Welcome! Free Monologues

Mystery novel, short stories for sale in pdf

My mystery novel, The Hounding, is available for download for only $5. You can read it on your Kindle, your computer, or you can print it off in hard copy.

In this homage to Sherlock Holmes, tall, thin, androgynous Shirley Combs considers herself the world’s greatest living detective because she uses the methods and casebook of Sherlock Holmes to solve crimes of the gentry of the American city most closely resembling London, England -- in terms of the weather, at least. Sidekick/narrator Dr. Mary Watson both delights in and is frustrated by her partner’s behavioral resemblance to Sherlock. Combs is unemotional, analytical, and given to pacing through the night in the streets of the almost perfectly livable city of Portland, Oregon. Her ability to observe details and understand their relationship to a case is unmatched; her demands on Watson’s time are too.

Shirley Combs bills herself as the world's greatest living detective, and why not? Taunted and teased as a child because her name sounded so much like Sherlock Holmes's, she developed an early obsession with the adventures and methods of Sherlock himself. She considered her fate sealed when she met up with Dr. Mary Watson. Shirley adds the technology of today to Holmes's 100-year-old casebook and solves the mysteries of her much-beloved hometown. Mary assists, and -- of course -- chronicles their exciting exploits.

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The twenty short stories range from 2 to 13 pages, but each one is two bucks. There is a wide range of genres as well. Check them out.

Much of my work is for the theater, with forays into other venues, such as the opera and radio. You’ll find comedies, dramas, musicals, and pieces from one minute to one-act to full length scripts. There are excerpts and complete manuscripts available right here on the web site for you to enjoy.*

Monologues and scenes for actors and directors to use as audition pieces and classroom pieces are readily available, and monologues are free.

NEWS and Coming Attractions

"The Godmother" my new play about a young butch lesbian assuming responsibility for her crime family in Kansas City during the Prohibition Era. Read at Portland Center Stage, Saturday January 23rd 2010 as part of the 2nd annual Fertile Ground New Works Festival. Contact me if you're interested in producing this or any of my plays. sandra@sandradehelen.com

My monologue "Raging Hormones" is published in the new 4 Volume Mother/Daughter Monologues by International Centre for Women Playwrights.

My short piece "Nostalgia 1958" was published online at www.postmodernlove.com on September 29, 2009. Check it out!

Copperheads and Common Women is a solo play about the relationship between a grandmother and her lesbian granddaughter. I performed Copperheads at CoHo Theatre in Portland in July and August, 2009. I'm available to do performance readings in the Greater Portland area. Just email me at sandra@sandradehelen.com to set a date.

Blue Roses received a Play Lab reading at the Great Plains Theatre Conference in May, 2009. The judges had great things to say about it and would like to see it produced.

Please listen to sound files from some of my work. Playwright/Actor Sandra Dempsey of Toronto, Canada reads some of my monologues, and ten-minute plays. You'll know which ones because they have a sound file attached.

Some of my plays are now listed with doollee.com, check out the link below:

Plays and Playwrights Link