The Beat of the Drums, Loud and Bold

During my daily walks, plus drives in my car, I've long been in the practice of listening to either audiobooks or podcasts. I've talked before in this column about my audiobook preferences. In terms of podcasts, I lean toward comedy (How Did This Get Made?), true crime (My Favorite Murder), or film (Team Deakins). Generally, I'll listen to a few episodes of something, get a little restless, and move on to something else.

(As an aside: Apple stopped making iPods in 2022, years after phone apps had made them redundant and functionally obsolete. The term "podcast," though, clearly isn't going away anytime soon, and will long outlive the device the format was originally named for. Language is weird.)

For the last several months I've been bingeing a podcast starting from its very first episode, and for once I haven't been tempted to switch to something else, even briefly. The podcast is A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs, and it's exactly what it sounds like: a history of rock, with each episode centered on a specific song. It's researched, written and narrated by a British man named Andrew Hickey, and I've found it so enjoyable, admirable and educational that I wanted to use this column to recommend it to anyone even vaguely interested in the topic.

I'd advise starting from the very first episode, which concerns the 1939 recording "Flying Home" by the Benny Goodman Sextet--a choice which should give you some indication of the wide-ranging scope of Hickey's project. While individual episodes can certainly be listened to with pleasure, Hickey is telling a single, overarching story here, and it's worth listening from the beginning in order to fully appreciate all the threads he's weaving together in complex and ambitious ways. In Hickey's telling (punctuated in each episode by carefully selected snippets of the dozens of songs he discusses), the history of rock is much more richly layered than the simplistic, conventional idea that "the blues had a baby and they named it rock and roll." Indeed, he argues that the influence of the blues has been greatly overstated, for reasons having to do with reductive notions about race, and that rock's more important roots are in jazz, swing, gospel, country, western (not the same thing as "country," as Hickey carefully explains), and r&b.

The sheer depth of Hickey's research and storytelling is staggering (especially considering that, in addition to the regular installments on the "official" list of 500, he's produced hundreds of bonus episodes for Patreon backers about additional songs). Every episode integrates detailed biographical information about the people who made the music, extensive analysis of the influences and ideas that went into the song itself, and commentary on the historical and cultural moment, with special attention to the racial tensions that are so important to the story. Hickey is going way beyond Wikipedia here--in fact, he frequently points out places where Wikipedia has something flatly wrong. I'll confess that the music theory sometimes goes over my head (I can barely tell a major key from a minor one, and when Hickey starts talking about things like chromatic scales or the mixolydian mode I'm simply lost), but I've never once been bored.

Hickey has a gift for illuminating his vast cast of characters and their nuanced, shifting identities and relationships. I've learned about Little Richard's struggles to reconcile his sexuality with his deeply felt religious faith; that the Everly Brothers, despite their gorgeous harmonies, loathed each other for much of their lives; that the young Aretha Franklin was so painfully shy that she had difficulty making eye contact with anyone outside her family. Perhaps not surprisingly, I've learned that many of the most influential people in rock history--especially the men--were essentially monsters in their personal lives, treating women, children and associates in abominable ways. Once in a while Hickey discusses a figure who, he notes with some surprise, nobody has anything bad to say about (Fats Domino and Cass Elliot, for example), but, unfortunately, abusers like Ike Turner, exploitative opportunists like Alan Freed, out-of-control drunks and addicts like Gene Vincent, and raging egomaniacs like Jan Berry (of Jan & Dean) are far more common.

Really, there's no end to the fascinating tidbits Hickey includes. Sam Phillips, of Sun Records, was such an idealist that he tried to place a phone call to Fidel Castro during the Cuban missile crisis, convinced that a reasonable discussion between two rational men could resolve the whole silly misunderstanding (he ended up talking to Raul Castro for an hour). The OPEC oil crisis led record companies to make LPs thinner to save on material, which in turn made it more likely that the needle would skip, which in turn led to less use of bass and an untick in lighter tones--hello, yacht rock. There are endless examples of how seemingly dry topics like musicians' union rules and copyright law have completely changed the course of popular music. And if you're looking for crime connections, you'll find no shortage of murder, extortion, assault, robbery, financial fraud and drugs--to say nothing of the huge role the Mafia played in the music industry for decades.

With so much to cover, the episodes have ballooned considerably. They started out being around thirty or forty minutes, but I've just listened to episode 150, on "All You Need is Love," which weighed in at some four hours and covered, among other things, the creation and social impact of satellite communications, the growing influence of Indian music in the West, the development of the avant-garde London art scene, the nearly fatal consequences of the Beatles snubbing Ferdinand Marcos, John Lennon's lifelong struggle with depression and why he switched from contacts to glasses, the many studio innovations of George Martin, the tragic and somewhat mysterious death of Brian Epstein, the television show The Prisoner, and the first signs of the tensions that would ultimately see the Fab Four break up. I loved every minute.

Sadly, Hickey has been experiencing health problems which have greatly slowed the pace of releases. The series was weekly when it began, in 2018, but the most recent episode--#183, on "Pinball Wizard"--came out in March, and it's not clear when the next one will be released. Even if no more are ever made, though, what Hickey has already produced is an astounding work of popular history well worth your time. And as a bonus, because he relies on Patreon backers, the podcast itself is ad-free. Those of you who have wearied of podcast hosts looking for elegant ways to start talking about mattresses or online therapy services will understand how welcome that is.

I think part of what I find fascinating about the series is how it makes the familiar new again. You've heard "Johnny B. Goode" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "Louie Louie" and "The Twist" hundreds of times, maybe thousands. They seem etched in stone, their forms so fixed as to appear inevitable--of course that's what they sound like. Hickey's stories demonstrate just how easily they might have sounded completely different, or never have happened at all. He lets you listen to the songs with fresh ears and discover them all over again.

Maybe somebody should put together A History of Crime Fiction in 500 Stories. Cain and Abel would make a great first episode.

So what are your favorite podcasts?  What's your favorite rock song? The best concert you've ever been to? And what's a topic you'd like to see treated in this kind of detail?

AND NOW, THE NEWS

Speaking of crime stories, just a quick mention of two new publications. The July/August issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine includes my story "Hunters," a wicked little tale of family bonding, birdwatching--and MURDER! Given the recent printing problems with the magazine, I'm not sure when physical copies will be out, but the digital issue is available now.

Over the last couple of years, my fellow SleuthSayer Barb Goffman has invited me to write some holiday-themed stories for Black Cat Weekly, including yarns about Christmas and Talk Like A Pirate Day. The latest, "It's Flag Day on Fairview," came out in issue #249. I had a lot of fun with this one, about a neighborhood rivalry that gets way out of hand.

And finally, I wanted to express my gratitude to Jon Larsen at Thrilling Detective and Vicki Weisfeld at Crime Fiction Lover for their recent thoughtful reviews of my collection Crime Scenes. It's not easy getting attention for short story collections these days, so I'm very appreciative for their time and insightful comments. It's always gratifying to know somebody enjoyed your work!

Twenty-Two and Counting

More than a few people have asked me why the cover image of CRIME SCENES, my recently published collection of stories from Level Best Books, is a picture of baseballs, with a bloody thumbprint on one. I can't take credit for the image; that goes to Shawn Reilly Simmons, Level Best's cover design guru. I do quite like it, though. I've written before--in my very first SleuthSayers column, in fact--about the connections I see between baseball, my favorite sport, and my approach to writing. So the picture is appropriate in that way. Beyond that, I like the griminess of it, the black-and-white broken up by the shocking red fingerprint, the dirty, used baseballs. It speaks, I think, to the generally noirish nature of my stories. These are not fresh-from-the-factory baseballs. These baseballs have been places. These baseballs have seen things.

Two of the stories in the book do directly concern baseball. In "Give or Take a Quarter Inch," a retired pitcher must deal with a bizarre ransom demand when his wife is kidnapped. In "Chasing Diamonds," an aging pickpocket and his young apprentice have to pull off a job in the crowd during a Houston Astros home game (at Minute Maid Stadium when I wrote the story, though it's now called Daikin Park).

The pickpocket is on a quest: he wants to attend a game in every major league stadium. As it happens, this is a quest he and I share, though he's a bit ahead of me. He only needs Seattle and Miami to complete his set of thirty. Last week, I was in Kansas City, where I watched the Royals defeat the Mariners five-zip behind a complete-game shutout thrown by Stephen Kolek. Scratching Kauffman Field off my list brought me to twenty-two current MLB parks where I've seen games. Eight to go: Seattle, Miami, Philadelphia, Yankee Stadium, Texas, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Oakland (though I guess, now, that's actually Las Vegas, or will be).

Because of the way my brain works, I'm compelled to add that I've also seen games in five stadiums no longer in use: the original Yankee Stadium, Turner Field in Atlanta, Olympic Stadium in Montreal back when the Expos were a team, the old Busch Stadium in St. Louis, and Milwaukee County Stadium.

What's interesting (at least to me) is that I still feel compelled to complete this checklist, despite the fact that my actual interest in professional baseball, as it's played today, has waned. I still love the basic game itself, but the many rule changes over recent years, mostly aimed at speeding the game up, leave me cold. They also seem a bit pointless. I have yet to meet the person who won't watch a game that lasts three hours, but will watch one that lasts two hours and fifty minutes.

I hate that instant replay is now part of the game (and I say this as a lifelong Cardinals fan who watched my team lose the 1985 World Series due to an indisputably blown call in game 6, not that I hold a grudge). The fact that, as of this year, even ball and strike calls can be challenged is, in my opinion, inane, yet another intrusion of AI into a field where it isn't needed. I was recently at a White Sox game that went into extra innings, using the new rule that extra innings begin with a runner on second, an innovation that only disrupts the structure of the game and dissipates any tension that's been created. In Bull Durham (the best film about baseball ever made), Kevin Costner's Crash Davis says there should be a constitutional amendment banning AstroTurf and the designated hitter. AstroTurf has, thankfully, become a thing of the past, but the designated hitter is now used throughout MLB, rendering much of the strategy and subtlety of previous generations moot.

Kauffman Stadium

I miss the days when pretty much every team had franchise players who spent their careers in one town, their abilities and personality shaping the entire team and the way they played: Tony Gwynn, Cal Ripken, Ozzie Smith, Willie Stargell. No doubt the players are better off now, but it's hard to generate much affection for a team when the players get reshuffled every year. My heart broke a little when Albert Pujols left St. Louis, and has never fully healed.

All that said, actually being at a game is still exciting, and many of today's parks are beautiful. You still get the big, soulless concrete donuts--Toronto, Tampa--but there are a lot of parks that have been thoughtfully integrated into their neighborhoods and built with character and history in mind, as in San Diego or Baltimore. And of course there's always a special thrill in seeing someplace like Fenway or Wrigley, where decades of ghosts are almost visible on the basepaths. Plus, there are still players and moments that can thrill. I was at the Nationals game in 2018 when Max Scherzer notched his 300th strikeout of the year, and I'll never forget the game in Anaheim with a crowd--many of whom had come from Japan--absolutely rabid to see the unbelievable pitcher/slugger Shohei Ohtani. My favorite memory may be from a 2001 game in Atlanta when Cal Ripken, playing in his final year, hit two homers, earning a standing ovation from the Braves fans.

To bring this all back to writing, my wife suggested a while ago that I commemorate my quest by writing stories set at every ballpark I actually see. It's a good idea, but one I've been slow to act on. There's Houston in "Chasing Diamonds," of course, but the only other park I've worked into a story so far is San Diego's Petco Park, where an obsessed cop trails a suspect in my "Taking the Hit," published a few years back in Guilty Crime Magazine. I'm working on a story set in Dodger Stadium now, though, and who knows? Maybe in a few years I'll come out with Rounding the Bases, a collection of thirty stories set in thirty parks.

Rate Field, home of the White Sox

Anybody got a better idea for a title?

AND NOW, THE NEWS

Speaking of publications . . . 

Aside from Crime Scenes, I've gone the first five months of 2026 with no stories published, which is a long dry spell for me. It's about to end, though, as I have two very different stories scheduled to come out on June 2, just a couple of days after this column goes up. I try to limit the self-promotion here, but I'm so happy to finally be putting something on the "2026 Fiction" section of my website that I can't help but call them to your attention.

First up, Level Best Books brings us WISH UPON A CRIME:CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY FAIRY TALES, edited by my fellow SleuthSayers Michael Bracken and Stacy Woodson and featuring a host of today's best short crime fiction writers. Is that a terrific idea for an anthology, or what? My story is "Hansel and Gretel," and has a former cop trying to track down the titular missing siblings after his arrest of their father results in them being turned out into the streets. I don't like playing favorites, and I've never published anything I'm not proud to have my name on, but if forced to name a story from recent years that I'm most pleased with, this might well be it. The anthology as a whole is dynamite, and I urge you not to miss it.

And now for something completely different: in a column a couple months back, I mentioned in passing a call for submissions from a publication called Antifa Lit Journal. Their third issue, subtitled Diversity of Tactics, will also be released on June 2, with a range of poetry, fiction, and essays addressing the current political situation. My contribution, "Blue," is a story I originally wrote in the summer of 2020, at a moment when protests against law enforcement abuses were becoming a regular occurrence, even as the pandemic and lockdown continued to make every part of life feel uncertain and dangerous. It's about a cop trying to decide where he stands at one such protest, and it was written out of anger and fear and anxiety, the result being something quite unlike anything else I've produced. I never found a home for it until now, and it's a little depressing to realize that it is, if anything, more relevant today than it was then. I can't exactly say I think you'll enjoy it--but if you seek it out, I hope you'll find it has something meaningful to say. What more can a writer hope for? 

Fee or Free?

I was talking to a beginning writer the other day (a writer of short stories, since most of what I do is the short stuff), and she said to me, "Yeah, I want to get published--but the main thing is, I want to get paid."

Hard to argue with that. All writers--including me--want to be paid for what we produce. And while I didn't tell her that she shouldn't aim for that (I'm dumb but I'm not stupid, and neither is she), I did tell her that there are times when she might want to also consider publishing something for which she's not paid. At least not in dollars.

Here you go, buddy--no charge

Let's say you're an aspiring writer of short stories, and let's say I'm a teacher who's smarter than I really am. What I would tell you is, I believe it can be helpful to a shorts writer, especially when starting out, to occasionally submit something to a magazine or anthology that pays only "in copies"--which means they will send you a least one copy of the issue containing your story, sometimes called an "author copy" or a "contributor's copy." This gives you a couple of things besides just something to put on your coffeetable and brag to your friends about. It gives you (1) a publishing credit and (2) exposure.

Well, whoop-de-doo, right? Credentials and exposure won't pay the rent--they won't even buy you a burger and fries, or a stamp to put on your next snailmailed submission. But, hey, if you build up several respectable credits that you can use later in your cover letters and bios, or if a publisher or agent or another editor happens to see your story in, say, a non-paying university litmag, and likes it . . . well, that's not a bad use of your time and your effort.

The same thing goes for speaking engagements. Most writers are regularly asked to visit libraries, schools, senior centers, civic groups, book clubs, etc.--any venue that needs someone to come in and teach a quick workshop or fill a program slot. These places will sometimes reward you with a payment or cover your travel expenses or both, and when they do, that's great. But sometimes they don't, or can't. IF they don't, or can't, why should you do it? Well, if you're Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, maybe you shouldn't. But if you're me, and probably if you're you, there are times when doing these events can be a good move. For one thing--as mentioned earlier--it's exposure. It lets you get your name and your work out there in front of more readers and potential customers. Once again, this kind of goodwill gesture won't pay the light bill--but it can pay off in the long run. And free events often lead to fee events.

On the other hand . . .

Show me the money!

There is a second school of thought--and the longer I write, I find myself inching more and more into that camp--that says "If I'm creating a product and providing a service, I expect to be paid for it." Those who take this approach insist that it's not only sensible but time-saving. It involves less research and fewer submissions. You just concentrate on the publications that pay, and avoid all the others.

While there aren't a ton of paying markets these days, there are some, including  AHMM, EQMM, The Strand Magazine, Over My Dead Body, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, and Woman's World. And a good many more if you consider anthologies, and the so-called literary markets that are sometimes receptive to mystery/suspense stories: Zoetrope, The Sun, Thema, The Missouri Review, Harper's, The Saturday Evening Post, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train Stores, Pleiades, Tin House, and so on. We've talked many times at this blog about what it takes to make a story "literary," and the fact that crime fiction sometimes fits into that category. My friend and fellow Mississippian Tom Franklin's short story "Poachers," which won an Edgar Award and appeared in The Best American Mystery Stories 1999, was originally published not in AH or EQ but in The Texas Review.

Questions: 

If you're a writer of short fiction, what's your opinion on this kind of thing? Are you ever willing to send your work to a non-paying publication? If so, which ones do you prefer? If not, under what conditions might you be willing?

Also, what paying mags and anthologies do you submit stories to? At which of these have you been successful, and which ones might you recommend? What do you think about fee vs. free speaking/teaching engagements?


This little piggy went to market . . .

In closing, here are some Web resources I've used in the past, to find possible homes for my work:

- Ralan's Webstravaganza -- This isn't just for SF/fantasy stories (even though it says it is). The big mystery magazines, for example, are included. It also lists anthologies.

- My Little Corner 

- The Short Mystery Fiction Society Blog 

- Mystery Readers International

- Writer-On-Line

- Fiction Factor 


Those last two sites might be a bit dated, but there are still some good listings and good tips to be found there.

Another place--and a great print reference--that lists pay and no-pay markets is Novel & Short Story Writers Market (WD Books). A new edition is printed every year, and it features a "genre index" section that lists those places that consider mystery submissions. And sometimes the best approach is the simplest: Forget the market listings altogether and just key something like "short mystery markets" into Google and check out the resulting links.

Wherever you go and however you do it . . . good hunting! Or, to paraphrase one of my boyhood heroes: Write long and prosper.

Reversals of Fortune

Two weeks ago I posted about story sales in 2013 and tried to address some issues about the number of submissions that we writers make to short fiction markets. What I didn't address was the number of rejections I received for the stories I submitted in 2013. Counting those up is always about as enjoyable as eating a live frog with blue cheese and anchovies, but I did it--and discovered that I was given a thumbs-down 14 times last year. That's a lot.

We always hear and read about the fact that rejections are to be expected and not dreaded, and that writers have to learn not to dwell on them. Well, that advice may be true, but--as with most other pieces of advice--it's easier given than followed. Nobody likes to be rejected, whether the subject is manuscripts or salary increases or dates to the prom.

War stories

Allow me to digress a moment. Years ago, when I hired on with IBM, I went through an eighteen-month training period during which I--like all sales and systems-engineering rookies--shuttled back and forth between my local branch office and classroom courses at various IBM education centers across the country. In my case, I first spent a month at the branch office; then a month in class in San Jose, California; several more months in my home branch; two months in class in downtown Los Angeles; several more months back home; two more months in class in L.A.; several more months at home; and finally a month in class in Endicott, New York, to end my year-and-a-half. The time at the local office was always spent getting field experience and studying for the next trip to a course location, and the courses themselves were a marathon of lectures, case studies, presentations, and eighteen-hour days that made me wish I was back in military boot camp.

My point (there is a point here, believe it or not) is that those ed-center classes served a second purpose: they thinned the herd. On the morning of the first day of every course, we newly-arrived students were given an entrance exam covering the material that we'd studied for the past few months, and those who didn't pass were quietly approached during lunch, kicked out of the class, and flown back home at the expense of their branch. The rumor, and this was never verified, was that anyone who failed one of those exams never continued with the company. I do know that I stayed with IBM for thirty years and I never once saw any of those folks again.

That, my friends, is rejection. To me, it's on a par with being abandoned in your wedding dress at the altar, or turned down for a loan by the last bank in town. And though no one knew it back then, similar fates would await some of those who went through the widespread downsizing of the national workforce twenty years later, when so many large companies "restructured." Those were grim times. We used to joke (miserably) that the motto in Corporate America in the 1990s was "Beheadings will continue until morale improves."

On a lesser scale…

I realize I'm being a little extreme, here. Literary rejection, although certainly unpleasant, doesn't compare to any of that. The rejection of a story or novel manuscript is not only a rite of passage for new writers, it can be a regular occurrence to many fiction authors throughout their careers. Lawrence Block once said that rejection letters are membership cards to the universal fellowship of writers. But they're still no fun.

In a 2012 piece for Glimmer Train, author Katherine Ryan Hyde (who wrote Pay It Forward and many other novels) revealed that she was rejected 122 times before her first story sale, but was able to put it into the correct perspective. I especially liked one of her observations: "I think the most damaging misconception about rejection is that your work has been judged as 'bad.' . . . In reality, you don't know how it was received."

The following are some of her suggested (and paraphrased) reasons that an editor might have for rejecting a short story:

1. I just didn't like it.

2. I liked it but I didn't love it.

3. It was good, but suited to a different type of publication.

4. I short-listed eight stories and had space for only four.

5. I liked it but couldn't sell the other editors on it.

Good reasons. And there are probably many more, including "we ran a story similar to it last month," or "it's a bit too long," or "my back hurts, and I didn't get enough sleep last night." As Ms. Hyde mentioned, there's usually just no way to know the reason a story got rejected, and it does no good to worry about it. One point, though: if you've already sold a lot of stories to a particular editor, he or she will sometimes come right out and tell you why a story didn't make the cut. I know for sure that some of my stories have failed because of reason number 5, above. If the editor-in-chief vetoes it, it doesn't matter how many lesser editors okayed it. Does that knowledge make me feel any better, or make it any easier to make a sale to that market in the future? Not really. But, again, it's important to remember that not all rejected stores were rejected because they were poorly written.

Do you recall how many rejections you received (novel, short story, nonfiction) before the publication of your first work? Did you at any point find yourself discouraged or frustrated? Did you ever come close to quitting? I think all writers suffer some measure of self-doubt, and a long run of rejections is a frequent cause.

To paint all this in an brighter light,

Consider the following:

- Grisham's A Time to Kill was rejected by 16 agents and 12 publishers.

- 12 publishers rejected J. K. Rowling's first Harry Potter novel.

- 20 publishers turned down Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki and William Paul Young's The Shack.

- 21 publishers rejected Richard Hooker's M*A*S*H.

- Catch-22 was bought on its (?) 22nd try.

- 23 publishers rejected Frank Herbert's Dune.

- 24 agents turned down The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks). A week after the 25th accepted it, it sold to Time-Warner for a million dollars.

- Carrie got 30 rejections.

- Gone With the Wind got 38.

- The Cat in the Hat got 46.

- Stephen King's early short story "The Glass Floor" received 60 rejections, before selling for $35.

- 60 agents rejected Kathryn Stockett's The Help. The 61st accepted it, and it was sold three weeks later.

And the REALLY big numbers . . .

- The Chicken Soup for the Soul series was rejected 140 times

- Louis L'Amour was rejected 200 times before Bantam published his work.

- It took Alex Haley eight years and 200 rejections to sell Roots.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have received more than 300 rejections before he sold a story, and Jack London received 600.

- John Creasey, the world's most prolific crime writer, wrote his first published novel on the backs of 743 rejection letters.

So the next time you get one of those cold, prissy little notes that says "We regret that your submission does not meet our requirements" (which, for me, will probably be tomorrow), go ahead and say a dirty word. I do. But remember this:

You're in pretty good company.