In Reference to Murder

Time's Up!

Or almost up. The fourth annual Watery Grave Invitational Short Story Contest is seeking submissions. You must have a crime fiction story of no more than 3,000 words already published (in any format) between April 16, 2011 and April 15, 2012. Selected authors will have their names dropped into a hat and ten names drawn at random. The drawees will then compete in the contest to write a new original story. And there are prizes! E-mail your story link by 9 p.m. TONIGHT to be entered via the website above.

Time's also running out to submit your novella of 15,000 to 20,000 words in length for the sixth annual Black Orchid Novella Award. The sponsors are seeking original works of fiction in the tradition of the Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe, which (1) emphasize the deductive skills of the sleuth; (2) contain no overt sex or violence; (3) don't include characters from the original series. First prize: $1,000 plus publication in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. But hurry: entries must be postmarked by May 31, 2012.

The 'Zine Scene

The April issue of Suspense Magazine is out, with a list of the 3rd annual short story contest winners. Harlan Coben also has an exclusive interview, along with Marilyn Levinson. There are excerpts of the latest books from D.P. Lyle and Brett Battles, and much more. FYI to authors: the 'zine is opening up their online radio station and will play audio clips of your books, gratis. Email editor@suspensemagazine.com for the details.

The spring edition of Pulp Metal Magazine online is also live, with Paul D. Brazill's column on Detective Sergeant George Bulman (based on the books by Kenneth Royce) and his appearances in various British TV series; writer interviews including Jodi MacArthur talking to Yelena Sabel, Jason Michel chatting with Mr Glamour, and Richard Godwin and Katy O’Dowd speaking to Jason Michel; plus short stories and more.

Issue #45 of Crimespree Magazine has a cover story with Hilary Davidson, interviewed by Ruth Jordan and Jen Forbus. Gary Shulze also talks about the annual Write of Spring event at Once Upon A Crime in Minneapolis; Joe Finder is interviewed by Judy Bobalik; and there are stories, columns, and fun galore. Check out the index here.

You can still order a copy of Mystery Readers Journal and its Winter/Spring issue dedicated to"Shrinks and Other Mental Health Professionals in Mysteries."

As I mentioned earlier, the latest (and first in one case) issues of Needle and Grift are also available for your reading pleasure.

I'm a tad late, but the Winter/Spring Plots with Guns issue is available (with stories by Eric Bandel, Taylor Brown, Terry Butler, Andy Henion, Erik Lundy, Dan Ray, Craig Renfroe, Nick Ripatrazone, and Tim L. Williams), as is the latest Mysterical-E issue, packed with its usual story goodness.

And don't forget to vote for the 2012 Spinetinger Magazine awards.

Some Grimm Tales

Last year, I had the opportunity to participate in an online short story contest sponsored by John Kenyon on his blog "Things I'd Rather Be Doing." The theme of the contest was too intriguing to pass up:  update a fairy tale as crime fiction. The contest outgrew its initial beginnings and evolved into a bigger project that recently popped out in its finished, fiendish form, an anthology titled Grimm Tales.

John explained how he got the idea:

This anthology is the result of considerable work by many talented writers who ran with an idea I got while reading to my son. When he grabbed his collection of illustrated (and sweetened) fairy tales for the umpteenth bedtime, I discovered a valuable skill: I could read these tales with one part of my brain and think about something completely different with another. While recounting the exploits of Puss in Boots, I began to wonder about how the story could be recast as crime fiction.

With that idea in mind, I started to dabble with an idea or two, but found I needed motivation to push me through the process. I decided a writing challenge was in order. I put out the call on my blog, Things I’d Rather Be Doing, asking my fellow crime writers to adapt a fairy tale as a crime fiction story. Sixteen fellow writers answered the call, and as I read compelling story after compelling story, I realized that it would be a shame for these stories to languish alone on blogs scattered across the Web. They deserved to be together and to be read.

That’s where the kind folks at Untreed Reads got involved. They agreed that these stories deserved a wider audience and we began to assemble this collection.

Grimm Tales includes an introduction by Ken Bruen and stories by Patricia Abbott, Absolutely*Kate, Jack Bates, Eric Beetner, Nigel Bird, Loren Eaton, Kaye George, Blu Gilliand, Seana Graham, Eirik Gumeny, R.L. Kelstrom, John Kenyon, BV Lawson, Evan Lewis, B. Nagel, Sean Patrick Reardon and Sandra Seamans. The e-book has become one of Untreed Reads' bestsellers, and now through January 15th, it's even 25% off. Not only that, but Untreed is providing a 50% discount on Discount Noir edited by Patricia Abbott and Steve Weddle if you buy both at the same time.

And there's nothing grim about that...

There's Truth in Crime

For fans of true crime:

Creative Nonfiction magazine is soliciting essays of no more than 4,000 words about true crime, which can be serious, humorous or somewhere in-between. For the Spring 2012 issue, they'd like to see stories about petty theft, identity theft, embezzlement, assault, murder, the gamut. Note that this is not a fee-free proposition, although the best essay will receive a $1,000 award. (Hat tip to Sisters in Crime.)

Noir Nation: International Journal of Crime Fiction is a start-up project seeking true-crime submissions for its e-journal to be distributed through various channels. Other nonfiction interests include pieces on the place of noir in current crime literature and culture, but they're also considering short fiction and short film noir submissions. Writers will be paid per piece, with rights reverting back to the author upon publication. Noir Nation has a Facebook Page and they're also hoping to round up some funding via Kickstarter.

'Zine Scene, Part Deux

I realize I neglected to include one very important publication in yesterday's post about recent mystery-related magazines, namely, the always-wonderful Mystery Readers Journal. The London Mysteries Part I edition is out, with Part II due in early July. The two online features include "Masquerading in Secret London" by Texas-accented Deborah Crombie (Superintendent Duncan Kincaid/Inspector Gemma James series) and "The Most Peculiar Detectives" by Christopher Fowler (the Bryant & May series).

The print edition includes columns on "The Devil's Home on Leave: Derek Raymond's Factory Series" by Dan Fleming, "The Law in London" by Jim Doherty, and more, with essays aplenty by Carola Dunn, Martin Edwards, Charles Todd, Jacqueline Winspear and other excellent authors. You can purchase a hard copy or a downloadable PDF. 

Editor Janet Rudolph is always looking for interested writers and novelists who want to contribute essays and articles for upcoming issues, which include "Animal Mysteries" due August 1st and "Shrinks (and other mental health professionals)" due November 1st. Check the guidelines page for more details.

Hot Off the Press

The latest issue of Mystery Readers Journal has just been published. Themed around Hobbies, Crafts & Special Interests, there are reviews and columns, as well as close to three dozen articles, everything from "Camp Follower for the Weekend? by Suzanne Adair to "Matryoshka Dolls Inspire a 'Nested" Mystery'" by Joyce Yarrow. There are some web-available features, too, including

• Is It Real or Is It a Dollhouse? by by Camille Minichino 
• Constructing Crossword Puzzles by Parnell Hall
• Brewing Up Murder by Cleo Coyle
• Mystery Seen: Detectives with Hobbies by Kate Derie

Editor Janet Rudolph is also looking for fodder for upcoming issues including London Mysteries I, London Mysteries II, Animal Mysteries, Shrinks (and other mental health professionals), so if you're an author and want to write an Author! Author! essay, or have an article or review idea, send her an email.

Haiti Noir

One of the latest installments in the Akashic Books noir series doesn't look at just one city, as the other books have, but at an entire nation — one where just getting through the day is an exercise in life-as-noir. The magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck not far from Port-au-Prince almost a year ago, on January 12, 2010, with an estimated 230,000 people killed, 300,000 injured and 1,000,000 made homeless. Since then, over 1,000 people have died from cholera, and violent protests have broken out, shutting down schools, businesses and the international airport.

Award-winning novelist Edwidge Danticat had been working for a year as editor on Akashic's Haiti Noir anthology when the earthquake struck, and she was worried some of the stories would become irrelevant or not ring true, but ultimately felt that didn't happen. In fact, she solicited three earthquake-related stories that found their way into the book. She tried to get a mixture of literary styles, adding she "was glad reading the other books in the series to see that noir did not only mean detective stories. We have many variations on the detective story here; however each writer defined noir for him- or herself and came up with something powerful. The stories are dark in that bad things happen in them. There is of course a Haitian sensibility because the stories are set in Haiti or in the Haitian diaspora. They are about both individuals and the larger society."

As Publishers Weekly noted, the anthology contains several stories that feature the practice of Vodou including Kettly Mars's supernatural thriller "Paradise Inn," in which a detective investigating police corruption is transferred to a remote village and falls under the seductive power of a fearsome innkeeper and her succubus-like daughter, and Gary Victor's "The Finger," where a criminal's trophy of an expensive ring, with its dead former owner's finger still attached, comes back to haunt him.

The launch party featuring Danticat and other contributors will take place at Symphony Space in New York City on January 26. Ten percent of the profits from sales of Haiti Noir will be donated to an organization Danticat chose, the Lambi Fund of Haiti, a nonprofit that helps fund Haitian community-based groups promoting economic justice, democracy and sustainable development. 

 

'Zine Scene

Mystery Readers Journal is out with its Fall 2010 issue, featuring Island Mysteries. Michael Gora takes us on an overview tour, and Gay Toltl Kinman offers up "The Island Mystery Primer." There are also various essays and updates from writers on their own island-based works or those of others, as well as review and true-crime columns. Articles accessible online include "The Bleak and Beautiful Islands" (Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear) by Ann Cleeves; "Islands in the Stream of Consciousness" (St. Michel Loubejou, France) by Peter May; and "My Mykonos" by Jeffrey Siger. With the weather already turning nasty and dumping several feet of snow in the midwest and the Rockies, we could all probably use a little literary vacation.

Mystery Scene's Holiday Issue #117 is now available, with author Dennis Lehane discdussing the much-anticipated return of Boston PIs Angie Gennaro and Patrick Kenzie in Moonlight Mile. Tasha Alexander also talks about her new novel Dangerous to Know and her Victorian heroine Lady Emily, a woman truly before her time. There's also a look at Stuart Neville's tough, morally complex Irish thrillers The Ghosts of Belfast and Collusion.  Author Carolyn Hart discusses the solace that good books can provide in hard times, and Lawrence Block remembers the colorful bank-robber-turned-crime-writer Albert Nussbaum. If you need gift ideas, you can check out the annual Mystery Scene Gift Guide.

Zine Scene

Most of the crime fiction print magazines and ezines operate on the financial edge or are purely labors of love, but they bravely keep cranking out new reviews, news, articles and stories for you, so drop by and check out the latest from:

Back Alley Web Zine has short new fiction by O’Neil De Noux, Anita Page, Mark Joseph Kiewlak, Wayne D. Dundee, Simon Wood, Fred Zackel, and the final installment of a seven-part serialization of Frank Norris' 1899 noir novel, McTeague. Editor Richard Helms also has a tribute to crime-fiction personalites we've lost this year.

Beat to a Pulp's latest story is "Outback Gothic" by Chap O'Keefe.

Crime Factory has a variety of stories and articles, as well an interview with veteran Australian crime-writer, Garry Disher.

Crimespree #38 features Rants and Raves from Robert Randisi (and some alliteration, too!); an interview by Ruth Jordan of author Denise Mina; the whimsically titled short story, "A Crab, a Rustler and an Ostrich" by Edward J McFadden III; and the usual interesting array of columns and reviews.

Gumshoe Review has Joe Posner taking a look at "Female Movie Investigators"; Drew Bittner reviewing the first season of the new BBC Sherlock Holmes mini-series; and you'll find a slew of columns and book reviews.

Mysterical-E's fall issue includes stories by 13 authors; columns by Gerald So on the new TV crime series, and Halloween reads by Chris Verstraete; and essays from Jan Christenson and Byron McAllister.

Spinetingler is ongoing and currently has the reprinted story "Going Humbly" by David Corbett and reviews of books by Reed Farrel Coleman, Dennis Lehane, Carolyn Rose, Ken Bruen, Brian Garfield, Don Winslow, and a look at the HBO series Boardwalk Empire.

Suspense magazine's November issue features the "Five Senses of Fear and Suspense" by David Morrell, Brad Thor, R.L. Stine, Graham Masterton and Alan Jacobson and an article on the "Top 10 Medical Mistakes" writers make, by D.P. Lyle.

Thrillers, Killers and Chillers' latest story is from Darren Saint, titled "The Cage." 

Twist of Noir continues its 600+ word challenge with #620, "The Fall Girl," by Cindy Rosmus. 

A Thrilling Detective Finale (of Sorts)

Kevin Burton Smith, editor of The Thrilling Detective, is making some changes to his illustrious and informative 'zine/site. Unfortunately, but understandably, he feels he can no longer include original stories and excerpts. He will continue to maintain the wonderful archive of information there, which includes detective and author bios and bibliographies, detectives on radio, TV and film, trivia, polls, articles and links galore, as well as news of happenings in the P.I. world. A lot of blood, sweat and tears went on crafting that site (and lack of sleep — "We never sleep. Or at least, not well.")

Burton is looking for news on upcoming theatrical P.I. films and DVD releases. He's also hoping to expand non-fiction and review sections and encourages interested (and interesting) parties to send along ideas.