2025--The JF Year in Review

Well, it's that time again. Actually it's a couple of days past that time, but I post on the first, third, and fifth Saturdays, and sometimes those don't match January 1, so . . .

Here's a quick look back at 2025 and what I produced (and didn't) in my short-mystery-writing world. I'll start by saying I'm thankful for the number of stories I managed to sell and publish last year, but I must admit that unless you count the ones in a story collection published in November, I wasn't as productive as I used to be. The main reason, I think, is simple: I prefer to write short crime stories, and there just aren't many places out there anymore that publish them. I hope that situation changes soon, or at least doesn't get worse. Time will tell.

But the focus of this post is what happened last year, not what I think the future might bring. So here's my annual review:

Statistics

- I had 27 short stories published in 2025, plus another 18 in a collection recently released by Crippen & Landru. (The book is River Road and Other Mystery Stories, and contains 17 stories in the paperback edition and a bonus story that comes with the signed "clothbound" edition.) So I suppose I had a total of 45 stories published. Fourteen more are upcoming (accepted but not yet published), with expected pub dates ranging from next month to 2027.

- I wrote 17 new stories in 2025, way less than my average of a couple dozen. Eight of those have been accepted, five have already been published, and the rest sit languishing and lonely in various submission queues, awaiting a yea/nay response. (My stories seldom lie around the house unsubmitted--as soon as they're grown up, I send those pesky kids out into the world to try to make something of themselves.)

- I submitted 30 stories this year, received 25 acceptances, and received 13 rejections. The math doesn't work, as you can see, because some of those acceptances and rejections were for stories submitted in 2024 and some were accepted/requested outside the submission process, as in best-of selections, anthology invitations, etc.

- This year I had 18 stories published in magazines and only 8 in anthologies, a reversal of the way things have been in the past, plus one story republished in Vietnamese on YouTube (that I didn't find out about until much later), and also plus the 18 more stories that appeared in my River Road collection. Of my 8 antho stories, all of them were themed anthologies and 5 were invitation-only.

- All the stories I published in 2025 were in the mystery/crime genre, although a few were cross-genre: mystery/Western and mystery/fantasy. No romances this year, no literary stories, no purely SF stories, etc.

- Only one of my 2025 published stories was set outside the U.S., and three were published outside the U.S. 

- Seventeen of my published stories last year were original stories, and the other 10 were reprints, again a reversal of the way it usually happens. Not counted here are the 15 reprints and 3 original stories that were published in my Crippen & Landru collection.

- Only 5 of my published stories this past year were installments in a series--but if you consider the 18 stories published in River Road, 15 of those were series installments. So, said another way, 20 of my 45 were series stories. 

- Thirteen of my 27 published stories were set in the American South, and 14 of the 18 stories in my collection were, as well. Percentagewise, I'm still a regional writer.

Observations

- Most of my published stories in 2025 appeared in AHMM, Strand Magazine, Woman's World, Black Cat Weekly, and Crimeucopia. (Not counting the 18 in my Crippen & Landru collection. In that book, 8 first appeared in AHMM, 2 in The Strand, 2 in Black Cat Mystery Magazine, 1 in Black Cat Weekly, several in anthologies, and so forth.)

- Not only did I not publish as many stories last year as I usually do, I also didn't submit as many. The reason, again, is that there aren't as many mystery/crime markets out there as in the past.

- Another unusual thing: I had more private eye stories published last year, partly because of their appearance in PI-themed anthologies and partly because half of the stories in my collection feature private eyes.

- Most of my stories were longer instead of shorter. That's been my preference anyway, in recent years, but the main reason is that most of my writing these days is targeted toward markets that seldom publish flash fiction. One of those past markets that did publish occasional flash stories was of course Mystery Magazine. I still miss them.

- About a fourth of my stories published in 2025 were lighthearted mysteries, and a few were designed to be far more humorous than mysterious. Considering the kind of year it was, I (and all of us) should probably have written more funny stories. I think the world needs 'em.)

- Three of my stories received some degree of recognition last year--one was a finalist for the Al Blanchard Award, one made the "Also Walking the Mean Streets" list for The Best Private Eye Stories of the Year 2025, and one was chosen for inclusion in Best of the Strand Magazine: 25 Years of Twists, Turns, and Tales from the Modern Masters of Mystery and Fiction. (Don't know how I squeezed into that anthology, but I'm glad I did.) Also, my recently published collection featured several stories that had won awards or were selected for annual "best-of" books. 

Questions

My questions to you are similar to those I asked last year:

Have you changed anything about your writing this past year? Did you have any notable milestones? Did you fare well in the acceptance/publication area? Any differences in the genres or word-lengths or contents of your recent stores? Any venturing out of your comfort zone, with your subjects or submissions? What were your magazine vs. anthology numbers? Were most, or any, of your 2025 anthology stories published via invitation-only, or written to a theme? Are you still focusing on the same markets? Have you discovered any new ones? Any successes there? If so--or not--please let me know, in the comments section.

In closing, I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday season--we sure did, here--and I wish you great success in your literary endeavors, mysterious and otherwise. Happy New Year!