Serita Stevens (also published as Serita Mendelson Stevens, Serita Deborah Stevens, Shira Stevens, and Megan MacDonnell) is an American novelist, registered nurse, and screen-medical consultant. She is the author of the long-running Writer's Digest reference now published as the Howdunit Book of Poisons: A Guide for Writers (2007, co-authored with Anne Louise Bannon), the updated edition of her original Deadly Doses: A Writer's Guide to Poisons (1990), one of the most widely cited Howdunit titles in the entire series.
Book of Poisons gives mystery, thriller, and crime writers the working details they need to kill off a character with a poison and not stop the reader cold with a research error. It catalogues classical poisons, household poisons, poisonous animals and plants, war agents and terrorism-relevant agents, prescription and over-the-counter medications, and many of the lesser-known toxic substances available in the modern kitchen or garden, with working entries for each on toxicity, reaction time, route of administration, symptoms, antidotes, and treatment. Appendices cross-reference by symptom, by form, by route of administration, and by working response time. The book also includes a working chapter on how real toxicologists uncover poisonings, a chapter on famous poisoners and the working method of detection that caught them, and guidance on inventing a plausible fictional poison.
She is a working registered nurse and a legal-nurse investigator on medical-related cases, and she serves as a medical consultant to film and television productions, what the trade calls medically bullet-proofing a script. Her reference book The Forensic Nurse was optioned for a television series. Her novels include the Caroline Canfield Mysteries, Against Her Will, Red Sea, Dead Sea: A Fanny Zindel Mystery, The Shrieking Shadows of Penporth Island, the Charlie London RN adventure series, and several titles in the Days of Our Lives tie-in line and the First Love from Silhouette romance line. She also edited the mystery anthology Unholy Orders: Mystery Stories with a Religious Twist.
