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!

Going Golden, Committing Capers, and Getting Cozy

We've been talking quite a bit at this blog about writing stories for anthologies--mostly mystery/crime anthologies. It's easy to see why: there have been a lot of them out there, recently.

I think writing for mystery anthologies is fun, for several reasons: (1) most of them have a challenging theme (besides just crime), (2) they often contain stories by other familiar names, so it's sort of a party, and (3) there do indeed seem to be more markets for them, at the moment, than for magazines. Besides, as a writer friend once said to me, anthologies are real books, that you can put up on your shelf and look at from time to time. I still love the magazines, and send stories to them regularly--but not as often as I once did.

As luck would have it, several crime anthologies containing my stories have been published in the past couple of weeks, and two of those--Shamus and Anthony Commit Capers and Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy--were edited by the same dynamic duo: Andrew McAleer and Gay Toltl Kinman. In fact, the McAleer/Kinman team has, to my knowledge at least, edited three "awards-based" anthologies, and I've been fortunate enough to have stories in all of them. Here's some info about all three of those books:

Edgar and Shamus Go Golden: Twelve Tales of Murder, Mystery, and Master Detection from the Golden Age of Mystery and Beyond (Down & Out Books), edited by Andrew McAleer and Gay Toltl Kinman and published two years ago, on December 5, 2022. 

This was a book of original stories by writers who had won, in the past, either an Edgar Award (presented by Mystery Writers of America) or a Shamus Award (Private Eye Writers of America). Contributors were me, Doug Allyn, Lori Armstrong, O'Neil De Noux, Brendan DuBois, Martin Edwards, Carolina Garcia-Aguilera, Kristen Lepionka, Lia Matera, John McAleer, P. J. Parrish, and Art Taylor.

My story was called "Old Money," and featured a New Orleans private eye named Luke Walker. (This was Luke's first appearance, but I later put him to work in two more stories.) This one is set in 1940s Natchez, Mississippi, where Walker goes to investigate the mysterious death of a reclusive millionaire and the possibility that Walker's young client from New Orleans might be the only heir to the old man's fortune. It's actually a couple of different mysteries in one story, which is something I like to do now and then if possible, and it was especially fun to write because (1) Natchez has such an interesting history and (2) I'm familiar with most of its streets, landmarks, etc.

Shamus and Anthony Commit Capers: Ten Tales of Criminals, Crooks, and Culprits (Level Best Books), again edited by Andrew McAleer and Gay Kinman, published November 5, 2024. 

I haven't yet held this book in my hands, but I think its cover is one of the best I've seen in a long time. This is another anthology of original stories by past award winners, this time of the Shamus Award and/or the Anthony Award. Contributors: me, Lori Armstrong, Libby Cudmore, Carolina Garcia-Aguilera, Marcia Muller, Bill Pronzini, Verena Rose, John Shepphird, Shawn Reilly Simmons, and Marcia Talley.

My story, "Skeeter Done Shot Billy Bob," doesn't involve a detective, just a large contingent of the required criminals, crooks, and culprits. It also involves a heist, and not a usual one at that. A group of wannabe gangsters is trying to steal back a bag of diamonds that was taken from them, which they'd stolen earlier in order to repay a debt to yet another--and far more deadly--gang. And of course time is running out and very little of what they try goes as planned. (Billy Bob Kelso, who has done got shot, would agree.)

Of the three stories, this was probably the most fun to write, and a bit different from most of my stories because in this case the idea for its title came before the idea for the story. Matter of fact, the title came verbatim from a dead-serious but weirdly funny statement I heard in a TV news interview, from a witness to a local shooting--although I changed the names to protect the guilty. It's strange, sometimes, the way these things happen.

Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy: Thirteen Tales of Murder, Mystery, and Master Detection (Down & Out Books), the third anthology edited by Andy and Gay, published November 11, 2024.

I also love the cover of this one, and I understand Shawn Reilly Simmons designed it and the one for the Shamus/Anthony anthology. (Great job, Shawn!) Once again this is a book of original stories, not reprints, by past winners of--this time--either the Agatha or the Derringer. True to its title, these stories are (or at least mine is) more lighthearted than gritty, and feature crimes that take place mostly off-screen. Contributors, besides me: Barb Goffman, Tara Laskowski, B. V. Lawson, Robert Lopresti, Kris Neri, Alan Orloff, Josh Pachter, Stephen D. Rogers, Shawn Reilly Simmons, Marcia Talley, Art Taylor, and Stacy Woodson.

In my story, "Sunlight and Shadows," I used two characters that have now appeared more than eighty times in other publications: a retired teacher (and amateur sleuth) named Frances Valentine and her daughter Lucy, who is also the sheriff of their small Southern town. In this story, Fran travels to San Francisco to visit her cousin, a journalist who happens to be covering a local murder investigation--and while Fran's there, Lucy is wrestling with a church-office robbery back home. Through several phone calls, Fran helps her sheriff daughter deal with her case while also butting in on the California investigation. Like "Old Money," this is sort of two mysteries in the same story, one dealing with big-city homicide and one with small-town theft, and of course my two heroes (heroines?) manage to solve both.

In closing, I hope you'll check out all three anthologies. Andy and Gay did an outstanding job. (I like reprint anthologies, but there's something extra special about anthos that feature all original stories, written specifically for those projects.) Again, the last two of these books just came out and are available now at Amazon, the publishers' sites, etc.

And that's that. See you on the 30th. 

Have a great Thanksgiving!

All the Best to You

Personal request: If you cite this list (and I would be happy if you do) please refer to it as "Robert Lopresti’s ‘Best of the Year’ list at SleuthSayers,” not as the SleuthSayers' 'Best of the Year' list.  It's just me bloviating here, not the whole gang.  Thanks.

It is time for the thirteenth annual list of the year's best mystery stories as determined by yours truly.  It goes without saying that the verdicts are subjective, personal, and entirely correct. 

Sixteen stories made the list, one fewer than last year.  Ten stories were by men, six by women.  The big winner was Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine with five stories.  Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine had four.  Two more came from the Mystery Writers of America anthology.

Four of the stories were by my fellow SleuthSayers, a talented bunch.  With no further ado, here is the hit parade:

Allyn, Doug. "Hit and Run," in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, November/December 2021.

This is Allyn's third appearance in my best-of list.

Imagine you are stuck in traffic on your way to an important, even life-and-death meeting. Now imagine you get rear-ended by a woman who is not paying attention. But the frosting on the cake is that the accident makes your trunk fly open, revealing the bag of cocaine you are bringing to the meeting.  Many twists and turns...

Aymar, E.A. "The Search for Eric Garcia,"  in Midnight Hour, a Chilling Anthology of Crime Fiction From 20 Authors of Color, edited by Abby L. Vandiver, Crooked Lane Books, 2021

The protagonist's life is going down the tubes.  His daughter died in an accident that he feels responsible for, although the authorities disagreed.  His wife is living with Eric Garcia, who owns the store where our hero works.  Eric is everything he is not: a confident, successful man.  And our protagonist feels that the world isn't big enough to hold both of them. This is a very clever story, one where the telling is  essential to the plot. 

Benn, James R., "Glass,"  in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, September/October 2021.

A superconducting super-collider goes boom and a piece of 21st-century technology is blasted back through time to 1965 where it is discovered by hapless recently-fired salesman Guy Tupper.  Guy brings it to his cousin Jerry who runs a repair shop.  Together they figure out just enough to get the device working, and then...  One plot twist made me gasp out loud. 

 

 Cummins, Robert.  "The Phone Message," in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, March/April 2021.  

This is the author's first story.  The beginning may remind you of Columbo.  In the first scene Carole Donaldson calmly kills her husband.  Later, and just as calmly, she tells the police officer leading the investigation that she had tons of motive.  But she also seems to have an unbreakable alibi...

Fisher, Eve.  "The Sweet Life,"  in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, July/August 2021.

Eve Fisher is, of course, my fellow SleuthSayer.

Carrie is a teenager who has had a rotten life.  She considers her time with Ethan to have been a highlight because, while he made her sell drugs, he didn't force her into prostitution. 

When that arrangement collapses she lucks into a gig with an agency that cleans houses.  She likes the work, even though some of the customers are a little weird.  But then someone from her previous life threatens to ruin everything.

Goffman, Barb, "A Family Matter," Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, January/February 2021. 

Barb is another fellow SleuthSayer.

It is 1962 and Doris lives in a very nice suburb called The Glen.  Most of her friends are married to men who work for the big pharmaceutical corporation in town.  The neighborhood has standards.  

And the new neighbors do not meet them.   They raise chickens and hang laundry in their yard.  Doris is determined that these offensive violations of community norms will not be permitted.  But when she realizes a very different norm is being broken she has to determine what really matters in the neighborhood.

Harrington, Karen. "Boo Radley College Prep," in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, January/February 2021. 

Tony is fifteen years old, short on luck and, he will tell you, short on brains.  A hurricane has forced him and his mother to move in with the brother of his deceased father, and it isn't a happy or healthy home. 

Right down the block, however, is what his uncle calls "the Boo Radley house," a spooky-looking joint whose owner never appears in public.  Curiosity - and the hopes of earning chore money - causes Tony to visit.  He meets a grouchy old man with a lot of brains and good reasons to hide.  Can these desperate souls help each other?

Haynes, Dana. "The Waiting Game," in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, July/August 2021.

This is my first encounter with Fiero and Finnigan who run  St. Nicholas  Salvage & Wrecking, which is actually a bounty hunter firm that chases international bad guys.  Finnigan has been kidnapped by very nasty Russians who want Fiero to revert to her old occupation of assassin. A cunning plan, but neither of the partners intend to play by the rules. I was reminded of that classic TV show The Avengers.

Helms, Richard, "Capes and Masks," Mystery Weekly Magazine, June 2021.

This is Helms's second appearance in my annual best-of-list.  

"You know the story. Stolen by aliens who crashed my fourth birthday party.  Returned when I was seventeen, but I was somehow... different than when I left.  Well, duh,  I was thirteen years older, had all this weird hair growing where it never had, and my voice sounded like I was shaving a cat with a cheese greater."

If that sounds a bit... hardboiled... for a superhero story it is no accident.  He is Captain Courageous but his cover identity is Eddie Shane, private eye.  He mostly deals with divorce work but when a caped dude named Sunburst is found mysteriously dead, this is no job for a superhero.  We need a gumshoe to save the day.  

Jacobs, Tilia Klebenov , "Perfect Strangers,", in When A Stranger Comes To Town, edited by Michael Koryta, Hanover Square Press, 2021.

Gershom is finishing his second prison term for armed robbery when his cellmate Dougal points out the new gold mine: marijuana dispensaries.  Cash-rich and security-poor, they are a robber's dream.  So when he gets out Gershom begins to plan an elaborate robbery, because he does not intend to go down a third time:  "If this went sideways, they'd lock me up and melt down the warden." 

Lansdale, Joe R. "The Skull Collector," in Collectibles, edited by Lawrence Block, LB Productions, 2021.

He was a tough old guy, Ruby said.  Big, could crack walnuts with harsh language, chase a squirrel up a tree with bad breath. She had to use an axe handle to sort the guy out a little.  It wasn't too bad.  He was able to leave on his own, though not without a certain amount of pain and difficulty...  

That tells you a lot about Ruby, sure, but we also find out a lot about the narrator, especially that "It wasn't too bad." What does she consider a real problem?  How about having to steal a skull from a cemetery?

Light, Larry. "The Trouble with Rebecca,"  in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, November/December 2021.

Max is a "tech geek," working for a company that does hush-hush security stuff.  Because he hates the social side of work he invents Rebecca, a non-existent wife.  This imaginary person is his excuse to avoid after-work events and the like.  

Works great until he falls in love with a co-worker.  How do you rid yourself of a wife who does not actually exist? 

Thielman, Mark. "Catch and Release," in The Fish That Got Away, edited by Linda M. Rodriquez, Wildside Press, 2021.

This is the  third appearance in this column by my fellow SleuthSayer.

I let a murderer go today. That's how the tale begins. You might feel that the prosecutor is being a little hard on himself, because he did try his best to get Thomas Edmonds convicted.  (Didn't he?)

He walks you through the trial, through every maddening moment that caused his case to slip away.  And through it all Edmonds sits there, as cool as a bystander at a church picnic.  No wonder the narrator is so upset.  But then unexpected things happen...

Walker, Joseph S.  "Crown Jewel," in Moonlight and Misadventure, edited by Judy Penz Sheluk, Superior Shores Press, 2021. 

The publisher sent me a copy of this book.

Keenan Beech is a compulsive collector of vinyl, and his golden fleece is The Beatles, better known as the White Album.  The first few million copies have a number stamped on the cover and collectors like Keenan keep buying, buying, buying them, trying to get closer to the elusive lower numbers. 

But his big problem is his identical twin Xavier.  Keenan is a hard working guy; Xavier is an unsuccessful scoundrel.  And when a record store offers Keenan a rare copy of the White Album for a mere five grand Xavier somehow gets his hands on it first by, duh, pretending to be Keenan.

Witt, Amanda, "Relative Stranger,"  in When A Stranger Comes To Town, edited by Michael Koryta, Hanover Square Press, 2021.

Glory Crockett lives on a farm and one day a stranger knocks on the door.  What's disturbing is that he resembles her husband, Owen.  Turns out his name is also Owen Crockett.  He's the bad-news cousin who has spent most of his life in prison, "a one-man crime spree."  Now here he is, with a glib charm that rings completely false.  And somewhere outside  is Glory's husband and four young sons...

Zelvin, Elizabeth.  "Who Stole the Afikomen?" in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, March/April 2021.

My fellow SleuthSayer has written a hilarious story.  Andy is a Catholic and he is about to meet his new fiance's extended family at their Passover dinner - his first experience at a seder.

Uncle Manny kept saying, "Focus, people, focus.  We've got a goal here."

"To get the Jews out of Egypt?" I whispered.
"To get past the rabbis to the gefilte fish," Sharon whispered back.
"Is that the Promised Land?"
"The pot roast is the Promised Land."

Strange but True

My SleuthSayers colleague Melodie Campbell and I were swapping emails last week about how nice it is to receive a bit of good news and encouragement now and then, during these fearsome times. Melodie's writing news, in case you haven't heard, is that her novella The Goddaughter Does Vegas has been shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis Award. (Congratulations again, Melodie!)

This got me to thinking about some of the surprises and unusual things, both good and bad, that have happened to me in my 26-year writing "career." Here are a few that come to mind:

Believe it or not . . .

- Four of the first five short stories I ever submitted to magazines were accepted and published. (Boy this is easy, I thought.) The next thirteen--thirteen in a row--were rejected.

- On two separate occasions, due to printing errors, my stories appeared in a national magazine under someone else's byline. After one of those I received an email from a confused reader asking if I also write under the name Elizabeth Hawn.

- I once gave a presentation at a rural library and 75 people showed up. Several months later I did a similar talk at another library and two people attended, besides me. Both of them were library employees.

- I have twice received acceptance letters for stories I didn't write. File that under Excitement and
Then Disappointment.

- I have on three occasions been paid for stories in advance (before they were written). I wish that happened more often.

- When our oldest son's wife and their children were bumping across Africa on a tour last year, they saw another passenger in their van reading one of my books. That was a happy (for me) piece of vacation news.

- A customer at a chain-store signing once asked me to sign one of my books for him but not to personalize it, because he said he might change his mind before he checked out.

- Another man at one of my signings told me he'd enjoyed several of my books, especially the first one: A Time to Kill. He was less than pleased when I informed him that he had the wrong John.

- Bad surprise: Long ago, a movie project based on one of my stories was suddenly cancelled two weeks before filming was to begin. Cast and crew and locations were ready, original music was written, etc.--and everything stopped. Good surprise: In January 2019, fifteen years later, a Hollywood producer contacted me via my website to express interest in another of my stories (which thankfully wound up getting optioned). I almost didn't see his email--it went to my spam folder.

- I once submitted a short story (electronically, to the UK) and received an acceptance three hours later. Two other stories (to Kansas and to Michigan) received acceptances almost three years later. Rejections--too many to remember--have ranged from two days to two years.

- My payment for one of my stories was a lifetime subscription to the magazine. (A mixed blessing.)

- The agent I acquired to market my novels has instead helped me sell several short stories and the film rights and foreign rights to other stories. My novels remain unsold.

- I once (only once) shared a literary short list with Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane, Doug Allyn, and Gillian Flynn. Flynn won.

- A friend once told me she takes my books with her when she drives, and reads the stories at stoplights. I asked her not to mention that in accident reports.

- My magazine credits include The Shantytown Anomaly, Appalling Limericks, Barbaric Yawp, and Volcano Quarterly.

- Another booksigning incident: A lady who said we'd met long ago thanked me for using her as a character in one of my stories (although the character had a different name). I told her it was my pleasure. I had no idea who she was, so the whole thing was news to me.

- One of my stories was rejected two dozen times, and on the 25th try I sold it for $ 900. (Never give up!)



From Russia with royalties

Back to what Melodie and I were discussing the other day, which is the fact that bright spots often pop up during dark times . . .

The strangest and most surprising thing to happen to me lately came as a result of an email I received from a book publisher in Moscow last month. It came in via my website and (once again) landed in my spam folder, which--believe me--I have learned to check every day. Messages my computer thinks is junk sometimes turn out to be manna from Heaven.

This email informed me that the publishers had seen my short stories in the print edition of The Saturday Evening Post and would like to reprint those stories in a bilingual collection. We signed the contracts about two weeks ago. The book, to be called Selected Stories by John M. Floyd, will be released in both print and electronic formats by Publishing House VKN Limited, later this year. I'm told that one of the markets for the book will be readers who want to learn English--the stories will be featured with the original English text side-by-side with the literal translation into Russian with grammatical, lexical, and phonetical commentary.

Several of my writing buddies, including my fellow SleuthSayer Robert Lopresti, have secured unexpected book deals with publishers overseas, and even though I've had a number of individual stories translated and published in foreign magazines, this particular kind of arrangement is new territory for me. I owe sincere thanks to the publisher for its interest, to my agent for handling all the details, and to The Saturday Evening Post for featuring these stories in the first place.




A reborn identity

Like Melodie's recent award nomination, news of my upcoming book of stories is especially gratifying because it's further recognition of work that is already out there and had already achieved its intended purpose. When something you've created and sold and was published goes on to take on new life afterward, it's a good feeling, and an inspiration to keep sowing those seeds. And there are plenty of opportunities for that. You never know when or if something you've written might be seen and selected for an award, a movie adaptation, a best-of anthology, or some other kind of unexpected bonus.

Some of those bolts-from-the-blue can not only earn you more money, they can reach a whole new audience. My first exposure to the fiction of Tom Franklin, Annie Proulx, Brendan DuBois, and others came not from their novels or magazine appearances but from reprints of their shorts that I found in annual anthologies like Best American Mystery Stories and Best American Short Stories.



Lockdown in the boondocks

My point is, all of us writers have highs and lows, some experiences that are happy and some that are miserable--but patience, like hard work, usually pays off, in both the literary world and the real world. If you wait long enough (and shelter-in-place long enough?) good things will eventually happen.

Be safe, everybody. Keep writing.

Yesterday and Today

Yesterday was Paul McCartney’s birthday and I was going to do a post related to the Beatles, writing and me. But when I found out that the next three days will be posts from the three editors at Dell Magazines,  Janet Hutchings, Linda Landrigan and Jackie Sherbow (in alphabetical order) I thought I’d do a little lead into that. I’ve met all three on various occasions and broken bread with them and they’re all terrific. So, I hope no one minds that I revisit our trip to NYC in April, 2017 where we got to hang with them.
Amy and I got to meet Janet and Linda at Bouchercons in Raleigh and Long Beach. And when we went to NYC last year we got to meet up with them again and also meet Jackie Sherbow in person. So, in honor of these editors’ posts coming up, I hope you don’t mind if I rerun my post from a little over a year ago. Hey, the TV networks do it. So here’s a revisit to that wonderful trip.

From L to R around the table: Janet Hutchings, me, Eve Allyn, Doug Allyn, Jackie Sherbow, Linda Landrigan

***

New York, New York, it’s a wonderful town. The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down. Or is it the other way around? Amy (the wife) and I recently spent a week in New York City and I’m still not sure.  (Well, I am, but it plays better the other way.) And now the legally required disclaimer: I wrote about this trip for another blog a few weeks ago as my last slot for SleuthSayers was the family blog post that Amy did. So I didn’t have a chance to talk about our trip here. But it was writing-related and so great and so much fun I wanted to share a slightly revised version with SleuthSayers too.

Grand Central Terminal and the Chrysler Building

The trip came up very unexpectedly when I got an e-mail from Janet Hutchings, editor of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, telling me that my story Ghosts of Bunker Hill had won the 2016 Ellery Queen Readers Poll and inviting us to come to the Ellery Queen cocktail party and awards ceremony, as well as to be their guests at the Edgar Awards. I think I was in disbelief for several days, so we made no plans to head to New York…until the wonderful reality actually sunk in and we headed off to The Big Apple from The Big Sour, I mean, Big Orange.

We booked out on Jet Blue because we heard about their great on-time record. We got lucky—they were late both coming and going. I guess someone has to be the exception to the rule.

The week was a whirlwind of adventures and some sightseeing, much of it filled up with literary events. We arrived Monday night and since the hotel is next door to Grand Central Terminal we decided to check it out and have dinner at the famous Oyster Bar. Talk about a cool place. Then we walked around the neighborhood near the hotel late into the night.

On Tuesday we went to the Ellery Queen offices for tea with Janet and Linda Landrigan, editor of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and Jackie Sherbow, senior assistant editor for both EQMM and AHMM. Also there were Doug Allyn and his wife, Eve. Doug’s stories came in #2 and 3 in this year’s poll. But he’s been #1 11 times. I think it will be a long time before anyone can top that!

From L to R: Jackie Sherbow, Doug Allyn, Linda Landrigan,
Janet Hutchings, me

Everyone was very gracious. And it was good to talk with Janet again and Linda, who I’d met briefly before. And to meet Jackie for the first time in person, but who I’ve had a lot of correspondence with.

Me and Jackie Sherbow

After the afternoon tea, Jackie very graciously offered to be our guide on the subway, something I really wanted to do. So we subwayed to Otto Penzler’s Mysterious Bookshop for a gathering of Edgar nominees, authors, publishers and more (I think we fell into the “more” category, though now that I think about it I guess I’m an author too). It was crowded, it was fun. It was great to see the famous bookstore. And to meet Otto Penzler himself. And to see some people I know, including Edgar nominee Jim Ziskin and many others. And Doug Allyn was kind enough to introduce me to several people.

In the subway: L to R me, Eve Allyn,
Doug Allyn and Amy

After the party at the Mysterious Bookshop, Jackie was once again our subway guide, taking us to a real New York pizza place that she likes. So she, Doug and Eve, and Amy and I, braved the rain to get to the subway and then the pizza place. And in a scene that could have been out of a Woody Allen movie, we stepped just inside a local market to get out of the rain for a few minutes. I was waiting for the “nasty” New Yorkers to kick us out, but nobody was nasty and nobody kicked us out. Eve grabbed some plastic bags from the produce section to cover our heads and we ventured back out into the rain. We still got soaked by the time we made it to the pizza place. But the pizza was good and it was all worth it. After dinner, Jackie headed home. Doug and Eve, Amy and I took a cab back to the hotel. And this was the one loquacious cabby we had the whole time we were in New York and he was a riot. When we were just about at the hotel he nudged through a crosswalk and some guy in the walk started yelling at him, challenging him to a fight. Now we felt like we were in New York.

Jackie guiding us through the subway.

Wednesday we had a free day, so we played tourists (which we were). Lots of other tourists all around us. We did a tour of Grand Central Terminal, which was right next to the Grand Hyatt Hotel where we were staying and where the Edgars would be held the following evening. (On the other side of the hotel was the Chrysler Building, which we had a view of from our window. Now that’s pretty cool to be sandwiched between the Chrysler Building and Grand Central. During our tour we had another “New York” experience when some jerk called the tour guide a “dirty scumbag” and neither she nor any of us on the tour could figure out why or what she’d done. But despite that, most everyone was really friendly and nice and we had no problems with anyone.

Grand Central Terminal

After our tour of Grand Central we followed Clint Eastwood’s “Speed Zoo” example from the movie True Crime, where he jams his kid through the zoo at the speed of sound, and did “Speed New York.” We bought tickets for the hop on-hop off buses—buses where you can get on at one location and off at the next, hang out, then get back on and go to the next location. This way we saw a lot of the city in one day. Everything from the Empire State Building to the Flat Iron and various neighborhoods. We also hopped onto the Staten Island Ferry. From there we could see the Statue of Liberty. We ended the day in Rockefeller Center and then Times Square and dinner in a pretty good Italian restaurant off Times Square. Our meal was served family style—and being only 2 people we ended up with enough left over to feed everyone in Times Square.

The next day was the Ellery Queen cocktail party and awards, held at a specialized library not too far from the hotel. And it was a truly terrific experience. But the best part (besides picking up the award of course 😉) was being able to meet people in person that I know online but hadn’t met for one reason or another. Fellow SleuthSayer David Dean. Tom Savage. Dave Zeltserman, who published some of my stories early on in his HardLuck Stories magazine, and whose Small Crimes was just made into a movie on Netflix that released recently, so check it out. Besides hanging with Janet, Linda and Jackie, we also got to hang with Doug and Eve Allyn again, both of whom were great to hang with.

Me and Doug Allyn at the Ellery Queen cocktail party.

And, of course, it was more than a thrill to win the award!

Me receiving the Award.

And then it was off to the Edgars that evening. Very exciting. And all was going well, I even liked the food (and who likes the food at these things?), until the Master of Ceremonies, Jeffrey Deaver, stumbled and then fainted on the stage while doing some introductions. That was scary. Luckily he was okay, though whisked off to the hospital to make sure it was nothing serious. I believe tests showed that it wasn’t—hope so.

That’s the litany, now for the real deal: While we loved New York and all of the events, the best part of anything like this, Bouchercon, Left Coast Crime, etc., is the people. The community of mystery writers is a very warm, very supportive group. And, as I’ve mentioned, it was great to see old friends and also meet new people. We saw Jim Ziskin and Catriona McPherson, and had a nice chat with both of them. Met Otto Penzler. And it was good to meet Sam Reaves, Dave Zeltserman and too many others to name here. And great to spend time with Janet, Linda and Jackie.

Amy and Jackie at the Edgars.

New York has a bad rep in some ways and people who know me thought I’d hate it (as I haven’t been there in years…decades). I loved it. I loved the crowds. I loved the energy. I loved the writing community. I loved this whole unexpected trip. And I’m more than appreciative to Janet Hutchings for publishing Ghosts of Bunker Hill and taking a chance on my first story for Ellery Queen, Howling at the Moon (which, by the way, made it to #7 in the Ellery Queen Readers Poll). And to Linda Landrigan for publishing my story Twelve Angry Days in the current (May/June 2017) issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. And to Jackie for everything she does to keep the wheels turning. And last but certainly not least to the people who voted for Ghosts of Bunker Hill and made it #1.

***

Look for Past is Prologue and Fade Out on Bunker Hill (a Howard Hamm story) in upcoming issues of AHMM and EQMM, respectively.

***

And now for the usual BSP:

And some good news: My story “Windward,” from Coast to Coast: Private Eyes from Sea to Shining Sea (edited by Andrew McAleer & me) is nominated for a Macavity Award for Best Short Story. Our own Art Taylor’s story, “A Necessary Ingredient,” and Matt Coyle’s story, “The #2 Pencil,” also from Coast to Coast are also nominated. Congratulations Art and Matt! And I’m truly thrilled at how much recognition our little anthology is receiving. It’s very rewarding. And thanks to all who contributed and everyone who voted for these stories!

Please join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/paul.d.marks and check out my website www.PaulDMarks.com

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Sticking It Out

Guest starring Brendan DuBois…

Jan Grape invited a guest whom we are honored to have with us today. Brendan DuBois is the award-winning author of more than twenty novels and nearly 160 short stories. His latest mystery novel, HARD AGROUND, was published this past April by Pegasus Books. His next novel, THE NEGOTIATOR, is set to be published this August by Midnight Ink. He's currently working on a series of works with bestselling novelist James Patterson, with publications set for early 2019.

Brendan's short fiction has appeared in Playboy, The Saturday Evening Post, Analog, Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and numerous anthologies including THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES OF THE CENTURY, published in 2000, as well as THE BEST AMERICAN NOIR OF THE CENTURY, published in 2010.
His stories have thrice won him the Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, two Barry Awards, a Derringer Award, and have also earned him three Edgar Allan Poe Award nominations from the Mystery Writers of America.

Brendan is also a Jeopardy! game show champion.

— Jan Grape and Rob Lopresti

Sticking It Out

by Brendan DuBois

Last month I had the fun and privilege of going to Manhattan for the Edgar Allan Poe Awards ---- or as we call them in our house, Passover (hah-hah-hah) --- and had a fabulous time. The best part of Edgars week is catching up with old friends and making new ones, hobnobbing with agents and editors and other writers, and reinvigorating ones sense of being part a great writing community.

On one afternoon, I attended a wonderful reception at Dell Magazines --- publishers of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine --- and among the attendees were two old friends of mine, writers Doug Allyn and S.J. Rozan.

As we talked, laughed and gossiped with editors Janet Hutchings and Linda Landrigan, assistant editor Jackie Sherbow, and authors Jeffrey Deaver and Peter Lovesey, it was a just reminder of how far I’ve come in publishing. When I was just a kid, writing short fiction at the age of twelve, I dreamed about coming to Manhattan and hanging out in publishing offices.

At some point, some of us realized that three of us --- Doug, S.J., and myself --- had all gotten published by either Ellery Queen or Alfred Hitchcock within a year or so of each other back in 1986. I think the three of us looked at each other and all thought the same thing: thirty years! And look how good we all looked! And we are still getting published in both magazines, as well as novels and other works.

Later that week, I joined up with S.J. and Doug at the Dell Magazines table during the Edgars banquet, and as part of the ceremony, there’s a slide show depicting past Edgar winners, and when it came to the 1980s and 1990s, the three of us commented on fellow short story authors who had won Edgars, had published for a few years, and then… disappeared.


What happened?

The three of us discussed this a bit, talking about these past friends and co-authors, and while a couple of them had died over this time period, what of the others?

I don’t know about Doug or S.J., but I felt a slight shudder pass through me. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, and to be a published author back in 1986 was one of my greatest accomplishments. How could someone just… stop? Give up? Never return again to writing?

And what could someone do to prevent this from happening?

What are the keys to having a lengthy writing career?

Some thoughts:

❶ You have to possess something more than just talent. You need drive. Something inside of you pushing you. Many years ago, when I was in college, a good friend of mine had submitted a short story to The New Yorker magazine. It was rejected, but it was a personal rejection, a typewritten note from an editor, encouraging her to submit again. And what did she do? Nothing! She just shrugged and went on with her life, finding joy and satisfaction in something else.

I’m still gobsmacked that she had done that. But you know what? Her life, her decision.

❷ You have to have a thick skin. Rhinoceros skin? Try two rhino skins. Writing is a hard, tough, and lonely business. Here’s a news flash: nobody cares if you write or not. Nobody. It’s all up to you… and you have to realize that in the outset, you’re going to get rejected. Lots of times. Rejected in creative ways you never knew possible.

And some of those rejections will be harsh and deeply personal. And you have to smile, shrug it off, and keep on writing.

Then… you get published! Yay!

And then you really need a thick skin… maybe three rhino skins. The reviews will come in, and some will be great, and some will be awful. And as humans do, you’ll tend to ignore the good reviews and obsess on the negative ones.

Don’t.

As someone once said, opinions (and reviews) are like certain bodily orifices. Everybody has one. There are a number of fine, dedicated and thoughtful reviewers out there, but alas, it’s the mean ones that stick in your mind.


My trick is this: good reviews come from reviewers who know exactly what I was trying to do in a piece of writing. And bad reviews come from ignoramuses who missed the whole point of my story.

Still, again, you need a thick skin. Maybe even four rhino skins!

❸ You have to be willing to stretch yourself, try different things, different approaches. My first published short stories were of a kind, following certain tropes and approaches. But as months and years went by, I decided to experiment.

You can’t keep plowing and re-plowing the old fictional fields. Editors and readers then get bored. So I wrote first person. Third person. Even a couple of second persons. Then I wrote from the point of a view of a woman. A young boy. A… dog! Yes, a dog.

You need to be trying new things, new ways of telling a story. Sure, there’ll be rejections, but in the end, you’ll be your stretching your talent.

❹ You have to seek out new markets, new opportunities. Back in the days when I first started writing short stories, I used a typewriter. Found my markets via Writer’s Digest Guide to Markets. Sent out my stories in a nine-by-twelve manila envelope, with an SASE contained within. And I’d walk up to my mailbox, shooing away the baby dinosaurs as I did so.

Now it’s all electronic. And there are lots of new markets out there, lots of new publishing opportunities. When I first started out, self-publishing was considered icky, the sign of a loser. Now? I self publish novels that I’ve retained the rights to, and have self-published a number of original anthologies of my own short fiction.

Opportunities had changed, and so had I.

❺ And, lastly, you still have to love it.

Not to mention that there aren’t setbacks, or disappointments, or career plans that founder on the shoals of reality and publishing.

But still, I can’t go without a day without writing.

More than it’s what I do, it’s what I am.

My friend Doug mentioned this at another ceremony during Edgars Week, where Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine gave out the Reader’s Choice Award. He said something to the effect that decades later, he still loved being in the writing game, that he still loved it.

And so do I.

New York, New York

by Paul D. Marks

First up, let me congratulate O’Neil De Noux on his Shamus nom. Good luck!

***

New York, New York, it’s a wonderful town. The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down. Or is it the other way around? Amy (the wife) and I recently spent a week in New York City and I’m still not sure.  (Well, I am, but it plays better the other way.) And now the legally required disclaimer: I wrote about this trip for another blog a few weeks ago as my last slot for SleuthSayers was the family blog post that Amy did. So I didn’t have a chance to talk about our trip here. But it was writing-related and so great and so much fun I wanted to share a slightly revised version with SleuthSayers too.

Grand Central Terminal and the Chrysler Building

The trip came up very unexpectedly when I got an e-mail from Janet Hutchings, editor of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, telling me that my story Ghosts of Bunker Hill had won the 2016 Ellery Queen Readers Poll and inviting us to come to the Ellery Queen cocktail party and awards ceremony, as well as to be their guests at the Edgar Awards. I think I was in disbelief for several days, so we made no plans to head to New York…until the wonderful reality actually sunk in and we headed off to The Big Apple from The Big Sour, I mean, Big Orange.

We booked out on Jet Blue because we heard about their great on-time record. We got lucky—they were late both coming and going. I guess someone has to be the exception to the rule.

The week was a whirlwind of adventures and some sightseeing, much of it filled up with literary events. We arrived Monday night and since the hotel is next door to Grand Central Terminal we decided to check it out and have dinner at the famous Oyster Bar. Talk about a cool place. Then we walked around the neighborhood near the hotel late into the night.

On Tuesday we went to the Ellery Queen offices for tea with Janet and Linda Landrigan of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and Jackie Sherbow, senior assistant editor for both EQMM and AHMM. Also there were Doug Allyn and his wife, Eve. Doug’s stories came in #2 and 3 in this year’s poll. But he’s been #1 11 times. I think it will be a long time before anyone can top that!

From L to R: Jackie Sherbow, Doug Allyn, Linda Landrigan,
Janet Hutchings, Me

Everyone was very gracious. And it was good to talk with Janet again and Linda, who I’d met briefly before. And to meet Jackie for the first time in person, but who I’ve had a lot of correspondence with.

Me and Jackie Sherbow.

After the afternoon tea, Jackie very graciously offered to be our guide on the subway, something I really wanted to do. So we subwayed to Otto Penzler’s Mysterious Bookshop for a gathering of Edgar nominees, authors, publishers and more (I think we fell into the “more” category, though now that I think about it I guess I’m an author too). It was crowded, it was fun. It was great to see the famous bookstore. And to meet Otto Penzler himself. And to see some people I know, including Edgar nominee Jim Ziskin and many others. And Doug Allyn was kind enough to introduce me to several people.

In the subway: L to R: me, Eve Allyn,
Doug Allyn and Amy

After the party at the Mysterious Bookshop, Jackie was once again our subway guide, taking us to a real New York pizza place that she likes. So she, Doug and Eve, and Amy and I, braved the rain to get to the subway and then the pizza place. And in a scene that could have been out of a Woody Allen movie, we stepped just inside a local market to get out of the rain for a few minutes. I was waiting for the “nasty” New Yorkers to kick us out, but nobody was nasty and nobody kicked us out. Eve grabbed some plastic bags from the produce section to cover our heads and we ventured back out into the rain. We still got soaked by the time we made it to the pizza place. But the pizza was good and it was all worth it. After dinner, Jackie headed home. Doug and Eve, Amy and I took a cab back to the hotel. And this was the one loquacious cabby we had the whole time we were in New York and he was a riot. When we were just about at the hotel he nudged through a crosswalk and some guy in the walk started yelling at him, challenging him to a fight. Now we felt like we were in New York.

Jackie guiding us through the subway.

Wednesday we had a free day, so we played tourists (which we were). Lots of other tourists all around us. We did a tour of Grand Central Terminal, which was right next to the Grand Hyatt Hotel where we were staying and where the Edgars would be held the following evening. (On the other side of the hotel was the Chrysler Building, which we had a view of from our window. Now that’s pretty cool to be sandwiched between the Chrysler Building and Grand Central. During our tour we had another “New York” experience when some jerk called the tour guide a “dirty scumbag” and neither she nor any of us on the tour could figure out why or what she’d done. But despite that, most everyone was really friendly and nice and we had no problems with anyone.

Grand Central Terminal

After our tour of Grand Central we followed Clint Eastwood’s “Speed Zoo” example from the movie True Crime, where he jams his kid through the zoo at the speed of sound, and did “Speed New York.” We bought tickets for the hop on-hop off buses—buses where you can get on at one location and off at the next, hang out, then get back on and go to the next location. This way we saw a lot of the city in one day. Everything from the Empire State Building to the Flat Iron and various neighborhoods. We also hopped onto the Staten Island Ferry. From there we could see the Statue of Liberty. We ended the day in Rockefeller Center and then Times Square and dinner in a pretty good Italian restaurant off Times Square. Our meal was served family style—and being only 2 people we ended up with enough left over to feed everyone in Times Square.

The next day was the Ellery Queen cocktail party and awards, held at a specialized library not too far from the hotel. And it was a truly terrific experience. But the best part (besides picking up the award of course 😉) was being able to meet people in person that I know online but hadn’t met for one reason or another. Fellow SleuthSayer David Dean. Tom Savage. Dave Zeltserman, who published some of my stories early on in his HardLuck Stories magazine, and whose Small Crimes was just made into a movie on Netflix that released recently, so check it out. Besides hanging with Janet, Linda and Jackie, we also got to hang with Doug and Eve Allyn again, both of whom were great to hang with.

Me and Doug Allyn at the Ellery Queen Cocktail Party

And, of course, it was more than a thrill to win the award!

Me receiving the Award

And then it was off to the Edgars that evening. Very exciting. And all was going well, I even liked the food (and who likes the food at these things?), until the Master of Ceremonies, Jeffrey Deaver, stumbled and then fainted on the stage while doing some introductions. That was scary. Luckily he was okay, though whisked off to the hospital to make sure it was nothing serious. I believe tests showed that it wasn’t—hope so.

That’s the litany, now for the real deal: While we loved New York and all of the events, the best part of anything like this, Bouchercon, Left Coast Crime, etc., is the people. The community of mystery writers is a very warm, very supportive group. And, as I’ve mentioned, it was great to see old friends and also meet new people. We saw Jim Ziskin and Catriona McPherson, and had a nice chat with both of them. Met Otto Penzler. And it was good to meet Sam Reaves, Dave Zeltserman and too many others to name here. And great to spend time with Janet, Linda and Jackie.

Amy and Jackie at the Edgars.

New York has a bad rep in some ways and people who know me thought I’d hate it (as I haven’t been there in years…decades). I loved it. I loved the crowds. I loved the energy. I loved the writing community. I loved this whole unexpected trip. And I’m more than appreciative to Janet Hutchings for publishing Ghosts of Bunker Hill and taking a chance on my first story for Ellery Queen, Howling at the Moon (which, by the way, made it to #7 in the Ellery Queen Readers Poll). And to Linda Landrigan for publishing my story Twelve Angry Days in the current (May/June 2017) issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. And to Jackie for everything she does to keep the wheels turning. And last but certainly not least to the people who voted for Ghosts of Bunker Hill and made it #1.

***

Something else that hit me while in NYC was the use of location.  Setting plays a major role in most of what I write. Author S.W. Lauden has said about my work, “I just read your next novel Vortex. I loved how the action bounced around Southern California, almost as if the region was one of the main characters.”

To me, location can sometimes be a driving force for the characters. Of course, they have inner motivations, but where they live, the zeitgeist, ambience and flavor of the city or desert or whatever locations the stories take place in adds to their motivations. And being in New York really made me notice the different energies and vibe of different cities. They really do have personalities of their own and those personalities influence and affect the characters. There are some stories that could only take place in New York and some that could only take place in LA, and not just by mentioning a street name or a location, it’s more than that. It’s the spirit of the place that comes through.  For me that location is often, though not always (see my story Deserted Cities of the Heart in Akashic’s St. Louis Noir and set there, of course) Los Angeles. And even though LA’s been done to death you might say…you haven’t seen my LA.

For more on my relationship with the City of Angels, please check out this link to my very first SleuthSayers post:
http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2015/02/adventures-in-la-la-land.html 

***

And now for the usual BSP:

My story Twelve Angry Days is in the May/June issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, on sale at newsstands. Or click here to buy online. If you like food and you like mysteries, I think you might like this story.

***

I'll be at the California Crime Writers Conference in Culver City, June 10th and 11th. I'm on a panel called "The Long and Short of It: Short Stories and Novellas vs. Novels" with William Kent Krueger, Kate Thornton and Travis Richardson, moderated by S.W. Lauden. Hope to see you there!
http://www.ccwconference.org/

www.PaulDMarks.com

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