The Short Mystery Fiction Society Blog
From the group keeping mystery & crime stories in the public eye since 1996
Thursday, January 26, 2023
Criminal Minds: Six Bits of Writing Advice from James W. Ziskin
Wednesday, January 25, 2023
SMFS Member Publishing News: Melon CollieBaby by John M. Floyd
SMFS list member John M. Floyd’s short story, Melon
CollieBaby, appears in the January 25, 2023, issue of the weekly newsletter, Texas
Gardener’s Seeds. You can read it online for free here.
SMFS Member Publishing News: List of Contributors by Twist Phelan
Twist Phelan’s short story, List of Contributors,
appears in The Dark City Crime and Mystery Magazine: Volume 8, Issue 2,
January 2023, issue. Published by The Dark City Magazine, the
read is available at Amazon.
Publisher Description:
In this issue of The Dark City a father decides the fate of his troubled son, and a
video store employee is seduced by his dark side.
In the world of crime novel fandom, a famous novelist
is murdered and the clues embedded in a crime magazine's List of Contributors.
Finally, an addict seeks the end of the road, and a
troubled young criminal deals with a bad case of nerves....
Welcome to the darker side of reality.
Welcome to The Dark City.
SMFS Member Publishing News: A Scarab for Normandy by Gerald Elias
Gerald Elias’s short story, A Scarab for Normandy, appears in the anthology, Coolest American Stories 2023. Published by Coolest Stories Press earlier this month, the book is available in digital and print formats at Amazon and other vendors.
Amazon Description:
America’s most talented storytellers share their most
interesting, engaging, unputdownable work in a collection made for story
lovers.
Praised early on by numerous award-winning and
bestselling authors, COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES 2023 is the second volume of the
annual short story anthology whose guiding philosophy is that a collection of
widely appealing short stories can make for common ground that could unite
rather than divide Americans.
Toward this end, COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES 2023
features a previously uncollected heartbreaking story by Morgan Talty, author
of the widely acclaimed Night of the Living Rez; a witty story about growing up
fast by widely published crime writer Nikki Dolson; and a candid tale about
motherhood in the wake of tragedy by T.E. Wilderson.
And since interesting storytelling―rather than a bunch
of publishing credits―matters most to story-hungry readers, COOLEST AMERICAN
STORIES 2023 also includes a page-turner about celebrity stalking written by
brand new author Georgia Smith; a previously unpublished and sensual story
about love versus the American Dream by up-and-coming author Patricia García
Luján; and R.C. Goodwin's striking tale about a dying parent's wish―among others
in this treasure trove of unputdownable, sharply written, sometimes comic,
sometimes frightening, always suspenseful stories loaded with twists and turns.
SMFS Member Publishing News: The Competition by Veronica Leigh
Veronica Leigh’s short story, The Competition, appears
in the recently released book, Night Terrors Vol. 24: Short Horror Stories Anthology.
Published by Scare Street, the read is now available in digital and print
formats at Amazon and other vendors.
Amazon Description:
Turn page after page of relentless terror…
An old piece of pottery holds an ancient evil within,
until a man and his daughter unwittingly release it into the world. A private
chauffeur picks up a very strange passenger, who reveals something terrifying
lurking along the dark night roads, just out of sight. And justice hunts down a
terrified man, when he discovers his ancestor may have committed a gruesome
crime…
Scare Street is proud to present fourteen diabolical
new tales in this bone-chilling collection. Each ghastly page unleashes a new
nightmare, ripped from the depths of your psyche.
It’s almost as if this book has a mind of its own; a
monstrous, disturbed mind, a mind full of dark dreams, and twisted nightmares.
It wants to make you shiver with fear. It longs to
hear you scream.
And it knows exactly what scares you…
This volume features the following stories:
1. Twist the Lid by Gordon Grice
2. Arthur's Wish by Daniel Conyers
3. A Girl of Peculiar Taste by S. C. Vincent
4. Carved in Dreams by J. Anthony Hartley
5. Rough Waters by Corey Niles
6. Hellbender by Phil Keeling
7. High Beams by A. K. McCarthy
8. Ido by John Joseph Ryan
9. Hour of the Witch by Frederick Pangbourne
10. This Girl I Used to Know by Suki Litchfield
11. The Competition by Veronica Leigh
12. The Likeness of a Murderer by Simon Lee-Price
13. The Other Cassandra Went Insane by Shannon Frost
Greenstein
14. The Child Thief by Ron Ripley and Kevin Saito
Tuesday, January 24, 2023
SMFS Member Publishing News: Four Leaf Cleaver: A Country Store Mystery by Maddie Day/Edith Maxwell
Today is publication day for SMFS list member Edith
Maxwell’s new book, Four Leaf Cleaver: A Country Store Mystery.
Writing as Maddie Day, the book is published by Kensington
Books. The book is available in print, audio, and digital formats, from Amazon
and other vendors. This is the eleventh book in the series that began with Flipped
For Murder.
Description:
The eleventh installment in Maddie Day’s deliciously
popular Country Store cozy mysteries . . . It’s Saint Patrick’s Day in South Lick, Indiana, but a holiday cooking
competition at Robbie Jordan’s country store and restaurant Pans ’N Pancakes is
put on the back-burner when a killer strikes.
There’s no mistaking Saint Patrick’s Day at Pans ’N
Pancakes. Robbie may only be Irish by marriage to Abe O’Neill, but the shelves
of vintage cookware in her southern Indiana store are draped with glittery
shamrocks and Kelly-green garlands and her restaurant is serving shepherd’s pie
and Guinness Beer brownies. The big event, however, is a televised cooking
competition to be filmed on site.
Unfortunately, someone’s luck has run out. Before the
cameras start rolling, tough-as-nails producer Tara O’Hara Moore is found
upstairs in her B&B room, bludgeoned apparently by the heavy hilt of a
cleaver left by her side. Now, not only does Robbie have a store full of
festive decorations, she’s got a store full of suspects . . .
SMFS Members Published in Dark Yonder: Issue 1
Today is publication day for three SMFS list members
who have short stories in Dark Yonder: Issue 1. Published by Thalia
Press, the read is available in digital and print formats at Amazon.
Craig Faustus Buck with "Home Game."
Mike McHone with "Perforation of a Moment."
P.M. Raymond with "The Entitled Life and Untimely
Death of King Booker."
Amazon Description:
Don’t miss out on Issue 1 of DARK YONDER, a new
literary journal that’s pushing the boundaries of neo noir. Issue 1 includes a
killer cocktail recipe, commentary by editors and crime fiction authors Eryk
Pruitt and Katy Munger, plus the best of dark fiction today:
The Twenty-One Foot Rule by Nick Mamatas
Home Game by Craig Faustus Buck
Beni by Gregg Williard
The Worst Game of Baseball Ever Played by Adam
Breckenridge
Perforation of a Moment by Mike McHone
Dorothy by Anna Kristiansen
Or Not to Be by Johnny Shaw
The Entitled Life and Untimely Death of King Booker by
P.M. Raymond
Verna Maxell by Dana King
A Harvest of Malice by Matt McHugh
This is not your grandfather’s noir. Forget
middle-aged alcoholics in bad jackets roaming the mean streets of L.A. in
search of redemption and a bonus roll in the hay with a duplicitous dame. The
debut issue of DARK YONDER takes a look at the dark side of modern life,
including sibling rivalry, the shelf life of marriage, our culture of greed,
violence as entertainment, child soldiers, obsessive love gone wrong, and so
much more.