You name it and multi-talented, award-winning, best-selling novelist Peggy Webb has written it – humor columns, romance, literary women’s fiction, screenplays, and now comedic mysteries. Elvis and the Dearly Departed, the first Southern Cousins Mystery, was a Mystery Guild Featured Alternate Selection. The second in the series, Elvis and the Grateful Dead, is in bookstores now, just in time for Christmas.

A former adjunct instructor of writing at Mississippi State University, Peggy likes to describe herself as “Southern to the bone and a pillar of the church and community,” but her friends say she is as down-to-earth and zany as the characters in her books. She readily admits to being part Callie in Elvis and the Dearly Departed (2008) and part Maggie in her Pulitzer nominated novel Driving Me Crazy (2006). But she denies being the model for characters in Flying Lessons (2006), Late Bloomers (2007) and particularly Confessions of a Not-So-Dead Libido.

“I am compelled to write,” she says. “My muses won’t let me remain idle.” Peggy’s body of work is a stunning testament to her muse: more than 60 novels, numerous blues songs, 200 magazine humor columns and two screenplays. Currently she’s co-producing a feature film based on her novel, Driving Me Crazy.

In a career than spans nearly 25 years, this native Mississippian has seen millions of her books in print in more than 17 languages. Acclaimed by both fans and reviewers, Peggy’s novels consistently appear on bestseller lists and garner awards. Peggy was recently honored by Romantic Times at the International Booklovers’ Conference in Orlando as a “Pioneer in Genre Fiction.” Dubbed Queen of Comedy by her fans, Peggy forged the way for romantic comedy.

She went back to her comedy roots with her mystery series and her novels in the quasi-literary NEXT imprint. Her fans say, “To read a Peggy Webb novel is to howl with laughter.” Her classic romances are also big hits with her fans, especially the groundbreaking Westmoreland Diaries Trilogy.

Although Peggy says she’s “just a farm girl who loves music and words,” to fans she’s the writer who makes them laugh, makes them cry and makes them ask, “Who is Rainman?”