In Reference to Murder

Mystery Markets

I have some good market/bad market magazine submission news for writers to report:

Good:  A newer market you might not be aware of, Thrillers, Killers 'n' Chillers takes stories of no more than 2,500 words for their e-zine. No payment, but some good exposure.

Bad:  Thuglit is no longer accepting submissions. No word yet on whether this means the end of this wonderful publication, or just a hiatus due to backlog.

As always, for plenty of additional short-story markets, check out Sandra Seamans' excellent blog resource.

Mag-Nificent

The Mystery Scene Magazine's summer issue has a feature article on Michael Koryta by Kevin Burton Smith. Koryta's latest novel So Cold the River is a dark thriller with supernatural overtones and reaches into new territory for the author. Other interview subjects include Stefanie Pintoff who just won an Edgar Award for her debut novel, In the Shadow of Gotham; Carolyn Hart, who discusses her long and successful career; and Clifford B. Hicks who talks about his creation, Alvin Fernald, the Magnificent Brain and whiz kid detective who is returning to bookstores. Courtroom fiction expert Jon L. Breen also offers an overview of Scott Turow's entire career, including the new sequel to Presumed Innocent, and Lawrence Block remembers the eccentric Henry Kane, best known as the creator of Peter Chambers, a tough but urbane New York P.I., a series popular in the middle of the 20th century.

 

The Litopia Writers' Colony has launched their first quarterly literary journal, Muse, with interviews including Lee Child, RJ Ellory, Bernard Cornwell and Charlaine Harris. In addition to interviews, Muse contains articles, reviews and short fiction, as well as "a writers' agony column with the irate (and somewhat batty) Granny Bates, an anonymous Stig-like publishing guru." Litopia founder, London-based literary agent Peter Cox, said of the new venture: "The publishing climate is undergoing a radical transformation, particularly the relentless rise of online media set against the decline in printed media, and Muse positions Litopia at the forefront of this changing climate." 

Bring Your Shorts

Here are a couple of interesting and unusual (to say the least) anthology possibilities for writers:

Ransom: Give Me What I Want And I’ll Go Away (Maybe) is taking submissions for suspenseful stories of intrigue, mystery, espionage, and of course, ransom. They're looking for creative insight, not traditional mystery and suspense, stories that "make us question everyone's purpose, make us look at the darker side of the world, and wonder why."

And in what is possibly one of the most WTF? writing prompts to come along in awhile, John Scalzi, Wil Wheaton and Subterranean Press are running a fan fiction contest. Submissions need to be 400 to 2,000 words and describe the picture to the left (click on the image for a larger version—I really love the clown shirt). This is a paying market, but best of all, proceeds will benefit the Lupus Foundation of America.

New Noir

Akashic Books is releasing the latest in their "city noir" series in June, Indian Country Noir, edited by Sarah Cortez and Liz Martinez and Moscow Noir, edited by Natalia Smirnova and Julia Goumen.

The first book features a mix of authors with Indian heritage or blood and non-Indian authors, including Mistina Bates, Jean Rae Baxter, Lawrence Block, Joseph Bruchac, David Cole, Reed Farrel Coleman, O'Neil De Noux, A.A. Hedge Coke, Gerard Houarner, Liz Martinez, R. Narvaez, Kimberly Roppolo, Leonard Schonberg and Melissa Yi. The publisher invites readers to "Enter into the dark welter of troubled history throughout the Americas where the heritage of violence meets the ferocity of intent. The protagonists of these stories - whichever side of the law they're on - use their familiarity with Indian cultures to accomplish goals ranging from chilling murder to a satisfying participation in the criminal justice system."

The second anthology, Moscow Noir, features stories by a group of authors who certainly sound the part:  Alexander Anuchkin, Igor Zotov, Gleb Shulpyakov, Vladimir Tuchkov, Anna Starobinets, Vyacheslav Kuritsyn, Sergei Samsonov, Alexei Evdokimov, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, Maxim Maximov, Irina Denezhkina, Dmitry Kosyrev, Andrei Khusnutdinov and Sergei Kuznetsov. Even though Russia doesn't have a noir literary tradition per se, one could argue that the country's long history of suffering, oppression and conflict is the very definition of noir, with the stories in this anthology "an attempt to show its fetid womb and make sense of the desolation that reigns there."

Anthology Melange

Yesterday, I featured the fine anthology of Irish crime fiction, Requiems for the Departed, edited by Gerard Brennan and Mike Stone. There are some other anthologies and collections that have just recently been released you might also look for:

Delta Blues, edited by Carolyn Haines, has 19 crime blues-themed tales set in and around the America's Mississippi Delta region, by Ace Atkins, James Lee Burke, John Grisham, Charlaine Harris, Les Standiford and others. As actor Morgan Freeman says in his intro, "Like the blues, these tales move and shift over the character of human nature. They combine an element of crime or noir with the world of the blues. A partnership that is easy to understand. Both are messy, and they both tell about pain." Sales benefit the Rock River Foundation, an educational grant-matching organization created by Freeman. 

Hook, Line & Sinister: Mysteries to Reel You In, with 16 stories edited by T. Jefferson Parker. "From the tragic to the comic with many stops in between, these stories reflect the authors' passions for both making stories and catching fish." Contributors include Michael Connelly, Ridley Pearson, James W. Hall and John Lescroart, with sales aiding Casting for Recovery  (a group that helps women cancer survivors to heal body and soul through fly-fishing) and Project Healing Waters (which does the same for our returning veterans).

The Columbo Collection by William Link (the co-creator of Columbo and other classic TV shows) has 14 new stories about Lt. Columbo, the iconic policeman from the 1970s hit TV series starring Peter Falk, published by Crippen & Landru.

The Dark End of the Street, edited by Jonathan Santlofer and S.J. Rozan, with 19 stories about sex and crime culled from "both banks of the stream dividing crime writing and literary writing" by Lawrence Block, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Laura Lippman, Joyce Carol Oates et al.

Requiems for the Departed

Gerard Brennan, he of the excellent Irish-themed crime fiction blog Crime Scene N.I., has joined with Mike Stone in editing an anthology of short stories by some of the top Irish authors writing today. All of the 17 stories in Requiems for the Departed are inspired by Irish mythology (not in a supernatural way, for the most part), but you don't have to be an expert on the subject to enjoy the stories—and the authors helpfully summarize each myth for you at the beginning of their tale to bring you up to speed. They're divided into three semi-geographical headings, Ulster, Myth, and Fianna.

Stuart Nevill's "Queen of the Hill" starts things off with a bang of noir (literally), based on the legend of Macha, goddess of ancient Ireland and one of the original femme fatales. Tony Black's "Hound of Culann" and Arlene Hunt's "Sliabh Ban" are stories with animal themes, Hunt's focusing on a woman scorned in love and horse-racing. Two authors have series characters from their novels making appearances—Sam Millar's hard-boiled P.I. Karl Kane who chases down the elusive "Red Hand of Ulster" serial killer (a story to be expanded into a Millar novel in 2011) and Brian McGilloway's Inspector Benedict Devlin, in a story drawing from the myth of the poet Finnegas and the Salmon of Knowledge as Devlin tracks a murderous fish poacher.

As Brennan says, "The children of Conchobar are back to their old mischievous ways. Ancient Celtic royalty, druids and banshees are set loose in the new Irish underbelly with murder and mayhem on their minds." Settle in for a feast of crime fiction, with a tasting of Celtic mythology on the side, in Requiems for the Departed (due out June 1st) and enjoy the offerings from Ken Bruen, Maxim Jakubowski, Adrian McKinty, John Grant, Garry Kilworth, T.A. Moore and others.

Out of the Gutter

The magazine Out of the Gutter, the brainchild of editor Matt Louis and a self-styled "Modern Journal of Pulp Fiction and Degenerative Literature," is going strong and seeking submissions for its seventh print issue. But that's not all: Louis is branching out into book publishing with the Gutter Books line. One of the first offerings is an anthology of stories from the magazine, but there are a few others, including Dodging Bullets by Joe McKinney, who works as a homicide detective with the San Antonio Police Department when he's not writing. As far as thematic material for both magazine and books is concerned, Matt Louis adds, "I don't limit subject matter. That's the exploration that's going on. Anything goes, just as long as it's well-executed."

A Little Crime by Moonlight

I mentioned the latest Mystery Writers of America anthology recently, but wanted to add some additional info. For those who don't know, the MWA publishes short-story anthologies every two years or so, with half of the stories commissioned from MWA members and the other half chosen via open member submissions. Previous titles have included The Blue Religion, edited by Michael Connelly and Death Do Us Part, edited by Harlan Coben. The 2010 installment is Crimes by Moonlight, edited by Charlaine Harris.

As you can guess from the title, plus the choice of Harris as editor, this particular anthology's theme surrounded "mysteries from the dark side," or even more specifically, those with a paranormal slant. In addition to some well-known names—William Kent Kruger, Margaret Maron, Carolyn Hart, Barbara D'Amato, for example—there are some new kids on the block. Leigh Lundin recently gave a well-deserved glowing review to a story by one of these authors, Terrie Farley Moran, who was also included in Otto Penzler’s Best American Mystery Stories of 2009.  Moran is also part of the Women of Mystery blog, and fellow member Clare Toohey will be chatting more about the anthology there tomorrow, as well as offering a giveaway for five free copies of the anthology, so be sure and check the site for more details.

If you are lucky enough to win a copy, you'll want to turn out the lights (except for one of those book lights, natch), and sink your teeth into stories of vampires, sorcerers, an interesting Frankenstinian take on the Mike Hammer series by Max Allan Collins/Mickey Spillane, and Moran's original banshee tale. In the tradition of a good chilling spinetingler, most of these offerings have surprise endings, like William Kent Krueger's tale of a journalist tracking down a cold case of missing boys or Jack Fredrickson's noirish horror riff on a street musician and thief who learns the perils of being greedy. Even if you're not a fan of paranormal crime fiction, these well-crafted stories are certain to win you over.

Stories for Our Troops

Tony Burton just announced that this year's charity anthology from Wolfmont Press is getting a different theme and look. Titled Murder to Mil-Spec, the project is seeking crime-story submissions involving military personnel or vets but not those portraying them as evil for simply for doing their jobs. Proceeds from book sales will benefit the organization Homes for Our Troops, which is "strongly committed to helping those who have selflessly given to our country and have returned home with serious disabilities and injuries since September 11, 2001."

Burton, himself a veteran, will use a 50-50 mix of invited contributions and open submissions, although he cautions that since this is a charitable venture, authors won't be paid except in contributor copies and will be expected to vigorously help promote the book. However, not only will you be helping a good cause, these charity anthologies are developing a stellar reputation: The 2008 anthology, Dying In a Winter Wonderland, was the only small-press title in the IMBA's Top Ten Bestseller list for the year, and stories from the 2009 anthology, The Gift of Murder, are currently finalists for the Agatha, Arthur Ellis, and Derringer Awards.

A Spring Bouquet of Anthologies

Of course, given the subject matter involved with those spring anthologies, this bouquet probably contains bloodroot, wolfsbane  and deadly nightshade.

The first posy is Chesapeake Crimes IV: They Had It Comin', edited by Donna Andrews, Barb Goffman and Marcia Talley, with all stories based on the theme of revenge, or as author Katharine Neville says in the foreword, "Each of us has doubtless gone a round or two with someone whom we secretly felt deserved more than a small dose of Divine Justice. This probably explains why most of us can't help but smile upon hearing that somebody who 'done us wrong' has, at long last, gotten his 'just desserts.'" So go ahead and get a little bit of vicarious catharsis from the 20 stories by Donna Andrews, Karen Cantwell, Trish Carrico, Mary Ann Corrigan, Carla Coupe, Meriah Crawford, Barb Goffman, Sasscer Hill, Mary Ellen Hughes, Smita H. Jain, Audrey Liebross, C. Ellett Logan, Debbi Mack, G. M. Malliet, Ann McMillan, Bonner Menking, Helen Schwartz, Shelley Shearer, Lisa M. Tillman and yours truly. The book launch is this Saturday, April 10th, in Reston, Virginia.

The Mystery Writers of America released their latest anthology, Crimes by Moonlight, with a launch party coming up on April 27th at The Mysterious Bookshop in New York where contributors Dana Cameron, Parnell Hall, SW Hubbard, Toni Kelner, Martin Meyers, Terrie Farley Moran, Jeffrey Somers and Mike Wiecek will be attending. Edited by Charlaine Harris, the collection features crime fiction with a supernatural theme, and as you might expect, vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and magicians are all present and accounted for. Other authors include Steve Brewer, Max Allan Collins (with a touch of Mickey Spillane), Barbara D'Amato, Brendan DuBois, Jack Fredrickson, Carolyn Hart, Lou Kemp, William Kent Kreuger, Harley Jane Kozak, Margaret Mahon, Martin Meyers and Elaine Viets. 

Akashic Books released the latest installments in their "city noir" series this month, Los Angeles Noir 2 and Orange County Noir. The LA Noir book features classic tales from the likes of Raymond Chandler, James Ellroy, Ross MacDonald, Walter Mosley and Margaret Millar, while the Orange County book shows how there's a dark side even to California's sunniest county (crime in Disneyland, anyone?). Edited by Gary Phillips, with a foreword by T. Jefferson Parker, contributors include Mary Castillo, Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, Dan Duling, Robert S. Levinson, Dick Lochte, Lawrence Maddox, Gordon McAlpine, Patricia McFall, Rob Roberge, Martin J. Smith, Susan Straight, Nathan Walpow and Robert Ward.