Stephanie Cole / Shelley Costa

Stephanie Cole is the pseudonym of Shelley Costa, an award-winning mystery author. As Shelley Costa, she has been an Agatha and Edgar Award-nominated writer and cofounder of the Sisters in Crime Northeast Ohio chapter. Costa was brought up as an only child in the small town of Garwood, New Jersey and this is often reflected in the settings of her novels. As a child, she spent much of her time writing in her room when school was in session while most of the summers were spent with her parents on a cabin on the banks of the Delaware River. She particularly loved reading the “Nancy Drew” novels whenever she was not hanging out with her parents who were thespians for a small theater group. After graduating from Rutgers, she worked at the Adult Trade Division of Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. At 33, she graduated from Case Western Reserve University with a doctorate in English. Her degree was on the nature of suspense though she soon reverted back to her first love when she started writing mysteries. Stephanie published her first mystery “You Cannoli Die Once” in 2013. When she is not writing her novels she can be found at the Cleveland Institute of Art where she is a creative writing and screenwriting professor. She also loves to study art history and play the violin.