Showing posts with label EQMM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label EQMM. Show all posts

10 May 2013

May in Manhattan


When I was on the MWA Board of Directors, they would pay my freight twice a year (once in January and once in May) to attend board meetings in Manhattan. I always took Kiti along so she could see NYC. While I sat in meetings, she got to run around the city and see the sights. Turned out she enjoyed the place and wanted to go back again, but I went off the BOD about five years ago and thought I was safe. Then in a rash moment, I happened to utter one of those throwaway statements to the effect that if I ever got nominated for an Edgar (didn't happen) or got a story accepted into one of the MWA anthologies I would take her back to New York City for another trip, this time completely on our own dime. I don't know who she bribed, but Brad Meltzer and the five submission judges accepted my short story, "The Delivery," for The Mystery Box anthology. Next thing I knew, reservations were made and airline tickets got bought. We were going.

Mysterious Bookstore
United landed us at La Guardia mid-afternoon on Tuesday and a race car taxi whisked us to the Grand Hyatt before I could change my mind. Since the book launch was in Lower Manhattan, we had to figure out the subway system in order to get to there. A very helpful sales lady in a bookstore down in the bowels of Grand Central Station explained the necessary procedure and told us to catch the 6 Train. Thanks to her, we didn't end up in the Bronx or even Georgia by mistake. The 6 Train screeched up to the Grand Central stop and we squeezed in. Kinda had a sardine feeling to the whole operation. Nice thing was I didn't have to worry about my wallet because there was no room in that crowd  for a pickpocket to bend his elbow far enough to get it out of my hip pocket. I'm not saying we were close in that container, but I may now be related to some of those people in that train car.

Brad Metzler on ladder
With the use of a good folding plastic map from Barnes & Noble, we managed to locate Otto Penzler's Mysterious Bookstore. What a large turnout for the book signing. Otto climbed up the store's ladder for a pulpit to address the crowd, then Brad Meltzer got on the ladder and had all the anthology authors introduce themselves. James O. Born made it a point to take me over and introduce me to Otto and Brad before everybody got too busy. A very friendly group. Not sure, but I think I signed about 70-80 anthology books. Even ended up signing my own copies in all the mass confusion.

Signing books inside the Mysterious Bookstore
On Wednesday morning, we again caught the 6 Train south to the same area and met with Linda Landrigan (AHMM) and Janet Hutchings (EQMM) for breakfast at a nice little restaurant named Edwards. The editors were kind enough to buy, so we all ate well. Also got to converse with Steven Steinbock and Doug Allyn. (Note to David G.: If your ears are ringing, it's because Doug and I talked about you.)

Spent the rest of the day riding the double-decker Red Bus like common tourists, from the new World Trade Center building under construction on the south end and up to Central Park in the north. That night, we went to our first Broadway play, something we hadn't been able to schedule during prior trips. Newsies is a high energy musical with great singing, excellent dancing and acrobatics, plus fantastic use of constantly moving stage props. If you get the chance, go see the play. www.newsiesthemusical.com/

Brooklyn Bridge
Thursday morning was a hike on the Brooklyn Bridge. Surprisingly, no one tried to sell it to me. Probably just as well, it wouldn't have fit in my back yard anyway.

That afternoon was the AHMM/EQMM cocktail reception for their authors. I got to talk with fellow Sleuth Sayer Dale Andrews again, plus meet with fellow bloggers David Dean, Janice Law and Liz Zelvin for the first time. Nice people. At this get-together, David Dean  received a plaque for 2nd Place in the EQMM Reader's Award for "Mariel' and Doug Allyn got his tenth First Place plaque, this time for his "Wood-Smoke Boys." Me, I just feel grateful that Linda buys some of my stories for AHMM.

Breakfast: Janet Hutchings, Steven Steinbock & Linda Landrigan
Since we still had 48 hour passes in our pockets, we hopped the Red Bus north to 49th Street and went up to the top of the Rock (Rockefeller Tower) to watch the sun set from on high. After that, it was time for some liquid refreshment back at the Grand Hyatt bar and pack our bags for the return leg to Colorado. Fortunately for us, we had flown out of Denver on one side of Snow Storm Achilles and come back on the other side, thereby missing the closing of Denver International Airport due to all the white stuff on the ground. Not sure when the weather people started naming big snow storms, but since this one's name began with an "A" it may have been the first.

Now that we're home, Kiti says she would like to go back to New York City one more time. Guess I'd better get to writing something new just as soon as I hear what the next anthology theme will be.

07 May 2013

Day Trip to New York, May 2, 2013


On 2nd May 1952, the era of commercial jet passenger service began as a BOAC de Havilland Comet carrying 36 passengers took off on a multi-stop flight from London to Johannesburg, South Africa.
                              Associated Press
                              Today in History
                              May 2, 2013

           Fast Enough to get there,
           Slow enough to see,
           Moderation seems to be the key.

                              Jimmy Buffett
                              Barometer Soup
   
The reception:  Mystery writers everywhere!
     What better way to celebrate the anniversary of jet passenger service than to follow Mr. Buffett's advice and take a train trip?

    The beginning of May is many things to many people. To mystery writers there is a special anticipation that comes with the first Thursday in May, this year May second, since that is the day when the annual Edgars award celebration takes place in New York City. And for a smaller subset of mystery writers, those whose passion is the mystery short story, the day offers up a related treat -- the annual authors cocktail party hosted by Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.

     I’ve never been a fan of air transportation. it is a necessary evil when my family heads off to favorite vacation spots in the Caribbean, and sometimes one surrenders to the indignities of air transportation when held hostage by time constraints. But I fail to understand anyone who travels between Washington, D.C. (my home) and New York City by any means other than rail. And that is why this piece begins as I find myself  signed on to Amtrak’s wifi service, comfortably ensconced in a window seat and typing away on Amtrak’s Acela headed north. The trip is 2-1/2 hours each way, and deposits me a pleasant 30 minute walk from the Andrew Haskell Braile and Talking Books Library where the cocktail party takes place at 3:30.
  
Janet Hutchings
   Now that walk in Manhattan is not as easy as it sounds -- 14 Manhattan short blocks followed by 2-1/2 Manhattan long blocks is exercise, but it should otherwise be pretty simple.  New York City, however, has always been a little daunting fot me. So the walk is always just long enough to convince me that my chances are equally divided between finding the party and roaming forever on the streets of Manhattan. (At least Charlie got to sit down on the MTA.)
   
Janice, Liz, R.T.
     But, as always, I get there. And, also as always, the party makes up for all of the investment. The EQMM/AHMM pre-Edgars parties have descended a notch from the glory days of yore, when they were held at the Manhattan Club and other storied locales, with several full bars and waiters hovering with platters of shrimp. But the wine bar, served up by magazine employees, and the table of hors d'oeuvres is just fine.  And it is also not why we are here.  What this occasion offers is the opportunity to visit with those who share common interests in mystery short story writing, to connect with people who otherwise are known only on-line.   Janet Hutchings meets me at the door, and a few minutes visiting with her, and then with Linda Landrigan, is itself worth the price of admission.

      At last year’s reception SleuthSayers was represented by David Dean and me, but this year we are out in force. R.T. Lawton and his wife Kiti are standing near the window as I enter, and within a short time Janice Law Trecker, Liz Zelvin, David Dean, R.T. and me are together for the first time in the non-cyber real  world.
   
Liz, me, David and R.T.
     Another great thing about the reception is getting that first lead on  things mystery-related that are about to happen. This year Peter Kanter, who presides over Dell publications, announced a pending major re-vamp of the Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock websites, which promises a new level of interaction among writers and readers.  This could be fun!

     Awards, of course, were announced, including the second place Readers’ Choice award won this year by our own David Dean for his story Mariel, which appeared in the December issue of EQMM.   David also reports that he is making good progress on his new novel, which has kept him away from SleuthSayers for some time now.

  
Joe Goodrich
     Some of the best tidbits I picked up during this year's party were from Joe Goodrich, who, as SleuthSayer readers will recall, is the author/editor of Blood Relations, the recent volume collecting the letters of Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee.  Joe recently adapted the first  Ellery Queen Wrightsville novel, Calamity Town, for the stage.  The work, as previously reported, had a read-through performance last January at the New Dramatists Playhouse in New York City.  This summer Joe reports that the play will have its first full-stage production, under the directorial hand of fellow Queen scholar Arthur Vidro.

     Equally interesting is the locale for that presentation:  the play will be performed by the Off Broad Street Players in Claremont, New Hampshire.  The Off Broad Street Players are no stranger to the works of Ellery.   In fact, beginning tomorrow the company is presenting an on-stage production of two classic Queen radio dramas.  But the claim to fame of Claremont itself runs even deeper. Those familiar with some of the more obscure clues in the Queen backstory may recall that Claremont has been rumored to be the model for Queen’s New England town of Wrightsville.  What better site for the world premier of Calamity Town? The troop's production of Calamity Town is likely to run only two nights, probably this coming September 7 and 8.

    On other fronts, Joe also spent time this last year adapting a Rex Stout mystery, The Red Box, for the stage.  The play has already been scheduled for an extended run next summer at the Park Square Theater in St. Paul.

     Oops.  It’s 5:00. Time for me to see if I can find my way back to the train station!

16 October 2012

Mariel


By the time you read this, my story "Mariel" should be out in the December issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. At least, I hope so as she, or it (the story), is the subject of my posting. I've written before that I've never found it necessary to make characters up out of whole cloth, as there are such an abundant number of inspirations running around. The character of my recurring clerical sleuth, Father Gregory Savartha, as I once posted during the final days of "Criminal Brief", is based on a wonderful priest with whom I was fortunate to have a friendship. The wise, dignified, and valorous Chief Julian Hall… well, I'm sure there's no need to explain where he was drawn from. But there have been many others… and Mariel is certainly one of them.

I once wrote to Janet Hutchings that I found the suburbs endlessly entertaining and fruitful ground for fiction. This was because she had just accepted a story of mine inspired (ever so loosely) on some neighbors with whom I had never spoken a word. The girl who provided the inspiration for Mariel comes from the same neighborhood, though her contributions to my creative process were more tangible. In fact, for a period of her young life, it seemed as if I was forever being made aware of her presence, either directly or indirectly. She had a way of appearing when you least expected it, and not being one to stand on ceremony, she never waited for an invitation. On more than one occasion, my neighbor two doors away awoke to find her sleeping on the couch in his living room. And he was sure that he had locked his doors. Being only eight years old, it was all rather troubling. It was only later that he deduced she had apparently discovered his emergency key (under a flower pot by the front door--first place burglars look). Clearly, the fact that she rarely spoke was not indicative of her abilities.

His was not the last house she visited during her leisure hours. My immediate neighbor to the north looked up from his computer one day to find her standing in the room with him. He said it scared the bejesus out of him. I should mention that she was not a conventionally attractive child, being quite large and heavy for her age. She also had an unblinking stare that could unnerve even the innocent. You can imagine what it did to the rest of us.

This little girl came from a family in crisis, which appears to be the state of about half the families in America these days. Her parents were involved in a stormy break-up and both had demons of their own to wrestle--they were not winning. She and her two brothers were the only kids in the entire neighborhood that had, during different stages of their development, ridden their bikes into my unmarked police car. Yes...each of them. Parked car...thank God. They were unhurt; the front quarter panel suffered only a little. These events were always timed to occur when I was at dinner and the car plainly in my sight at the curb. I'm convinced that this had somehow become a rite of passage. Oddly, I found the ritual itself pretty funny.

Once, when I was home during the day after a night shift, I witnessed her crossing my neighbor-to-the-south's back yard. He was away at work, as was his wife. Her body language was almost comical in its furtiveness. Just as she approached a shed on his property and began to open the door, I called out her name from behind a curtain, and in my best spectral voice intoned, "You don't belong there." She stepped back from the door as if burned, her Shirley Temple curls bouncing on her head. Surveying her surroundings carefully, she reversed course; returning the way she had come. Her expression was more troubled than frightened, containing a touch of stubbornness– she would be back, it said to me. Did I mention that she "collected" things left untended by her neighbors? "Untended" covered any unlocked door, or unsecured object. In this way she contributed to the security-mindedness of on our little street.

Though I did find a good bit of humor in her antics, it was the pathos of her situation that inspired me to write the story, "Mariel." It's completely fiction, of course. But the real Mariels of the world, sadly, are not. There are far too many feral children these days wandering the streets like wraiths–unsettling and terribly vulnerable.

I once responded to a call of two children found wandering– the little girl was three, and she was towing her year and half old brother along by the hand. When I arrived on the scene I recognized them from dealings with their parents– an alcoholic couple. I called for the youth and family services rep, and after turning them over to the bureaucracy developed to deal with such things, I went to their apartment. I found the father passed out on the couch, reeking of alcohol; the front slider open– the only way the children could have escaped. The mother was at work and we were alone. You might imagine the things that passed through my mind, having three kids of my own. I contemplated the many misfortunes that might befall such a person: He might resist arrest--many before him had done so. Or, he might flee through the closed half of the slider in his drunkenness. He might even fall down the concrete steps leading up to his porch being so unsteady on his feet. I thought a lot of things that could happen that morning… yes, it wasn't even lunch time, yet… but I didn't do them… I resisted temptation. And when I shook him awake all he could do was stare at me in bewilderment and fright. He didn't offer the least resistance and he was arrested "without incident," as cops say. In the end, I felt sorry for him, too; but not as sorry as I was for those kids, and way too many like them.

It's because of situations like that, and many, many more, that I wrote "Mariel," and why so many of my stories feature children dealing with adult situations. It's a tough world out there, and way too often, kids are left to go it alone. It rarely turns out well.

04 September 2012

Jersey Fresh


Not being a native of the place one lives in can sometimes offer a fresh perspective.  And even though I have dwelt in the Garden State for over twenty-five years, I do often find the place fascinating.  First of all, let's face it, Jersey takes an awful beating as a result of Snooki and the Gang, corrupt politicians, and the view from the infamous Turnpike of oil refineries, chemical factories, and rubber plants.  To some, these may look unappealing ( and I include Snooki and friends with this).  But there is a whole other New Jersey out there that is largely hidden away from the tourists on their way to NYC.  It is a place in which I often set my stories, and bears little resemblance to Soprano Land: a place of leafy suburbs and rolling farmland; salt marshes and barrier islands; pineland forests and windswept beaches.

The county I live in is called Cape May, and named after a Dutch explorer by the name of Mey who sailed by sometime in 1623.  He was too busy exploring, apparently, to bother landing on this new cape that he had discovered.  Of course, he had only discovered it for the Europeans who were to follow.

Native Americans had fished and hunted the area for thousands of years before Captain Mey bobbed by in his little ship.  The historical tribe was known in their own tongue as Lenape, an Algonquin peoples.  The Whites would call them the Delaware after the river, which was in turn named after Lord de la Warre, who saw to it that the English, and not the Dutch or Swedish, would dominate this part of New Jersey.  The poor Dutch got stuck with Soprano Land and NYC; the Swedes just went home.

The first European settlers to the area came mostly from New England, Virginia, and Long Island, and they came for the whaling.  In those early days, whales often traveled along the Atlantic coast side of what would become Cape May County, and even into the vast Delaware Bay that washes the western half of the peninsula.  The locals would simply row out to harpoon the great beasts and tow them back to shore.  Even back then, with only a sparse population of whalers, it didn't take long to deplete the animals and virtually kill the industry.  The English turned to farming and fishing, and for the next several centuries this was what they did.
Pirates frequented the region as Jonathan Dickinson wrote in 1717, "We have been perplexed by pirates on our coast and at our Capes, who plundered many of our vessels."  Captain Kidd, that most unfortunate of pirates, spent some time in the area, as did Edward Teach, of "Blackbeard" fame.  Naturally, tales of buried treasure abound.  Most of these are baseless, but try telling that to all the folks with metal detectors walking the beaches… fugedaboutit!  It never made much sense to me that pirates would risk hiding their treasure on land.  After all, sometimes they might be gone for months or even years.  But then it was explained to me that this was mostly done when the boys in pantaloons were planning a visit to a large town, such as New Amsterdam, to replenish their stocks and provisions.  There was always the chance that they might be recognized as pirates and arrested.  The treasure trove on board could be damning.  Hence the lightening of the load prior to docking.

The Jersey Devil legend sprang up in this period as well, and comes out of the haunted pine barrens.  It seems that the dirt-poor and miserable Mrs. Leeds of that neighborhood, upon learning that she was pregnant with her thirteenth child, cursed him; wishing the devil would take him.  Apparently, she had some pull in hell, for her son was born with wings and hooves and flew out the window to begin a reign of terror over that dark and lonely region.  He does so to this day.           

Cape May became a county in 1692, via a charter from the Crown. In those days there was a West and East Jersey--Cape May County being in the west.  There is a cemetery at the county seat, Cape May Court House, that dates to 1766; prior to that people were buried in their back yards, a custom still observed for former business partners in North Jersey.  By the way, nearly everything in the county is named Cape May Something: There is the aforementioned Court House, wherein sits a several hundred year old (you got it) court house, there is also Cape May City, West Cape May, Cape May Point and North Cape May.  There was even once a South Cape May, but the sea claimed it as its own some time ago.  God's judgement, perhaps, on one Cape May too many.  Enough already with the Cape May.

New Jersey became known as the "Cockpit of the Revolution" during the War of Independence because of all the important battles fought on her soil.  Washington slept everywhere, and New Jersey named not one, but several towns, after the father of our nation.  Having a maritime economy, the southern half of the state was affected by the War of 1812.  This region also produced one of our nation's earliest naval heroes in the person of Richard Somers.  This young man was to lead what amounted to a suicide mission against the Barbary pirates in Tripoli.  Sailing directly into their harbor under cover of darkness, he and his crew boarded a captured American vessel and blew it up in spectacular fashion.  Though the resulting explosion and fire damaged and destroyed many of the pirates' ships, it also took the lives of the brave American sailors before they could get away.  Their graves still lie in a small plot in Libya.  His home exists as a museum in Somers Point, the town named for his family.  I have had the privilege of visiting it.

As the northern half of the state embraced the industrial age, the south remained agrarian, not unlike the nation as a whole at that time.  The capitol even boasted the proud motto, "Trenton Makes, The World Takes," in huge letters across a bridge spanning the Delaware River.  It's there to this day.  South Jersey, meanwhile, continued to make the Garden State just that.  Most of the "industries" practiced in the south related to the exploitation of natural resources: cedar mining (the reclamation of prehistoric cedar trees from the fresh water swamps for shingles and ship building), bog iron collection from the streams of the Pine Barrens (this naturally occurring iron tints the water the color of tea), harvesting salt hay from the marshes for both animal feed and lining coffins, the production of glass from the fine sands of the region, etc... Then came the trains.

By the late 1800s, the great population centers of both Philadelphia and New York had discovered what would be forever more known as the Jersey Shore.  Trains made it possible.  The industrial era had given the working man both stable wages and a few days off a year.  He spent both at the shore.  The tourist boom was on and the great shore towns began to spring up--Atlantic City, Asbury Park, Wildwood, Avalon, and yes...Cape May.  Of course, many decided to stay, and the local population took a decidedly Irish and Italian turn.  Catholic parishes began to pop up amongst the Baptist and Methodists.  The small town of Woodbine was founded as a Jewish colony, while the town of Whitesboro became the the county's first predominantly African-American municipality--a by-product of the Underground Railroad, not the one from Philly.

By the mid-1970s tourism was king.  Though farms remained, they had grown smaller and began to adapt to specialized crops in order to survive.  Commercial fishing survived, as well, by both downsizing and growing more efficient.  The waters off New Jersey continue to be one of the greatest producers of scallops and clams along the eastern seaboard and oyster farming is making a comeback in the Delaware Bay.  But the tourist dollar, and vacation real estate, are the mainstays of the current economy--battered by the recession, but still king.  Unemployment here in Cape May County during the off-season (roughly from November to April) can reach 12% or worse.   But you take the good with the bad, and this is the place I happily call home.  My literary characters, Chief Julian Hall and Father Gregory Savartha, both live here, as does a ponderous and troubling little girl named Mariel, who is the subject of my next story in EQMM (Dec. 2012 issue).  The bewildered protagonist of "Tap-Tap", though he meets his fate in Belize, worked for a tourist agency here, while Kieran, the young kleptomaniac of "The Vengeance of Kali," lives just around the corner.  There are many, many more.

So, as you can see, after twenty-five years in a place, you make some friends; form some ties.  And luckily for me, having a fresh perspective, a "Jersey" fresh perspective on my adopted home, made it all possible.

20 March 2012

Jenny's Ghost


Last week, I went to one my editors pleading brain-freeze on the subject of my next post.  Actually, I did this in the figurative sense, in that I called my daughter, Bridgid, and asked for her advice.  It should be noted that Bridgid is intolerant of foolishness and dithering in general, and my lame pleadings and excuses in particular.  She is what is sometimes known as a harsh task-mistress.  She also has a very heavy hand when it comes to editing my stories even though I am her natural father and deserve better.  But, I dither.
"Write about how you write," she demanded.  "That's what people are interested in--they want to know how writers come up with their ideas and how they put them to paper!"

She stopped short of adding, "Duh!"

"Yeah, but..." I began; anxious not to be chastised further, "I've kinda done that in a few previous blogs...you know, talked about animals and nature and things..."

The sigh on the other end of the connection was long and heartfelt.  "You've got some stories coming out this year, right?"

"Yeah..."

"Well, there you go then--just write about how you came up with the plots, characters, etc...I enjoy reading Neil Gaiman's intros and essays on his stories almost as much as the stories themselves."

"I forbid you to invoke that name in my presence," I commanded.  "You know he's one of my competitors for the Edgar Award in April!  I won't have it!"

"He's terrific," she agreed.  "I wish I could go with you and mom to meet him."

"We're not going there to meet him!  There will be no fraternizing with..."

"Gotta go, dad, Robbie's home and we're going out to dinner.  Love you; love mom."

The connection went dead.  My only question at this point was, 'Why did I have children?'

The following day, however, the blank screen loomed ever more largely.  'Okay,' I muttered.  'Alright then!  If that's what she wants, then that's what she'll get!' 

Jenny's Ghost:  This story is scheduled for the June issue (the next out) of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, both a publication, and editor (the wonderful Janet Hutchings) with whom I have enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship.  It's not a long story, as my stories go, and has all of its action contained within a major American airport modeled after Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International (except for a brief flashback to the main character's college days).  Why there?  Simple answer: I've spent weeks of my life in this place.  When you live in New Jersey, but have family in Georgia, it's where you must go...over...and over...and over....  You get the picture.  I've been to a lot of airports in my life; everywhere from JFK to Amsterdam; Dublin to Frankfurt, and nowhere have I been in a busier airport than Atlanta's.  It's a city unto itself, and not a small one in either size or population.  It even has it's own subway system.  Not a place for ghosts you would think.  But when you spend a lot of time waiting for planes it's easy to get melancholy; especially if both ends of the journey entail leaving people that you love behind, as in my case.  So, as I have sat so many, many times in this teeming, heaving micropolis, thoughts of remorse and sadness have sometimes pervaded my thoughts.  Generally, I am a pretty optimistic and cheerful person...but not always and in all circumstances.  The airport seems to be one of these.

During one of these enforced meditations awaiting a return flight to Philadelphia, I wondered what it might be like to meet the ghost of someone once held dear in such an unlikely place.  The idea would not go away and kept returning to mind for several years after it's inception.  I was getting haunted by it and so had to consider exorcism in the form of a story. 

Haitian Voodoo culture, amongst many others, has always considered crossroads a place to avoid after darkness, as wraiths and apparitions haunt them.  They believe crossroads can form an intersection between the living world and that of the dead.  Well, what is an airport other than a great big crossroad comprised of many dimensions?  So, maybe not such a bad setting after all?

I also had to consider why my protagonist ( I had decided upon a young family man in his early thirties awaiting a plane for home) would experience this unlikely phenomenon...and how?  After all, I didn't think a ghost story, as such, would sell to EQMM.  So, I came up with a different sort of ghost.  I know that sounds like a teaser, but I don't want to give the plot away.

It appears that much of the lore concerning ghosts and hauntings regard suicide and murder as the premier causatives.  Violent death begets unquiet spirits.  I would add that violence in general instills a disquiet in the living, as well.  Remorse and regret play a big role, too.  How many of us wince when we recall something from our past that we wish we could take back, un-do, or conversely, have acted to prevent, but didn't?  I suspect there's no one reading this who hasn't longed for a chance to remedy something that they regret not doing, or repent for having done--sociopaths, perhaps...but they stopped reading several paragraphs ago.

It's no different for me--Catholics have always had the sacrament of confession in order to obtain forgiveness for their sins, but this does not always serve to erase a thing from one's mind.  Knowing that one is forgiven by God, sadly, does not lead to selective amnesia.  The human conscience can be a bleak and frozen landscape, and it is in just such a place that we find my protagonist, Connor, at the opening of the story.  He hears a young woman's laughter ring out above the tumult of the crowded airport concourse...a laughter that he recognizes and loves; but a laughter that cannot possibly be real...and therein lies the tale.

I hope you enjoy it. 


23 October 2011

Friends and Family


black orchid Five weeks ago, SleuthSayers launched from a core of five committed (in multiple senses of the word) writers to a greater family of fourteen. Coordinating fourteen members might seem a difficult task, but my colleagues are patient with me and their fun, enthusiasm, helpfulness, and professionalism worked miracles.

I list fun first because humor flourished early and easily. For example, Neil's ironic wit and the gentle humor of Jan and Fran melded like ivy in the brickwork of our joint project. I knew Dixon and RT were tough, cigar-chompin', kick-ass guys, but who guessed how riotously funny they are? A writer could do worse modeling characterizations after the criminally sane among us.

But there's more. Behind the scenes, SleuthSayers family members exchange crime notes, music CDs, tobacco tips, and successes. More about this last item in a moment.

Friends in Sly Places

We also depend upon friends such as Jon Breen, Bill Crider, and Women of Mystery, but especially our editors, Janet Hutchings of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Linda Landrigan of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Andrew Gulli at The Strand, and Darlene Poier from Pages of Stories.

Buying your favorite magazines pumps lifeblood into the imagination incubators of our genre. If you're not familiar with Pages of Stories, it's an eMagazine available in eBook format (Nook, Kindle, iPad, etc), PDF, and on-line, where you'll find works by Fran Rizer, John Floyd, and me, to name a few. If you want to taste a classic approach, Steve Steinbock has mentioned Arthur Vidro's Old-Time Detection and Geoff Bradley's Crime and Detective Stories, affectionately called CADS in its British homeland.Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, December 2011

Readers Choice Award

Speaking of magazines, if your December issue of Ellery Queen hasn't arrived, rush to your local bookstore to grab a copy now! It contains the ballot (last page) and list (page 83) of stories eligible for the EQMM Readers Choice Award. Listed is English by Leigh Lundin (that's me!), the parable James Lincoln Warren wrote about. Also featured is Elizabeth Zelvin's lauded Navidad. You'll find Neil Schofield's Detour and our friend David Dean listed. You'll notice other names like Doug Allyn and William Dylan Powell. I can't speak for the others, but if you comment with your eMail address, Elizabeth and I will make our stories available to readers upon request.

Wolfe Pack Black Orchid Banquet

The Wolfe Pack, an organization devoted to mystery writer Rex Stout and his most famous creation Archie Goodwin, er, Nero Wolfe, will hold its 34th annual Black Orchid Banquet Weekend December 2-4. Held at the Vanderbilt Suites in New York City, the Black Orchid Banquet will feature television personality and mystery writer Al Roker, introduced by novelist and past Nero Award-winner Linda Fairstein.

The bacchanalia features presentation of the Nero Award for the year’s best mystery novel and the Black Orchid Novella Award for best unpublished mystery novella, presented in conjunction with AHMM. The winning BONA story will be published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.
Black Orchid Perfume
Black Orchid Perfume– a beautiful excuse for a noir dame
Rumors and Rumours

After only a month on-line, one of our colleagues credits SleuthSayers with a major professional offer. Details are sketchy, but to the envy of Entertainment Tonight and People Magazine, we're promised a scoop if a major deal is inked.

Mark your calendar for a special guest article. On 4 December, we expect to feature a, ahem, wolfish announcement.

Next week, Louis Willis returns with a fascinating family story about bootlegging.

12 October 2011

First Faltering Steps


My name is Neil Schofield, and it’s been that way for longer than I can remember. I am an Englishman born in Yorkshire. For the past eighteen years or so, I have been living in Normandy, France, with Mimi, my partner and live-in French person. France, incidentally, is just off the English coast. (A headline from the 1940’s: “Thick Fog In Channel: Europe Isolated”) That tells you something about our thought processes.
What else? – oh yes, I write short stories.

Neil Schofield
This is me. Snapped in holiday mood in the summer, which I seem to remember happened this year on July 17. The truculent smirk I am modeling means, unless I miss my guess, that we were approaching l’heure de l’apero: Time for a Little Something, time to put up the Big Parasol, watch the garden tick over and sip a little white wine. A Muscadet, probably, because a Muscadet helps you work, rest and play.

I come to Sleuthsayers as a complete baby. I have –had– been for the 4½ years of its existence, an avid follower of Criminal Brief. Never a contributor, more a professional lurker. What interested me, and astonished me every day, was the seemingly endless stream of ideas. Who were these people who could turn out a column every week, week after week?

The invitation from Leigh and Rob to join SleuthSayers came as something of a shock: I had to be helped from the room. I have been writing crime/mystery fiction for a little over ten years. What could I have to say that might interest anyone? How was I going to manage among all these heavyweights? Although the idea of writing just one piece a month didn’t seem too difficult, the cons seemed to mount up.
  • I don’t have an encyclopaedic knowledge of crime and mystery fiction. I’ve read a lot and I remember almost all of it, but as an authority I would lack a certain something.
  • I haven’t published a book – not even come near yet.
  • I don’t have an enormous library of reference works to call on and plunge into.
  • I’m a Brit, and I live in France, what’s more. I might be the object of derision and opprobrium.
But then I read the list of contributors, and read the first articles/posts, it occurred to me that I had a little more in common with some of the senior partners than I had at first thought.

Rob Lopresti, of course, I know. I am an enormous fan of Rob’s stories. (Well, I say enormous – I’m six foot, and 160 pounds, which isn’t really enormous, but never mind). Rob and I have conversed digitally, and sometimes bizarrely, on diverse subjects, for some time. What is more, we share a birthday, September 19. Which seems a little unfair. I’d like to have had one of my own. It was also Rob who revealed to me that 19 September is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. I tried it here, with predictable results. The French don’t seem to have the right sort of soft palate you need to say ‘Aarrgh’ properly.

Then comes Dale Andrews with whom (entre autres) I shared the same Barry Award shortlist in 2008; Dale for his Ellery Queen story “The Book Case”, and I for “Murder: a User’s Guide”.

A previous Barry Award shortlist - in 2005 - I had shared with Melody Johnson Howe. But that was another story. So what’s to worry about, I said to myself. You’ve already rubbed shoulders with the great. Go and rub a few more.

What has also secretly pleased me about the Sleuthsayers, is that, reading the contributions over the past two weeks or so, I have realized that I am not the only late starter in the frame. Because ‘late starter’ is putting it mildly, in my case.

My crime/mystery (somebody tell me what to call it!) career began a scant ten years ago. Before that, in other lives, I had spent ten years in theatre lighting, first as a production electrician and touring chief, and then edging into lighting design. From that, I morphed, seamlessly and without apparent effort, into becoming a writer and producer of what Americans liked to call Industrial Theatre: conventions, sales conferences, product launches, et al. I was usually at the loopy end of the spectrum, when the client –the Suits– would accept a series of comedy sketches or even a daft two-act play as a vehicle for The Corporate Message. In the 1990s I graduated to writing ‘Tourist Rides’ for attractions around the world in France, Singapore, Australia, Berlin, and so on. Even London.

But in 2000, now living in France, (I think I was attracted by the smell of cheese) I started to write the stories that had been stacking up in my brain for years. My very first stories, to my amazement, were accepted by Cathleen Jordan and Janet Hutchings. And it still astonishes me whenever I have a story accepted by EQMM or AHMM. In the decade since, I have sold thirty stories to these two extraordinary magazines. (The current score is EQMM 17; AHMM 13, I don’t know why. I must do something about evening up the numbers) Without Ellery and Alfred, (Mimi insists on fondly referring to them though they were two members of her already extensive family) I wouldn’t be writing these words now. And whenever I was on some shortlist, or quite simply published, I would look at the names with whom I was rubbing shoulders, keeping company. And I would find it hard to believe. I still do.

I’ve never met any of my fellow-writers. I’ve never been to Bouchercon (and incidentally, it was Elmore Leonard in an interview on the BBC who taught me quite recently that it’s pronounced Bowchercon. For years I’ve been giving it a French pronunciation) I was once invited, as a Reader’s Award Finalist, to a Dell Magazines bunfight, and near as dammit went, but family matters intervened. So I never got to rub actual shoulders with anybody.

So I am very happy and proud to be rubbing shoulders with this company. And I hope– even as a once-a-month junior partner– I’m going to be able to step up occasionally and say something that interests SleuthReaders. Anyway, I’ll do my best.

Talk to you soon.