This weekend, my local writer’s group, the Delaware Valley chapter of Sisters in Crime, had the great pleasure of welcoming award-winning author, CNN journalist, and master storyteller John DeDakis as our guest speaker. John’s presentation, “From Journalist to Novelist (Or How I Learned to Start Making it Up),” was thoroughly entertaining, and some of us followed up with great conversation at lunch afterward.
John’s slideshow began with old family photos and a backstory about his early life, including his upbringing in Wisconsin and losing his Vietnam War deferment as a student after his grades slipped. Knowing he was about to be drafted, John took matters into his own hands and enlisted as an army journalist. He then spent more than four decades in journalism, beginning with covering antiβVietnam War protests, to reporting from the White House as a correspondent during Ronald Reaganβs presidency, and eventually serving as a senior editor for CNNβs The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.
While still working at CNN, John tried his hand at writing fiction, a stark contrast to the factual reporting in his day job that he quickly embraced.
Today, John is best known for his six-book Lark Chadwick mystery-thriller series, which draws from both professional experience and personal tragedy. Interestingly, he writes through a female perspective with his protagonist Lark Chadwickβa result, he said, of the strong women in his life. But his writing is also shaped by family trauma, such as his sisterβs suicide and his sonβs fatal drug overdose. Through therapy, John learned to channel those tragic events into emotionally powerful themes of loss, truth, and resilience in his stories. And not surprisingly, his writing often highlights the ethical and emotional complexities of journalism.
His latest book, Enemies Domestic, was published in July 2024, the same week the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that presidents have “absolute immunity” from prosecution for crimes committed as part of their official duties. The book is set in the not-too-distant future when abortion is a crime and a dictator becomes president. Lark Chadwick is the president’s pregnant press secretary who finds herself in the crosshairs of extremists on both sides of the abortion issue.
Enemies Domestic is the winner of eight 2025 book awards, including a Silver Falchion, Pencraft, and the Grand Prize in the Thriller & Suspense category for the Chanticleer International Book Awards (CIBAs).
I first met John in April at the 2025 CIBAs, where I picked up a Nellie Bly journalism award for Chained Birds. John and I shared a book-signing table and went to lunch afterward, where he kindly listened to my three different true crime book ideas and helped me plot a path forward. We then bumped into each other again at Killer Nashville in August, where we both served as panelists and he critiqued manuscripts as a much-in-demand writing coach and mentor to aspiring authors.
In addition to all his speaking and workshop gigs, John, who lives in Baltimore, Maryland, with his wife, Cindy, hosts the video podcast One-to-One with John DeDakis. And he’s now stepping outside his fictional-series comfort zone with an upcoming memoir. That tell-all book will include his reflections on storytelling, healing through writing, and perseverance in the face of lifeβs βplot twists.β Be sure to connect with John for updates on when this memoir and his future books launch!
Carla Conti is a former journalist and the award-winning author of Chained Birds: A Crimemoir. Her true crime debut won multiple 2025 national book awards, including 1st Place in True Crime from the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, Winner in True Crime from the Indie Reader Discovery Awards, Silver in True Crime from the Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY), Finalist in True Crime from the National Indie Excellence Awards, and a 1st Place Nellie Bly Journalism award from the Chanticleer International Book Awards. Carla is at work on her next true crime book, The Jacklighter, scheduled for release in 2026. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, who supports her true crime habit.
