WILTON – Wilton author Kathy Lynn Emerson was awarded the 2008 Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction Book at the Malice Domestic Conference in Washington, D.C., on May 2.

The Agatha Awards, named for famed mystery writer Agatha Christie, are given annually to writers who work in the “cozy” mystery genre.

Emerson won the award, embodied appropriately by a glossy black teapot, for her book, “How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries,” published by Perseverance Press/John Daniel and Co. of McKinleyville, Calif. (http://www.danielpublishing.com/perseverance).

Emerson, who has been writing professionally for more than 20 years, has over 40 published books to her credit. She writes two historical mystery series and one contemporary mystery series and occasionally ventures into nonfiction.

In the Face Down series, featuring Susanna, Lady Appleton, 16th century gentlewoman, herbalist and sleuth, the most recent entry is “Face Down over the Border.”

The Diana Spaulding 1888 mysteries feature a late 19th-century American journalist. “Lethal Legend” (set in Maine) follows “Deadlier Than the Pen.”

As Kaitlyn Dunnett, Emerson pens the contemporary Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries (“Kilt Dead”; “Scone Cold Dead”), which take place in the fictional Maine town of Moosetookalook.

A graduate of Bates College and Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., Emerson lives in Wilton with her husband and three cats.

For more information, visit www.kathylynnemerson.com or www.malicedomestic.org.