staged, and Plays Published
FICTION:
The Nickel City Mysteries. African-American Iraq War vet Gideon Rimes returns home to Buffalo to work as a PI. In Nickel City Blues, he is hired to bodyguard a singer stalked by her cop ex-boyfriend and is arrested for murder. Searching for a missing doctor in Nickel City Crossfire, he is at the intersection of two major drug operations. In Nickel City Storm Warning he stumbles onto a white supremacist plot to attack a convention in Buffalo. Tracing revenge porn in Nickel City Naked Lady, he uncovers a rural cyber crime operation. Nickel City Monsters is a composite novel of intersecting stories and characters from different parts of Gideon's world.
Blackbird Rising, A Novel of the American Spirit— In 1901, two grandsons of a runaway slave plan to stun Buffalo’s Pan Am Exposition with a daring invention embodying mankind's two boldest dreams, flight and freedom.
The Wheel of Desire and Other Intimate Hauntings, Shimmerville: Tales Macabre and Curious, and Beneath the Ice and Other Stories—Tales of mystery and suspense, fantasy and imagination, eroticism and surprise.
DRAMA:
Shadows and Mirrors: Four African-American Suspense Plays— Matter of Intent, Scavenger’s Daughter,
Mark of Cain, The Trial of Trayvon Martin.
Killing Grounds: Three Stage Thrillers & One Anti-War Play— Picture Perfect, Split Wit, Stoker’s
Guest, The Guns of Christmas.
Sleepwalker: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a thriller based on the classic German silent horror film.
Matter of Intent is a multiple award-winning courtroom drama set in the segregated 1960s.
The Best Woman explores the first time both presidential candidates are women.
Picture Perfect depicts the effect of contact with impenitent evil on a group of friends.
Murder Squared is an evening of four short mysteries in the style of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
The Scavenger’s Daughter examines the impact of Alzheimer’s and mental illness on a family.
In The Guns of Christmas, soldiers on both sides of the Great War in 1914 put down their guns on Christmas Eve, and their superiors are far from sympathetic.
The Mark of Cain, based on the landmark Ossian Sweet case, shows that in 1925, even in the North, if you're Black it isn't self-defense. It's murder.
The Trial of Trayvon Martin explores what would happen if the other guy had died that night.
Stoker’s Guest is a thriller about Bram Stoker finding the inspiration for Dracula while on holiday in Whitby.
Split Wit explores what happens when a murder witness suffers from a neurological disorder known as split brain syndrome.
Books and plays are available from online sources. For permission to stage a play, or to invite Gary to speak or hold a signing, contact: geross@buffalo.edu with RIGHTS or APPEARANCE in the subject line.
Select Anthologies & Magazines (with the titles inside) Select Book Covers & Posters
Gary's 100+ published short stories and 20+ published poems may be found in major and minor periodicals and anthologies. His full length plays and one-act plays have been staged around the United States, as well as in Canada, England, China, and India. Gary has edited or co-edited several books, including (with Gunilla Theander Kester) The Empty Chair, Love and Loss in the Wake of Flight 3407 and its sequel, The Still Empty Chair. His 100+ nonfiction publications range from scholarly papers and refereed conference presentations on writing instruction, using computers in classrooms, and popular culture to op-ed articles, public radio essays, book and film reviews, and articles in periodicals and anthologies. In addition to his writing and university teaching, Gary has led writing workshops for the Just Buffalo Literary Center and other organizations and has taught Creative Writing: Fiction, Creative Writing: Drama, and Public Speaking for several area colleges. He remains a popular workshop leader and guest speaker who discusses education, literature, film, drama, television, crime writing, and social issues.
Scenes from Plays by Gary Earl Ross
Gary's plays often focus on matters of social justice. Matter of Intent, The Mark of Cain, and The Trial of Trayvon Martin are all African-American courtroom dramas, set in 1960, 1925, and 2012, respectively. The Guns of Christmas asks what would happen if soldiers laid down their arms. The Scavenger's Daughter is a Maxine Travis mystery that examines a family torn apart by Alzheimer's and mental illness. Detective Maxine Travis also appears in Split Wit, about the sole witness to a murder having severe neurological impairment. Some of Gary's full-length plays--Picture Perfect, Murder Squared, and Sleepwalker--and several of his eight staged one acts are just intended to be fun. Stoker's Guest, The Trial of Trayvon Martin, and Split Wit have also been adapted into short stories. As a playwright, director, or actor, Gary has worked with nine of the region's nearly 30 theater companies, most often with Ujima Company, Subversive Theatre, and New Phoenix Theatre, which closed its doors during the pandemic, ending the planned premiere of Stoker's Guest. Matter of Intent and The Scavenger's Daughter were both adapted into culturally transliterated motion pictures by CITOC Productions of Mumbai, India.
Excerpts of Book Reviews
Excerpts of Play Reviews
Gary is the recipient of multiple honors for his writing, teaching, and public radio commentary, including the prestigious Edgar Award from Mystery Writers of America, a Saltonstall Fellowship, a New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Award, three Emanuel Fried Outstanding New Play Awards, and First Place Commentary Awards from the NY Associated Press and the NY Broadcasters Association.
Honors
Photo Gallery
As a writer Gary has had the privilege of meeting many other writers and creative persons. Some of them, living and passed, are on this page. Can you spot Melvin Van Peebles? Derek Walcott? Mary Higgins Clark? Lorene Carey? Alexis DeVeaux? Chinua Achebe? Jeffrey Deaver? Rita Moreno? Walter Mosley? Marjane Satrape? Isabel Allende? Sam Weller? Julia Alvarez? Alexander McCall Smith? Junot Diaz? His fellow contributors to Buffalo Noir? And of course, the love of his life, Dr. Tamara Alsace...
For more information, contact: geross@buffalo.edu