Member Lori Rader-Day wins Simon & Schuster-Mary Higgins Clark Award

Announced last night at the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar® Awards, SMFS member Lori Rader-Day won the Simon & Schuster-Mary Higgins Clark Award for her novel Little Pretty Things:



The winner is selected by a Special MWA Committee for the book most closely written in the Mary Higgins Clark Tradition according to guidelines set forth by Mary Higgins Clark:

• The protagonist is a nice young woman whose life is suddenly invaded.
• She’s self-made and independent, with primarily good family relationships.
• She has an interesting job.
• She is not looking for trouble–she is doing exactly what she should be doing and something cuts across her bow.
• She solves her problem by her own courage and intelligence.
• The story has no on-scene violence
• The story has no strong profanity or explicit sex scenes.

Edgar® statuettes

Short story news from the Edgars®:

• Stephen King won Best Short Story for "Obits", appearing in Bazaar of Bad Dreams (Simon & Schuster - Scribner):
  
  


• Russell W. Johnson won the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award for "Chung Ling Soo’s Greatest Trick", appearing in the January 2016 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine:
  
  
  
  The winner is selected by the Best Short Story committee for the best published mystery short story by a previously unpublished American author.

Congratulations to all.

New Flash and Bang Trailer

As part of the ongoing effort to promote the SMFS's first member anthology, I've created a book trailer using the book cover designed by Ginny Glass and No Copyright Music's Creative Commons-licensed track "Lock & Load".

Clicking YouTube's thumbs-up icon or sharing the video on social media is a simple way anyone can help promote the book.

Waco Tribune-Herald profiles 2016 Golden Derringer recipient Michael Bracken

Michael Bracken

Texas's Waco Tribune-Herald profiled SMFS member and Waco resident Michael Bracken, highlighting his receiving the Society's 2016 Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for lifetime achievement.

One clarification: The article's caption below a photo of Michael calls us "the national Short Mystery Fiction Society". Actually, our membership is worldwide.

Society Members' News

The following members sent in publication news this month:

• Jayne Barnard, Maddie Hatter and the Deadly Diamond audiobook will go live April 30.
• Mysti Berry, "The Johnny Depp Kickline of Doom", Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (June 2016)
• Peter DiChellis, "Please Remain Calm", Flash Bang Mysteries #3 (Spring, April 2016)
• Catherine Dilts, "The Chemistry of Heroes," Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine (May 2016)
• Gail Farrelly, "In Your Easter Bonnet", The Yonkers Tribune (March 28, 2016)
• John M. Floyd, "Pros and Cons", Woman's World (April 18, 2016)

• Debra H. Goldstein, "Lesson Learned", Akashic Books Terrible Twosdays (March 29, 2016)
• Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery (Five Star, April 20, 2016)

• Paul Lees-Haley, “Flash Bang”, Shotgun Honey (April 26, 2016)
• Robert Lopresti, "Shanks Goes Rogue", Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine (May 2016)
• Terrie Farley Moran, "A Killing at the Beausoleil", Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (November 2015) has been nominated for an Agatha Award for Best Short Story.
• Jennifer Soosar, "Profane Pilgrims", Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (May 2016)

Email news for next month's post to G_SO at YAHOO dot COM.

The Society Celebrates 20 Years: Kate Grilley

In the first week of April 1996, the members of shortmystery-l-digest voted to become the Short Mystery Fiction Society, with goals of better representing mystery & crime short stories in the public eye.


In honor of the Society's establishment and our twenty years increasing publication and regard for the form, President Jan Christensen has invited members' reflections on joining the Society and why they've remained members and fans of the form.

From Kate Grilley:

[First SMFS president] Margo Power was my guardian angel, my friend and the first publisher of my mystery fiction. I will forever be grateful to her for publishing my short stories in Murderous Intent. Winning a Derringer award in 1998 was a honor I will always treasure.

Happy 20th birthday to SMFS!


Kate Grilley served as SMFS vice president and publicity chief 1996–'98. She is the author of three Kelly Ryan Caribbean-set mystery novels and, under the name Kate Borden, three Peggy Jean Turner New England-set mystery novels.

Join the celebration: Email G_SO at YAHOO dot COM the text and links to be included in your blog post.

The Society Celebrates 20 Years: Gerald So

In the first week of April 1996, the members of shortmystery-l-digest voted to become the Short Mystery Fiction Society, with goals of better representing mystery & crime short stories in the public eye.


In honor of the Society's establishment and our twenty years increasing publication and regard for the form, President Jan Christensen has invited members' reflections on joining the Society and why they've remained members and fans of the form.

Here's my reflection:

I've always had an affinity for short stories. One of my favorites is Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart", which I first heard as a sixth-grader on a field trip to a high school production with sound effects of the heart beating through the stage floor.

In the summer of 1993, between my freshman and sophomore years in college, I committed myself to writing as a career, giving up video games so I'd have more time to read. After a handful of thrillers, I branched out to crime fiction, and it's been most of my reading pleasure ever since. I joined Shortmystery along with other mystery fiction lists such as DorothyL and spenser-l, hoping to soak up knowledge of the genre that way as well.

I became actively involved in the SMFS in 2001. Fellow member Kevin Burton Smith had brought me in to edit the original fiction section of The Thrilling Detective Web Site, and I submitted our stories for the Society's Derringer Awards. In my eight years at Thrilling Detective, four of our stories became Derringer finalists and three won.

In the meantime, I'd created and moderated my own discussion lists DetecToday (about P.I. fiction since 1980), Spenser's Sneakers (about Robert B. Parker), and CrimeSeen (about TV and movies). They gave me the confidence to run for SMFS president in 2008.

Like my friend Kevin, who some years earlier had taken over running the SMFS's public website from Robert K. Foster, I had goals of improving overall organization. Upon winning the 2008–10 presidency, I created the SMFS Blog to centralize information from the Society's message archives and previous websites and publicly record policy decisions during my term. Knowing such an overhaul would meet resistance, I was open to feedback onlist, via the group's Polls feature, and by offlist email.

My vice president Jim Doherty had his own goals for the Society, creating and presenting physical Derringer awards at Bouchercon (the World Mystery Convention), resuming and rededicating the Golden Derringer lifetime achievement award in memory of the esteemed Edward D. Hoch, and establishing a Hall of Fame to honor deceased writers of importance to the form. Some of these ideas met resistance as well, but undoubtedly they've raised the Society's profile and that of short mystery fiction as a whole.

Jim and I didn't run for re-election, wanting to yield to members with fresh ideas for the Society, and to see how well our term's accomplishments stood without us.

2012–2014, I served as longtime member Tom Sweeney's vice president, taking on more of a support and advisory role. Toward the end of that term, we created the SMFS Anthology Plans group, which yielded the first SMFS-member anthology, Flash and Bang from Untreed Reads, in October 2015.

Today I maintain the SMFS Blog and @SMFSocy Twitter account, and remain active in the Anthology and Awards Plans groups. I think my experience with the Society proves anyone's talents can contribute uniquely to a larger cause. Through the Society, I've been able to do more for the cause of mystery & crime stories than I ever thought possible. I encourage you to get involved.


Gerald So was fiction editor for The Thrilling Detective Web Site 2001–09. He served as SMFS president 2008–10 and vice president 2012–14. He currently edits The Five-Two crime poetry weekly.

Join the celebration: Email G_SO at YAHOO dot COM the text and links to be included in your blog post.

The Society Celebrates 20 Years

In the first week of April 1996, the members of shortmystery-l-digest voted to become the Short Mystery Fiction Society, with goals of better representing mystery & crime short stories in the public eye.


In honor of the Society's establishment and our twenty years increasing publication and regard for the form, President Jan Christensen has invited members' reflections on joining the Society and why they've remained members and fans of the form.

Jan herself writes:

I've been a member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society since 1999, and it has helped me in the past and continues to help me a lot with my writing career.

If you like to write short mystery fiction stories, there’s no better group around for all kinds of advice, encouragement, and marketing news.

The group is made up of beginning writers, writers who have published a few stories, and many who have published quite a few stories. We discuss reading, writing, especially short storiesm, of course, mysteries, getting published, and sometimes branch out into other areas of interest to the group.

Some of our best discussion, I think, is about the craft of writing short stories. Especially the mysterious kind. We talk about technique, building characters, grammar, point of view, plotting, and many other topics.

We also share our triumphs (getting published and where), new markets, award opportunities and those given out.

You'll get to "talk" to writers who will become very well known to you over time. We have our own "characters" in the group, and reading what they have to say is always fascinating to me.

You'll be able to be part of the Derringer Awards process—submitting your own or someone else's short stories, perhaps judging, then reading the finalists' stories and voting for the winners.

I joined back in 1999, and quickly felt at home. I know you will, too.

Why not give us a try?


Current Society president Jan Christensen has had over sixty short stories, mostly mysteries, published over the years since just before she joined the group. The encouragement and knowledge she's found here is a big part of her success. Visit her website: www.janchristensen.com

Join the celebration: Email G_SO at YAHOO dot COM the text and links to be included in your blog post.