A Roundup of Favorite Short-Story Writers

My post today is piggybacking on last week's column by Joseph S. Walker about several of his favorite authors, all of them writers that he hoped others might find and read.

I figured I'd try to add to that by listing some of my favorite genre short-story writers. I focused on genre for this list because SleuthSayers is a mystery blog usually targeting readers and writers of genre fiction--so I have NOT included some further-reaching favorite "literary" short-story authors like Hemingway, Faulkner, Chekhov, O'Connor, Munro, Carver, Maugham, Welty, Fitzgerald, etc., etc. 

The method I used to come up with these was simple: I looked around me here in my home office and counted the number of short-story collections I own from different genre writers. Most of them, it turns out, are by the twelve following authors. And these of course are also (as they should be), the authors whose stories I like to re-read:

Fredric Brown -- A name you might not be familiar with. His genre was mostly SF/fantasy, but he also wrote wonderful mystery/crime stories. Many of his shorts, among them "The Dangerous People" and "The Night the World Ended," were used in the anthology TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He was especially well-known for what used to be called short-short stories (flash fiction), some of those only a page or two in length. My favorite of Brown's stories is still "Voodoo," which is only about 450 words. Others include "Arena," "Nightmare in Yellow," "The Geezenstacks," and "Earthmen Bearing Gifts." 

Jack Ritchie -- Another great shorts writer, Ritchie's stories can be found in a huge number of issues of old Ellery Queen's and Alfred Hitchcock's mystery magazines--and also the anthology volumes later created from those two magazines. He wrote only one novel, Tiger Island, which might be one of the reasons so few current readers of fiction know his name. I have a lot of Ritchie favorites, including the stories "Shatterproof," "The Absence of Emily," "#8," and "The Green Heart," later adapted into the feature film The New Leaf with Walter Matthau and Elaine May.

Roald Dahl -- Probably better known for his children's books like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl also wrote terrific short stories, several of which were, once again, adapted into episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. His story "Man from the South" is still one of my all-time favorites because of its plot--and the same can be said of the delightful twist-ending story "Lamb to the Slaughter." Other favorites of mine: "Poison," "The Landlady," and "Champion of the World."

Ray Bradbury -- This writer, whose name IS quickly recognizable, was an author of mostly science fiction stories, and I would argue that one of his collections, a brick-thick volume appropriately called The Stories of Ray Bradbury, is one of the best short-story collections I've ever read. Aside from novels like Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury wrote around 600 short stories. I think my favorites are "A Sound of Thunder," "The Veldt," "The Window," "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl," and "There Will Come Soft Rains."

Elmore Leonard -- Like many others in this list, Leonard is known mostly for his novels, many of which were also movies: Get Shorty, Hombre, Out of Sight, Jackie Brown, etc. That's certainly the way I first heard about him and got to know his work. But I love his short stories just as much. Examples: "Three-Ten to Yuma," "The Tall T," "Karen Makes Out," "The Tonto Woman," and (actually a novella rather than a short story) Fire in the Hole, which served as the basis for the neo-Western TV series Justified. I actually met him once at a booksigning, for about five seconds.

Louis L'Amour -- An American writer who specialized in Westerns, both novels and shorts. His novels are more famous, especially Last of the Breed, The Walking Drum, Haunted Mesa, Shalako, and the seventeen novels in the Sackett series. Many of his novels were made into films, and some of his short stories. One of those stories--my favorite of his--was "The Gift of Cochise," which became the 1953 John Wayne movie Hondo and then became a novel of the same name. Other well-known L'Amour short stories are "Skull and the Arrow," "To Hang Me High," and "Squatters on the Lonetree." 

Lawrence Block -- Another household name, Block is the creator of series characters Matt Scudder, Bernie Rhodenbarr, Evan Tanner, the hitman Keller, and others, and has written many, many crime novels and short stories over the years. (Also, he's one of the two writers in this list who are still with us and who still, hopefully, are producing stories.) I own several of his collections, the best of which is probably Enough Rope (almost 900 pages of shorts). The stories I remember most are "A Blow for Freedom," "Sometimes They Bite," "By the Dawn's Early Light," and "Strangers on a Handball Court."

Edward D. Hoch -- One of the few writers who actually made a living from writing short stories. He wrote several novels as well, but is known almost entirely for his short fiction, and specialized in not only mystery/crime stories but traditional, puzzle-based mystery stories. Hoch used many pseudonyms and created many series characters, but one of the most amazing things about him, to me, is that he famously appeared in every single issue of EQMM between 1973 and his death in 2007. My favorite Ed Hoch stories are probably "Murder Offstage," "Captain Leopold's Birthday," and "The Oblong Room."

Shirley Jackson -- Her genres were mostly horror and mystery, and I suspect she's most often remembered for her novels The House on Haunted Hill and We have Always Lived in the Castle. My favorite of her many short stories, and one of the most memorable ever, is "The Lottery," which I taught in my writing classes as a perfect example of not only a surprise ending but the third-person "detached" POV. Other stories of hers that I like are "The Summer People," "The Possibility of Evil," and "The Witch."

Stanley Ellin -- Another relatively lesser-known name, Stanley Ellin was a fine mystery writer who produced more than a dozen novels but seemed more interested in short stories. He won, I believe, two Edgars for his short fiction, and many of his stories, like those of some of the writers listed above, were adapted and used in Alfred Hitchcock Presents. His most famous short story, which appeared first in EQMM, was probably "Specialty of the House," and though I enjoyed it, I think my favorites of his might be "The Blessington Method," "Kindly Dig Your Grave," and "You Can't Be a Little Girl All Your Life." 

Richard Matheson -- Matheson's genres were mostly SF/fantasy and horror, and he'll always be close to my heart because of all the stories he wrote for the Twilight Zone TV series--sixteen stores in all, I believe. Though he might be best known for his novella I am Legend, I most remember the movie Somewhere in Time, which was an adaptation of his novel Bid Time Return, and the short story "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." Other excellent Matheson shorts were "Duel," "Button, Button," "Prey" and "Born of Man and Woman."

Stephen King -- I honestly believe this man is one of the world'd best storytellers. I have every one of his novels on my shelves, and all his short-story and novella collections. King's not much older than I am, and I think one reason I love his fiction is that many of his child protagonists (he uses a lot of those) experienced some of the same things I myself did: I watched the same TV shows, owned the same toys, read the same books. As for my favorites of his short stories, they're probably "Mrs. Todd's Shortcut," "Mute," and "The Raft," and my very favorite--one of the best stories I've ever read--is "The Last Rung on the Ladder."

A confession, here: I chose not to include some other favorite genre short-story authors because they're my friends and contemporaries--and if I did list and describe those, this post would become longer than anyone would read. But I must mention here that, seriously, you should search out and read the stories of writers like David Dean, Josh Pachter,  Doug Allyn, Barb Goffman, Dave Zeltserman, Michael Bracken, Art Taylor, Stacy Woodson, Adam Meyer, Melodie Campbell, O'Neil De Noux, Joseph S. Walker, Rob Lopresti, Steve Liskow, Elizabeth Zelvin, Ashley-Ruth Bernier, and many others, who are probably writing more stories at this very moment.

Now . . . Who are some of your favorite authors of short fiction--and especially genre shorts? Can you single out any stories of theirs, or anyone's, that are your all-time favorites?

As for me, I'll see you again in two weeks. I have plenty of reading--and re-reading--to do.

Have a great August.

Five Favorite Markets

  

Much has been said at this blog lately, by me and others, about anthologies. We've talked about everything from submission calls to themes to editing to publication schedules. That's probably because there seem to be so many anthologies being produced these days--especially crime anthos. And because of that, as I have also mentioned before, I've been doing more writing for anthologies over the past few years than for magazines.  

But there are exceptions. At this moment, as luck would have it, I have short stories in the current issues of five magazines, and those particular markets have been among my favorites for a long time. I hope I've been good for them; I know they've been good to me.

Here they are, in no particular order:

 

1. Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine

One of the most pleasant surprises of my so-called literary career is the fact that I've been published fairly regularly in a magazine that I had read and enjoyed long before I started writing and submitting stories--and it was one of the first major publications to buy my stories, early on. My first sale to AHMM was a 1200-word short story called "Teamwork," in early 1996, bought by then-editor Cathleen Jordan--I think I ordered about two dozen extra copies and gave one to everybody I knew, including the mailman. Since then--mostly in the last ten years--I've sold AHMM a lot more stories, far less than those of my friends Rob Lopresti, R. T. Lawton, and Doug Allyn, but still enough to gladden my mystery-lover's heart. Probably because of the magazine's long response times, I don't submit as many stories to AHMM as I once did, but I still send them fairly often, and it's always a thrill when one is accepted.

My story in the current (Jan/Feb 2025) issue is called "The Cado Devil," an average-length short story that's almost all dialogue, set in the present-day Mississippi Delta. If you want details, here's a piece I did for AHMM's Trace Evidence blog that describes a little about the story. My next story, "Heading West," is scheduled for their May/June 2025 issue--it's about a young couple, a tornado, and a train robbery in the 1880s. Yes, the magazine does sometimes consider Westerns--I had another one published there a couple of years ago. As most of you know, AHMM's editor is Linda Landrigan, one of the kindest and most professional editors I've known.

2. Strand Magazine

My first sale to the Strand was in 1999, shortly after their "rebirth" here in the U.S.; the previous incarnation of Strand Magazine had been published in London for many years, featuring names like Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. I've forgotten how and where I heard about the new Strand, but somehow I did, and snailmailed them a story called "The Proposal," about a Houston oil executive who'd hired a hitman to kill his wife. The editor contacted me by phone several weeks later to accept the story--it appeared in their second issue, and was the first of the many stories I've had published there. As I've mentioned before in discussions about markets and submissions, most of my Strand stories have been in the 3000- to 5000-word range, contain no otherworldly elements, feature more suspense than mystery, and are heavy on plot twists and reversals. (I'm not saying that's what everyone should aim for, but those things seem to have worked well for me.) So far, my Strand stories have been nominated for an Edgar, won two Derringer Awards, and were selected for three editions of the best-of-the-year mystery anthologies--so the magazine has been kind to me. Also, managing editor Andrew Gulli and fiction editor Lamia Gulli are a dream team to work with. Seriously.

My story in their current issue (#74, December 2024) is a 3200-word tale called "Lizzy in the Morning." It's set in the desert Southwest and includes a bank robbery, a scheming wife, a sneaky cop, a prison guard, an escaped convict, and long-buried loot. Again, as with almost all my Strand stories, it includes multiple surprises and has a plot that's more howdunit than whodunit. I hate it when I hear writers say a story "almost wrote itself," but this one did--it was great fun to put together.

3. Black Cat Mystery Magazine

I remember well the very first issue of BCMM, almost eight years ago--I loved the cover--and the magazine remains a quality publication. My first story for them was in that issue, a long (7600-word) Western called "Rooster Creek," one that I believe was submitted to then-editor Carla Coupe. In the years since then, one of my BCMM stories was selected for inclusion in Best American Mystery Stories and another won a Shamus Award, and for those honors I will always owe a debt both to BCMM and to editor Michael Bracken. The only thing tricky to remember about the magazine is that it's irregularly published and has a relatively short submission window, so I've always tried to have a story ready and waiting when those submission calls are announced. (Sometimes I can deliver, sometimes I can't.) At least one of my stories that was accepted by Black Cat Mystery Magazine was later diverted to the also-great Black Cat Weekly instead. More about BCW in a few minutes. 

My story in the current BCMM issue (#15) is "A Cold Day in Helena," a heist tale set in a snowstorm and told through the POV of one of two bank thieves--and it'll probably be no surprise to readers that the bad guys' carefully-planned robbery doesn't exactly go as expected. This serves as even more proof to writers--and to me--that the "complication" part of the problem/complication/resolution template is usually the most important of the three. If my records are correct, I have another story, "Ship Island," coming up soon at BCMM. One final note: As many of you know, Michael is an excellent and (thank goodness) patient editor.

4. Woman's World

Yep, WW is still around, and as long as it is, I plan to send them a story now and then. Usually a mini-mystery; I've had better luck there with mysteries than with romance stories, over the years (they publish one Solve-It-Yourself Mystery and one Five-Minute Romance in every weekly issue). I first sold WW a story in the spring of 1999, back when both the mysteries and the romances were a bit longer and paid a bit more than they do now, and I've been fortunate enough to be a more-or-less regular contributor ever since. Most of my Woman's World stories have been installments in a mystery series featuring a smart, bossy, retired schoolteacher and a not-so-smart but good-intentioned sheriff who was once her student in their small Southern town--she helps him solve mysteries whether she's invited to or not, and (not so helpfully) corrects his grammar in front of his deputies. One reader told me my Angela Potts/Chunky Jones stories remind him of a Mayberry in which Aunt Bee is always trying to tell Sheriff Taylor how to do his job. I hope that was a compliment, but I'm not sure.

My story in the current (February 3, 2025) issue is called "Sure as Shootin'," and it involves a farmer, a trick-shot artist, a preacher, a computer guru, a psychic, and of course a puzzle that needs solving. I haven't yet seen the issue but found a picture of the cover, which--as expected--features an attractive lady and a pointer to weight-loss secrets. Editors I can thank for my good fortune at this magazine (and I do, sincerely) are Sienna Sullivan, Maggie Dillard, Patricia Gaddis, and the long-retired but fantastic Johnene Granger.

 

5. Black Cat Weekly

Among all these print markets, there's an online magazine that's also close to my heart. Several years ago Wildside Press began a daunting venture: a weekly e-zine featuring stories of several different genres--and it's been a great success. My first story there was called "Debbie and Bernie and Belle," back in 2020, when it was known as Black Cat Mystery and Suspense Ebook Club. I believe it became Black Cat Weekly in 2021, and has included works not only from current writers but from some long-ago authors like Jack Ritchie (one of my all-time favorites). Another difference is that BCW features a mix of original stories and previously published works--something for everyone. (Not only do I have an original story in this week's issue, I'm scheduled to have a reprint in the one coming up next week--but that is, one might say, another story.) I'm sure a big reason for the magazine's success are the folks on the masthead: John Betancourt's the publisher and Barb Goffman and Michael Bracken are co-editors.

My short story in the current Black Cat Weekly (Issue #178) is sort of a weird Southern coming-of-age adventure/fantasy tale called "The Dark Woods." It involves a couple of schoolboys, Kevin Parker and Tommy Ward, who're planning a day at the movies, but Kevin's having to hang around for a while beforehand, waiting for his pal to finish his chores. During that time, Tommy's granddad tells Kevin a long and creepy story about one of the old man's childhood adventures, and, well, it turns out to be scary in more ways than one. This story, which at 2,000 words is pretty short, was a special treat for me to write because some of it really happened to me and one of my childhood friends when the two of us were wandering the backwoods one day on an ill-fated adventure of our own. (The true or almost-true stories are almost always the most fun to write.) 

What are some of the markets that you focus on first, with your story submissions? Are they the ones that have been the most receptive to your work in the past? Are they the ones you feel more "comfortable" submitting to, and maybe more optimistic about your chances? Do you have some magazines that are high on your target list simply because they present a challenge? (Personally, I like to submit stories to EQMM but I'm not as successful there as I'd like to be: half a dozen sales out of a zillion tries. Do you have similar mountains to climb?) Do you have a bucket list of magazines or other markets? (Mine includes Asimov's and Analog, although I have few hopes of ever actually selling them anything.) Do you find yourself writing to, and submitting stories for, more anthologies than magazines? Why? If you're in a confessional mood, let me know in the comments. 

And that's it--I'll be back in two weeks. Meanwhile, keep writing, keep warm, and keep sending out those stories. Good luck to all!

Crimes Against Nature: Round Robin

As I said two weeks ago, I edited Crimes Against Nature: New Stories of Environmental Villainy, which Down and Out Books recently published.   I asked some of the contribu5tors to answer a few questions related to the book.  And here you go...

Give me five words about your story.

R.T. Lawton: Clandestine labs poison the environment.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch: Dead Bodies in Lake Mead

Janice Law: pollution, family, development, loss & revenge

Michael Bracken: Water is life. And death.

Mark Stevens: Exploiters of nature; delusional avenger.

Susan Breen: Over-tourism, volcanos, mother/daughter issues, Costa Rica and selfies

David Heska Wanbli Weiden: Wind energy on Native reservations.

Robert Lopresti: Recycling obsessions can be dangerous.

Josh Pachter: “bad neighbor,” revenge, poison, semi-autobiographical

Karen Harrington: Illegal dumping. A fight for life.

Sarah M. Chen: Influencers, beaches, responsibility, privilege, overtourism 

Barb Goffman: Comedy, neighbors, kitty-cat, marijuana, gardening

Gary Phillips: Influenced by the 1970s era, the Bronze Age of Comics. Specifically, the mystically charged Swamp Thing created by Len Wein (writer), and Bernie Wrightson (artist).

Crimes Against Nature uses mystery fiction to look at social (and scientific issues).  What is your favorite (or first-encountered) mystery novel or story that deals with social issues?

Sarah M. Chen: Because I recently read it and Wanda M. Morris is one of my favorite writers, the book that comes to mind is her latest, an atmospheric, taut thriller called What You Leave Behind. It’s set in the Gullah-Geechee community on the Georgia coast and deals with illegal land grabbing and the heirs property system that disproportionally affects Black and brown communities.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch: First? Wow. Probably P.D. James, but which one, I have no idea.

Jon McGoran: Hard to remember what my first was, but when I was young, I went through an intense Carl Hiaasen phase, voraciously reading everything he wrote. I loved how he addressed environmental issues, while at the same time crafting these great crime stories, and never coming across as a scold, instead having great fun doing it.

S.J. Rozan: John Gregory Dunne, True Confessions.

Susan Breen: Walter Moseley’s novel, Devil in a Blue Dress, was the first time I understood racism in a visceral way. I wasn’t watching it from afar, but was there, with Easy Rawlins.

Robert Lopresti:  Some of Rex Stout's novels discussed social issues (A Right to Die, The Doorbell Rang, etc.) but when I first read them I was too young to absorb that.  In college I loved James McClure's The Steam Pig, which was about policing in South Africa under apartheid.

Janice Law: I can only mention some recent books, all of which dealt with child abuse in official custody of one sort or another: Fiona McPhillips's When We Were Silent, Rene Denfeld's Sleeping Giants and James McBride's, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.

David Heska Wanbli Weiden: Even though she likely doesn’t think of it as a mystery novel, The Round House by Louise Erdrich is an amazing book that deals with criminal justice issues on Native lands. It’s a great read that also educates and illuminates. I highly recommend it, although she has so many other tremendous novels, so it’s hard to pick a favorite.

Gary Phillips: One of the first novels I recall dealing with a social issue, an environmental one at that and its implications was Ross Macdonald’s Sleeping Beauty. His fictional take on the real-life Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969 as the backdrop to a Lew Archer, private eye tale.

Mark Stevens: The Wild Inside by Christine Carbo is one of my favorites.  

Name an author who has had the biggest impact on your short stories.

 Barb Goffman: Art Taylor. I learn something that helps my craft every time I read one of his stories.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch:   Stephen King

Jon McGoran:  I’ve always straddled mystery and scifi, but I think Elmore Leonard is the author whose style has most impacted me as a writer.

Susan Breen: My love of Agatha Christie inspired me to write mysteries, but Sue Grafton had a huge effect on how I think about the women who are usually my protagonists. She taught me that they could be bold, flawed and funny.

David Heska Wanbli Weiden: I’ll always return to the stories of Flannery O’Connor, although my own work bears no resemblance to her amazing tales. For dialogue, I was heavily influenced by Raymond Carver, although I once had a well-known writer scream at me when I mentioned that I admired Carver’s stories. I still believe that Carver’s dialogue is some of the best out there—consistently expressive and surprising.

Gary Phillips: No one writer had the biggest impact but certainly short stories by Poe and Rod Serling – those Twilight Zone teleplays turned into short stories. And it’s only fair to note Walter Gibson, the pulp writer who essentially created the Shadow, turned those into prose.

Robert Lopresti: Can't stop at one: Stanley Ellin, John Collier, Jack Ritchie, Avram Davidson.

Sarah M. Chen: Patricia Abbott. One of my favorites of hers is from Betty Fedora, Issue One, a dark little gem called “Ten Things I Hate About My Wife."

Janice Law: This is difficult, because unlike most writers, I began with novels and only began writing and publishing short fiction after I had launched the Anna Peters series and a couple of history books. So, influences were the mystery writers I enjoyed: Dorothy L. Sayers, because she had Harriet Vane who was so much better than the usual female characters of the time; Eric Ambler, who was the god of suspense in my estimation, and Raymond Chandler for his irresistible style and mastery of atmosphere.

Karen Harrington: John Floyd, Stephen King, Barb Goffman and Ray Bradbury.

Mark Stevens: Patricia Highsmith

Which environmental issue is having the most direct effect on you now?

Karen Harrington: I don't know if it's a direct effect, but when I did research on illegal dumping of car oil and other car liquids, I discovered that it is alarmingly prolific. That's disturbing. There are companies that are weighing the cost of getting caught versus the damage to the environment and taking the gamble. This is from large companies to the small auto parts stores we see across the country. (And interestingly, in my research I found the attached photo describing the 1963 Popular Science method of disposing of used engine oil. What?! This practice was commonly accepted and thought to have no impact on the soil. Really shows that science is rarely settled and must continually learn and reevaluate what we think we know.)

Gary Phillips: Given I live in a seemingly now continuous wildfire state, no particular season for them as in the past, global warming is pretty dang real to me.

David Heska Wanbli Weiden: The wildfires in Colorado seem to be getting worse every year, which is really distressing. I’m now living in New York for the first time since 2013, and I still have strong memories of Hurricane Sandy and the misery caused by that storm.

Mark Stevens: Everything climate change -- dwindling water supplies, threat of forest fires, impact on agriculture.

S.J. Rozan: Global warming, which encompasses all others

Susan Breen: Climate change is the environmental issue having the most direct effect on me because it is influencing where and how I live.

August 2023

Robert Lopresti: Most summers now we have days when the air is so full of wildfire smoke that it is considered dangerous to be outside.

Jon McGoran: I think climate change is having the greatest impact on most of us, both the direct effects of it that we’re already feeling, the (inadequate) measures we’re taking to combat it, and the fear and anxiety of what is to come, but I also wonder if nanoplastics and microplastics will end up being even more damaging to us.

Janice Law:  I very much hope to be gone myself before the warbler migration fails. Living in the Northeast, we have escaped some of the most immediate effects of climate change but it is becoming clear that every civilization, including ours, is dependent on the natural world and on favorable climate conditions. We have been slow to learn this as well as careless about our pollution and exploitation of the natural world.

Sarah M. Chen: I live close to the beach so am aware of the alarming rise in sickened and abandoned marine mammals, like whales and sea lion pups. This is due to a number of things like rising ocean temperatures which increases toxin levels and pups being forced to dive deeper and further for food.     

Kristine Kathryn Rusch: The warming of the planet, since I live in Las Vegas.

Themed mystery anthologies seem to be growing in popularity. Any thoughts on that trend?

Gary Phillips: Having edited or co-edited a number of themed anthologies, South Central Noir, The Cocaine Chronicles to name two, I think if you can hook the potential reader on the subject matter, they like diving in and out of a given short story. They’re not getting exhausted if you’ve tried to turn the idea into a novel, maybe having to pad the story.

Sarah M. Chen:  They're fun and I'm all for it!

Kristine Kathryn Rusch:  I think the more mystery stories the better.

Susan Breen: Anthologies force writers to get out of their regular routines. It’s a challenge to try something new and my suspicion is that because of that, the stories will have a jolt of energy to them.

Mark Stevens: I think once the whole idea of building short story collections on rock bands took off, well, there's no shortage of material.  Waiting for the first collection based on  songs by The Velvet Underground.

Karen Harrington: I think readers and writers enjoy seeing how different minds approach the same topic. I know I do.

 S.J. Rozan: Themed anthologies make total sense -- they allow readers to watch a wide variety of writers exploring topics they're interested in.

David Heska Wanbli Weiden: Yes, I love the trend, and I’ll note that I’m editing one of these myself:  Native Noir, due out sometime in 2025 from Akashic Books. In that volume, some of the greatest Indigenous authors currently writing agreed to try their hand at a noir story, broadly defined. I hope to see more of the music-based anthologies, and I’m still salty that I didn’t know about the two Steely Dan books. Their songs are perfect, of course, for crime tales, and I’m hoping someone will put together another one (and please contact me if you do!)

Robert Lopresti: I love the fact that you can give twenty authors the same assignment and get twenty wildly different, but all fascinating responses.

Janice Law: I think it is a sensible attempt to create a new home for short fiction, which has been evicted from the newspapers and magazines that used to pay well for short stories.

 None of the authors in this book chose to write historical stories. Are there any environmental issues/events in history you think are particularly intriguing?

Gary Phillips: Interesting question. I suppose if I were to give it some thought, how the growth of the Industrial Revolution polluting the skies in England, damaging peoples’ lungs irreparably, comes to mind.

Robert Lopresti: The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland was so polluted it caught fire 14 times. Publicity from the 1969 blaze lit a fuse (sorry) that started the modern environmental movement.

Sarah M. Chen: I watched a documentary on the Chernobyl disaster and found it horrifying and fascinating. I knew very little about it despite being a kid when it happened.

Susan Breen: I’m a great fan of Charles Dickens and have always been fascinated and appalled by what living conditions were like in London during Victorian times, even for the wealthy. Joseph Bazalgette’s construction of the sewer system has got to be one of the greatest environmental triumphs ever. Now that I think about it, I can come up with various murderous scenarios. Maybe I should have…

Barb Goffman: All of these historical events could be put to good use in a crime story...
        Oil spills - Exxon-Valdez, BP, etc.
        Toxic chemical dumping - Love Canal
        Water contamination - Woburn, MA, and Flint, MI
        Nuclear plant meltdown - Three Mile Island, though given recent news, Three Mile Island could also factor into a contemporary story.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch:   I've been fascinated for a long time by the Little Ice Age, as well as the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815, causing more than 90,000 people to die, and inspiring one of the coldest (and darkest) summers on record in 1816, which led to lots of literary mayhem (like Frankenstein, Dracula, and some Lord Byron poetry).

S.J. Rozan:  1. The Great Flood of 1927 along the Mississippi.  2. Boston's 1919 Molasses Flood

Mark Stevens: Like, a zillion. My mind goes to all the ways mankind has plumbed nature or depended on nature for resources.  Early days of mining.  Or drilling for oil.  I'm fascinated by the idea that gigantic supertankers are ferrying oil around the globe. When was the first? Who dreamed that up? Seventy-seven million barrels of oil are moving around the globe every day.  At what cost? At what risk?  

Janice Law: We have a couple of big ones just in our own national history: the near extermination of the buffalo, the loss of the passenger pigeons, and what is proving to be the very foolish attempt to create "fur deserts" in the west. The loss of the beaver had impacted water storage in these dry areas just as the huge reduction in buffalo has had an impact on soil conservation etc on the prairies.

The trouble with these events, and with many environmental issues, is that they don't necessarily fit well with the demands of short mystery fiction, which are surprising like the old classical unities: one time, one place, one action, and that additional requirement that also goes back to the ancient Greeks: a beginning  in the middle of the action.

The Spy Who Shunned Me

I was glancing at a not-so-recent Stacker.com ‘Best 100 Spy Movies of All Time’, thinking it was right up the dark alley of our spymaster, David Edgerley Gates. If you did something extremely stupid, he could make you disappear.

And then I noticed something stupid.

Where was Ipcress File? And Day of the Jackal? Manchurian Candidate? Riddle of the Sands? Casablanca? And where the hell was 39 Steps? And why the Hail Freedonia was Duck Soup in the list? Hey, I love the Marx Brothers but it bears as much resemblance to a spy movie as Margaret Dumont does to John le Carré.

I had to stop because so many possibilities flooded my mind. The article should be retitled ‘100 Pretty Good kinda-Spy Movies of Small Time, Give or Take.’ I bet David could name many more.

So here is the core of Stacker’s list followed by a few unranked suggestions of my own.

100	Body of Lies	2008	Ridley Scott		50	Clear and Present Danger	1994	Phillip Noyce
99	Salt	2010	Phillip Noyce		49	Rogue One: A Star Wars Story	2016	Gareth Edwards
98	Moonraker	1979	Lewis Gilbert		48	Breach	2007	Billy Ray
97	Never Say Never Again	1983	Irvin Kershner		47	Spy	2015	Paul Feig
96	Shadow Dancer	2012	James Marsh		46	Eye in the Sky	2015	Gavin Hood
95	Octopussy	1983	John Glen		45	Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol	2011	Brad Bird
94	The Man from U.N.C.L.E.	2015	Guy Ritchie		44	The Bourne Identity	2002	Doug Liman
93	The Informant!	2009	Steven Soderbergh		43	Red Cliff	2008	John Woo
92	The Eagle Has Landed	1976	John Sturges		42	Emperor and the Assassin	1998	Kaige Chen
91	Atomic Blonde	2017	David Leitch		41	Flame & Citron	2008	Ole Christian Madsen
90	Until the End of the World	1991	Wim Wenders		40	Inherent Vice	2014	Paul Thomas Anderson
89	You Only Live Twice	1967	Lewis Gilbert		39	No Way Out	1987	Roger Donaldson
88	Cloak & Dagger	1984	Richard Franklin		38	Black Book	2006	Paul Verhoeven
87	The Fourth Protocol	1987	John Mackenzie		37	The Age of Shadows	2016	Kim Jee-woon
86	RED	2010	Robert Schwentke		36	Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation	2015	Christopher McQuarrie
85	Mission: Impossible	1996	Brian De Palma		35	The Bourne Supremacy	2004	Paul Greengrass
84	Snowden	2016	Oliver Stone		34	Europa Europa	1990	Agnieszka Holland
83	Allied	2016	Robert Zemeckis		33	Lady Vengeance	2005	Park Chan-wook
82	The Matador	2005	Richard Shepard		32	Dr No	1962	Terence Young
81	Michael Collins	1996	Neil Jordan		31	Inglourious Basterds	2009	Quentin Tarantino
80	Eye of the Needle	1981	Richard Marquand		30	The Imitation Game	2014	Morten Tyldum
79	Horror Express	1972	Eugenio Martín		29	The Man Who Knew Too Much	1956	Alfred Hitchcock
78	Patriot Games	1992	Phillip Noyce		28	The Quiet American	2002	Phillip Noyce
77	OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies	2006	Michel Hazanavicius		27	A Beautiful Mind	2001	Ron Howard
76	The Front Line	2011	Jang Hoon		26	Infernal Affairs	2002	Andrew Lau, Alan Mak
75	Thunderball	1965	Terence Young		25	Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy	2011	Tomas Alfredson
74	The Hunt for Red October	1990	John McTiernan		24	Ghost in the Shell	1995	Mamoru Oshii
73	Spy Game	2001	Tony Scott		23	The Constant Gardener	2005	Fernando Meirelles
72	Mission: Impossible III	2006	J.J.		22	Bridge of Spies	2015	Steven Spielberg
71	Despicable Me 2	2013	Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud		21	Skyfall	2012	Sam Mendes
70	True Lies	1994	James Cameron		20	From Russia with Love	1963	Terence Young
69	Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid	1982	Carl Reiner		19	Casino Royale	2006	Martin Campbell
68	The Falcon and the Snowman	1985	John Schlesinger		18	Enter the Dragon	1973	Robert Clouse
67	The East	2013	Zal Batmanglij		17	The English Patient	1996	Anthony Minghella
66	Official Secrets	2019	Gavin Hood		16	Mission: Impossible: Fallout	2018	Christopher McQuarrie
65	Lust, Caution	2007	Ang Lee		15	The Conversation	1974	Francis Ford Coppola
64	Sneakers	1992	Phil Alden Robinson		14	House of Flying Daggers	2004	Yimou Zhang
63	Fair Game	2010	Doug Liman		13	Stalag 17	1953	Billy Wilder
62	Confessions of a Dangerous Mind	2002	George Clooney		12	Goldfinger	1964	Guy Hamilton
61	Charlie Wilson's War	2007	Mike Nichols		11	The Bourne Ultimatum	2007	Paul Greengrass
60	Kingsman: The Secret Service	2014	Matthew Vaughn		10	Letters from Iwo Jima	2006	Clint Eastwood
59	Three Days of the Condor	1975	Sydney Pollack		9	Zero Dark Thirty	2012	Kathryn Bigelow
58	GoldenEye	1995	Martin Campbell		8	Le Petit Soldat	1963	Jean-Luc Godard
57	Walk on Water	2004	Eytan Fox		7	Barry Lyndon	1975	Stanley Kubrick
56	Marcel Proust's Time Regained	1999	Raoul Ruiz		6	The Departed	2006	Martin Scorsese
55	Where Eagles Dare	1968	Brian G.		5	Duck Soup	1933	Leo McCarey
54	Top Secret!	1984	Jim Abrahams, Zucker Bros.		4	The Lives of Others	2006	Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
53	A Most Wanted Man	2014	Anton Corbijn		3	Notorious	1946	Alfred Hitchcock
52	The Spy Gone North	2018	Yoon Jong-bin		2	Pan's Labyrinth	2006	Guillermo del Toro
51	X-Men: First Class	2011	Matthew Vaughn		1	North by Northwest	1959	Alfred Hitchcock
	The 39 Steps	1935	Alfred Hitchcock			Topaz	1969	Alfred Hitchcock
	Day of the Jackal	1973	Fred Zinnemann			Riddle of the Sands	1979	ony Maylam
	The Ipcress File	1965	Sidney J Furie			Casablanca	1842	Michael Curtiz
	The Manchurian Candidate	1962	John Frankenheimer			Dark of the Sun	1968	Jack Cardiff

For worst movie, I seem to recall Our Man Flint (1966), directed by Daniel Mann, was embarrassingly awful.

What is your take? Enquiring spies want to know.

---

Check out Prohibition Peepers, a Michael Bracken anthology.

A Sense of Entitlement

  

Creating titles is something all writers have to tackle at some point, whether you do it before or after the story, whether you want to or not, whether you're good at it or not. Every baby has a name and every story has a title. And yes, some sound better than others.

I enjoy the process of coming up with story titles. I guess I do an okay job of it--I think my titles accomplish what I want, and that's to describe (at least to some degree) what the story's about or to make a reference to something in it. Having said that, I confess I'm not madly in love with some of my own titles. I do like a few of them--one was "The Early Death of Pinto Bishop," the title of a story I first published in a Canadian literary magazine and is still available (I think) at Untreed Reads. Others were "The Starlite Drive-In," "The Daisy Nelson Case," "Rhonda and Clyde," "A Surprise for Digger Wade," "Eight in the Corner," "Andy, Get Your Gun," "The Delta Princess," and a few more. I also liked "Take the Money and Ron," the title of a story about a robbery/kidnapping, but the editor chose to change that one. I wasn't thrilled about the substitute, but I happily took the money and ran (leaving Ron behind).

As for other writers' titles, there are many, many of those that I love. Some are classics that I would guess everyone likes: East of Eden, Gone with the Wind, Atlas Shrugged, The High and the Mighty, Double Indemnity, Back to the Future, etc.--that list is as long as a politician's nose.

My absolute favorites, though, are those I've listed below. Some are funny, some have double meanings or hidden meanings, some are just cool. All of them are titles I wish I myself had come up with.

NOTE: The titles of movies and books are in italics, short-story titles are in quotes, and movies have the release dates attached. There's a lot of overlap--some are movies adapted from novels or stories.

See if you remember these:

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia -- 1974

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot -- 2018

"The Perfect Time for the Perfect Crime" -- Edward D. Hoch

Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man -- Ed McBain

The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun -- 1970

Here's Looking at Euclid -- Alex Bellos

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead -- 2007

"The Saints Go Stumbling On" -- Jack Ritchie

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- 2005

Tequila Mockingbird -- Tim Federie

"Lamb to the Slaughter" -- Roald Dahl

Don't Look Up -- 2021

Apocalypse Pretty Soon -- Alex Heard

Once Upon a Time in the West -- 1968

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl -- 2015

"The Kugelmaas Episode" -- Woody Allen

A Walk Among the Tombstones -- Lawrence Block

Shangai Noon -- 2000

Lie Down with Lions -- Ken Follett

"Mary Poppins Didn't Have Tattoos" -- Stacy Woodson

At Play in the Fields of the Lord -- 1991

A Big Hand for the Little Lady -- 1966

"The Last Rung on the Ladder" -- Stephen King

"Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed" -- Ray Bradbury

The Devil at Four O'clock -- 1961

The Sidelong Glances of a Pigeon Kicker -- Ron White

Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead -- 1991

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai -- 1984

Midnight in the Garden of Evel Knievel -- Giles Smith

One-Eyed Jacks -- 1961

Shoot Low, Boys--They're Riding Shetland Ponies -- Lewis Grizzard

"Boo Radley College Prep" -- Karen Harrington

A Hearse of a Different Color -- Tim Cockey

How to Win Friends and Influenza -- Edward Kurtz

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? -- 1970

That's the kind of list an avid reader/moviegoer could update several times a day, and I probably will, but for now that's my best effort. 

To wrap up this title wave . . . What are some of your favorites? Let me know in the comments below (include your own titles, if you like).

And make your next title your best ever.

Funny Business

 

A recent "topic of the week" at the message board of the Short Mystery Fiction Society was one that I found especially interesting. It was "Humor in Crime Fiction." I didn't participate in the discussion, or at least haven't yet, but I've been enjoying reading the views of others on the subject, and the consensus seems to be that a little humor is almost always a plus, even in the more serious novels and short stories. 

I agree. Many of my favorite authors--among them Joe R. Lansdale, Nelson DeMille, the late Donald Westlake, Stephen King, Janet Evanovich, Lawrence Block, Carl Hiaasen--include humor in most (in some cases, all) of their writing, to the point that I and others have come to expect it. And I believe that if Thomas Harris can manage to inject a degree of humor into ultra-violent books like Hannibal and The Silence of the Lambs, most authors could do the same, if they wanted to.

Humor is serious business

I do realize, of course, that some topics don't lend themselves to lighthearted writing--I don't recall anything funny in Schindler's List or Sophie's Choice or Leaving Las Vegas. But in the kind of mystery/crime stories I'm thinking of, the humor doesn't have to be Laugh Out Loud hilarity. It can be something as small as banter between partners, witty observations, weird incidents, or just characters not taking themselves too seriously. Anything that can occasionally bring a smile to the reader's face. Moviewise, the Cohen Brothers seem to be especially good at that ("He's fleeing the interview!").

I also realize that humor can backfire if you're not careful. I saw the following quote in an article called "Why Humor Is So Essential in Fiction" (Joel Sippie, The Wrtier): "The first thing to remember is not to overdo it. Overcooked humor is just as bad as overcooked turkey. No one needs more of either in their lives." But if it is done correctly, it's a great advantage.

In my own writing world

It has occurred to me that part of the reason some of my short-story series have worked at certain markets is that humor plays a big part in those stories. My country-bumpkin sheriff who often enlists the assistance of his former schoolteacher in his Woman's World investigations is usually more irritated by her bossy manner and grammar instruction than grateful for her help, and in dozens of stories in other magazines my amateur crimefighter Fran Valentine is just as interested in trying to find a husband for her sheriff daughter Lucy as she is in solving the cases. That kind of thing seems to also work in some of my longer and more intense crime stories. But--again--I try to be careful not to overplay it. 

Here are a few more personal examples. Two fairly recent Derringer Awards came from (1) my flash story "Tourist Trap" about two people plotting a murder/robbery in ancient Italy and (2) a longer story called "On the Road with Mary Jo" about a pair of dimwitted bank robbers who steal what turns out to be an experimental self-driving car. I made sure both those plots, and the character relationships that go with them, relied entirely on humor. And just last week an old friend from IBM asked me about one of my early stories called "Saving Mrs. Hapwell," which involved a cowboy who finds himself in an awkward confrontation with the husband of an old girlfriend. What my buddy said he remembered most about the story was that it was funny, which I took as high praise. (That story has now been reprinted in nine different markets, including here, two years ago.)

In my own reading (and viewing) world

Not that it matters, but here are a few of my favorite pieces of humorous fiction:

Short Stories:

"The Kugelmaas Episode," Woody Allen

"The Green Heart," Jack Ritchie

"Voodoo," Fredric Brown

"The Catbird Seat," James Thurber

"The Absence of Emily," Jack Ritchie

Novels:

No Way to Treat a First Lady, Christopher Buckley

Four to Score, Janet Evanovich

What's the Worst that Could Happen?, Donald Westlake

A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole

Lucky You, Carl Hiaasen

Movies:

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966)

Blazing Saddles (1974)

Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

Airplane! (1980)

Raising Arizona (1987)

Note: It's not fiction, but my favorite funny memoir is Born Standing Up, by Steve Martin.

Questions and conclusions

How much humor do you put into your stories or novels? Do you find humor enjoyable to write? Hard to write? Do you ever seek out funny books or stories or movies to read or watch? What are some of the best you've found?

In closing--and despite what many literary authors and readers seem to think--I believe meaningful fiction doesn't have to be a deep and bleak journey into the misery of the human condition. And with that in mind . . .

Keep writing, and keep smiling.

Voices from the Past

  

Years ago, back when you could watch network TV without endangering your brain cells, there was a series of United Airlines commercials I especially remember. One of the two reasons they made an impression was their background music, Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," which I love, and the other was the voice of the always-unseen narrator. The first time I saw one of them and heard it I knew that voice was familiar--but after repeated viewings I still couldn't figure out whose it was. (No Google or Alexa around in those days.) Finally it came to me. See if you recognize the voice--it starts at about the halfway point in this one-minute commercial from the late '80s.

For some reason I thought about that the other day, and it triggered other memories of overhearing movie or TV dialogue from another room and thinking, I know that voice. Part of that's probably due to the fact that I watch so many movies, but part of it's also because certain voices are just unique--so recognizable that hearing them for only a few seconds can tell you who's speaking.

That got personal a few months ago, when I'd plugged in a Netflix DVD of the James Franco film As I Lay Dying and walked into the kitchen in the middle of the movie to get a snack. As I was heaping ice cream into a bowl I heard a voice so surprising it made me stop in mid-scoop. I hurried back to the TV to see that one of the actors was an old friend from my IBM days named Jim Ritchie--we worked together for years--and who has a voice unlike any other in the world. (Jim also played Matthew McConaughey's father-in-law in A Time to Kill many years ago, but I hadn't realized he had a part in this movie as well.) I later played that scene for my wife after telling her not to look at the screen, and when she heard it she too gasped and said, "Is that Jim Ritchie?" If you want to hear Jim's voice for yourself, here's one of his recent videos.

We as writers understand that physical voices aren't as important to our work as they are in some of the performing arts, unless maybe we're doing a reading or an interview or a podcast. What we produce (thank goodness) is usually intended to be read, not heard. But in the TV or movie business, a distinctive voice is an asset. I can think of several actors like Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, Tommy Lee Jones, Rosie O'Donnell, Gary Cooper, Slim Pickens, Ben Johnson, Kathleen Turner, Alan Rickman, and others, whose voices also tend to fit in with the characters they play. And some--Bernadette Peters, L.Q. Jones, Fran Drescher, Strother Martin, Steve Landesberg, Jennifer Tilly, Lorraine Bracco, R. Lee Ermey, Holly Hunter, G.D. Spradlin, etc.--whose voices are certainly unique but maybe not immediately familiar to the general public.  

You know, of course, where all this is leading. It's leading to a question.

In your opinion, who are the actors and actresses with the most recognizable voices?

 

My picks:

Katherine Hepburn

Lee Marvin

James Earl Jones

Lauren Bacall

Jack Nicholson

Henry Fonda

Steve Buscemi

Cary Grant

John Wayne

Kirk Douglas

Suzanne Pleshette

Humphrey Bogart

Morgan Freeman

Michael Caine

Samuel L. Jackson

Christopher Walken

Audrey Hepburn

Jimmy Stewart

Jeff Goldblum

Al Pacino

Burt Lancaster

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Sam Elliott

Rosanne Barr

Sean Connery

I think I could identify any of those people after ten seconds of listening to them speak.

As you can see from my honest but unscientific list, a voice doesn't necessarily have to be pleasant to be distinctive or easy to recognize. So my second question is, Which actors'/actresses' voices do you LIKE the most?

 My top-twenty choices of voices:

Morgan Freeman

Billy Bob Thornton

Judi Dench

Katherine Ross

J. K. Simmons

James Earl Jones

Patrick Stewart

Jane Seymour

Dennis Haysbert

Emma Thompson

Gerald McRaney

Sam Elliott

Melanie Griffith

Diana Rigg

Ben Johnson

Lee Marvin

Kim Dickens

Barbara Bel Geddes

Powers Boothe

Gregory Peck

Why do I enjoy hearing these folks' voices? I'm not sure. If I had to give reasons, I guess some of them--Freeman, Thornton, McRaney, Dickens--bring back good memories of my southern childhood, and some are soothing and relaxing, and some have a foreign accent that I like . . . and some are just interesting. I think my all-time favorite voice is that of Lee Marvin.

  

A closing note: I always found it fascinating that the voices of brothers James Arness (Gunsmoke) and Peter Graves (Mission: Impossible) sounded exactly alike. If you're not old enough to remember those guys, take my word for it.

 

Here's another video I saw on YouTube the other night, on this familiar-voice subject. It's part of an episode of the updated game show To Tell The Truth (one of those many remakes that are sometimes fun and sometimes irritating).

 

And FYI: If you didn't recognize his voice, the narrator in the aforementioned United Airlines commercial was Gene Hackman.

See you in two weeks.

Brand New Cliches

 

Yesterday the March/April issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine hit the newsstand, assuming such institutions still exist.  I am delighted to be making my 33rd appearance in those distinguished pages.  "Shanks' Locked Room" is the eleventh showing there by my grumpy crime writer, so he stars in one-third of my tales  in that market.

You may notice the "locked room" in the title.  It is a subgenre of the mystery story, of course, going all the way back to the very first: Edgar Allan Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue."  I thought it might be fun to play around with the old gimmick and I wound up turning it inside out.  The puzzle Shanks has to solve is not "how did the villain get into a room without a key?" but "why did the villain steal the key and not enter the room?"

I enjoy turning a cliche around.  I had written what I thought would be a follow-up called "Shanks' Last Words," involving the famous dying-message clue, but it turned out that technology had gotten ahead of me and made my story outdated.  Such is life.

One master of the upturned cliche was Jack Ritchie, a genius of the comic short story whom John Floyd and I have praised to the sky on this page.  He wrote a book about Henry Turnbuckle, a Milwaukee police detective.  Henry loved mystery fiction and was constantly being disappointed that reality cruelly ignored the cliches and motifs of the field.

For example, in one story two of the suspects are identical twins.  Alas,  in violation of every rule of mystery fiction that turns out to have nothing to do with the solution.  In another tale Henry gathers all the suspects and dramatically reveals the killer - only to have the suspects point out a fatal flaw in his logic, which involved a fact no one had bothered to mention to him.  Why is it in crime fiction the detective always gets all the necessary information?  Doesn't happen in real life.  

 By coincidence I was reading a story today and gave up on it because it stuck to a very tired cliche: The villain was about to kill the hero but first gave him a detailed explanation of his plan, and damned near a blueprint of the house where he was being held.  

This peculiar generosity on the part of some bad guys was brilliantly skewered in the movie Austin Powers.  

So, which cliches of the field bug you the most?

Who Are Those Short People?

A few weeks ago I did a column here about obscure movies. The point was, all of us have seen good movies that everybody knows about, but there are some good ones that almost nobody's heard of--and those can be fun to find and watch.

The same goes for short stories, and their authors. Just as we're familiar with the names of famous novelists, a lot of us also know the names of famous short-story writers: Chekhov, Munro, Cheever, Bradbury, O'Connor, Poe, Welty, Doyle, Saki, Twain, Hoch, Dahl, Serling, Asimov, Jackson, Kafka, Joyce, Carver, Oates, O. Henry, Lovecraft, Baldwin, Ellison, etc. (And yes, most of them are famous for novels as well.)

But . . . there are some lesser-known writers of shorts who I believe were equally as talented. Here are a few I happened to discover, later in my writing life than I would've hoped.


Richard Matheson -- A master storyteller, and one of the writers (along with Rod Serling, Ray Bradbury, Earl Hamner, and others) for the original Twilight Zone. I first became award of Matheson when I found out he wrote the book that became the movie Somewhere in Time (which, God help me, I still love). I have here on my shelves two collections of Matheson's stories: Duel and Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. The title stories of those two books are among my favorites. Others are "Steel," "Prey," and "Third from the Sun."

Jack Ritchie -- My favorite short-story writer, period. He wrote many, many stories for EQMM and AHMM. I have only one of his story collections--Little Boxes of Bewilderment--but only because they're extremely hard to find. Some of my Ritchie favorites: "The Absence of Emily," "Traveler's Check," "The Green Heart" (adapted into the movie A New Leaf), "Shatter Proof," "The Operator," "Play a Game of Cyanide."

Augusto Monterroso -- A Honduran writer who, like Ritchie, wrote only one novel. Everything else was short stories, some of them flash-length and some of them humorous. Here are a few that I think are worth finding and reading: "The Eclipse," "The Outdoor Poet," "Dinosaur," and "Mister Taylor."

Cornell Woolrich -- A great writer who led an incredibly sad life. Known mostly for the movie Rear Window, which was adapted from his short story "It Had to be Murder." He also wrote many novels that were made into movies. I own one of his story collections, Night & Fear, but loaned it out years ago. (If the guy who "borrowed" it is reading this, may the fleas of a thousand camels infest your Fruit of the Looms.) My favorites, of Woolrich's stories: "New York Blues," "Detective William Brown," "For the Rest of Her Life," "Endicott's Girl."

John Collier -- A British novelist, Collier is best known for his short fiction, much of which is witty, dark, and full of plot twists. He wrote or contributed to a number of screenplays, and more than a dozen of his stories have been adapted for TV, radio, and film. I have only one collection of Collier shorts--Fancies and Goodnights--but the stories in it are wonderful. My favorites: "De Mortuis," "Youth from Vienna," "Over Insurance," "Bottle Party," "Squirrels Have Bright Eyes."

Charles Beaumont -- An author of mostly short science fiction and horror stories, and another of the many writers of episodes for the original Twilight Zone. He wrote only a couple of novels, early in his career, but wrote a lot of screenplays, including 7 Faces of Dr. Lao and The Masque of the Red Death. I have one of his short-story collections--Perchance to Dream--and I've enjoyed every story of his that I've read. Favorites: "The Jungle," "The Beautiful People," "The Howling Man," "Night Ride."

Fredric Brown -- My second-favorite short-story writer. Brown's story output was almost all crime and science fiction. Among other things, he was a master at what's now called flash fiction, and he wrote several novels that later became movies. I own three of his collections--From These Ashes, Miss Darkness, and Nightmares and Geezenstacks. I think his standouts are "Arena," "Nightmare in Yellow," "Voodoo," "Rebound," and "The Laughing Butcher." I'm always amazed that so few readers know about this writer.


Have any of you read these seven authors? If so, what do you think of their stories, style, etc.?

NOTE: Two years ago I posted a SleuthSayers column about both Ritchie and Brown, in case you want to know more about them.


Changing the subject, here– If you're interested in reading some excellent lesser-known short stories by the better-known writers, here are my suggestions:


"The Last Rung on the Ladder," Stephen King
"Never Stop on the Motorway," Jeffrey Archer
"Strangers on a Handball Court," Lawrence Block
"The Last Night of the World," Ray Bradbury
"The Blood Bay," Annie Proulx
"Torch Song," John Cheever
"Dead Man," James M. Cain
"Fetching Raymond," John Grisham
"A Retrieved Reformation," O. Henry
"Perfect Timing," Bill Pronzini
"Not a Drill," Lee Child
"Carrera's Woman," Ed McBain
"Survival Week," James W. Hall
"Poison," Roald Dahl
"Come Dance with me in Ireland," Shirley Jackson
"The Last Good Country," Ernest Hemingway
"A Happy Man," Anton Chekhov
"Running Out of Dog," Dennis Lehane
"A&P," John Updike
"The Mule Rustlers," Joe R. Lansdale
"Tenkiller," Elmore Leonard


I can't finish a discussion like this without mentioning the many other short-story writers whose work regularly appears in magazines like AHMM, EQMM, BCMM, Strand, etc. I won't try to list them because I would probably leave someone out, but many of those fellow writers (and friends) are famous as well, and some have oatbags right here in the SleuthSayers stable. I hope you're already reading their stories.


In closing, who are some of your favorites short-story authors, known and unknown? (And some stories to point us to?)


Keep writing, and be safe.