A gang of Short Mystery Fiction Society members joined up for breakfast at Left Coast Crime today. Here are some of our most photogenic colleagues.
Saturday, February 28, 2026
Monday, February 23, 2026
SMFS Spotlight: Cheryl Head
Elena Smith is back with another interview with one of the all-star writers from the Short Mystery Fiction Society. In the spotlight this time is Cheryl Head, an immensely talented author in the genres of both crime and historical fiction (and, as was announced just a few weeks ago, winner of this year's Saints and Sinners Literary Festival fiction contest with her story "By Any Other Name").. Among her works are the Charlie Mack Motown Mysteries (subject of a question on Jeopardy!) and the novel Time's Undoing, based on her own family history, which was a finalist for the Anthony, Macavity and Agatha awards and the Los Angeles Book Prize. For my money, she's one of the most important writers working in the mystery field today, and it's an honor to have her in SMFS. Take it away, Elena!
Before you turned to writing full time, you had a distinguished career as a television producer. What was the impetus that made you leave the corporate world and turn to writing full time? How easy - or hard - has that been?
I had a very fulfilling career in public media, and worked in both public television and public radio for three decades at the local and national levels. I was a radio reporter/producer in Detroit; Vice President of Production at the Detroit public television station; and Senior Vice President of Administration at WETA in Washington, DC. I was writing all the time - grants, scripts, essays, Congressional testimony, and yes, I even wrote a pledge break, or two. But my last job in public media, as a grant maker and program executive at the now defunded Corporation for Public Broadcasting, became less enjoyable - and very stressful - because of the politics surrounding our work. I started writing my first novel during my last couple of years in public broadcasting, as a creative outlet.
I had to flex a lot of new muscles to write fiction, and I’m still growing in the craft, but I’ve always been a very good storyteller.
Did your previous career affect your writing in any way? Did it open doors for you, or did you find yourself starting from scratch (or should I say “jump” ;-) )?
Absolutely. I use all my experiences from my media career - the travel, the meetings, the people I’ve met along the way - to inform my plots, characters and dialogue. I’ve traveled to five of the seven continents, and I’m always amazed at how the world’s people are more alike than unalike (as Maya Angelou’s poem says). But, I will say navigating the business side of writing and publishing was like starting from “jump” or to do you one better from Detroit slang: from the “git-go”. As a writer, in today’s publishing landscape, it helps to be adept at marketing, publicity, and social media. As a former television producer I learned that, but the thing that’s different now is the explosion of platforms to do that promotion, and the shrinking attention spans of audiences bombarded with all that content.
On your website, https://www.cherylhead.com/ your fiction novel “Time’s Undoing” was inspired by real events in your family. Was this a difficult story to write? Why or why not?
Yes. It was difficult to write. At the same time, it made me a better writer. I think I’m equally balanced at right-brain and left-brain processing. I can really get as turned on by analyzing a budget (I know. Please don’t judge me. LOL), as writing a pithy scene of dialogue. Before Time’s Undoing, I was very much a plotter. However, the novel was so personal (it’s a fictionalized retelling of the murder of my grandfather, by Birmingham, Alabama police, in the Jim Crow era of 1929) that I wrote the chapters that are in my grandfather’s voice, organically. It was challenging. But I was very motivated by the anger I felt when George Floyd was killed. I began writing Time’s Undoing the day after that tragic event.
Did you do a lot of research into your own past, or did you just write from the heart?
I did an extraordinary amount of research. I always do for my crime fiction series, but for that project it was a daily, 3-4 hours routine of searches through newspaper databases, Ancestry.com records, library archives, and conducting oral history interviews. Through that effort, I was able to acquire my grandfather’s death certificate which my family had never had, and I discovered a tiny newspaper account of his death. The book is constructed in dual timelines. For the historical chapters, I immersed myself in the research, set it aside, and wrote from my heart, and soul.
You have published both short stories and fiction. Do you have a preference, or do you let your story tell you how much you need to say? When you get a notion, how soon do you know if it will become a short story or a novel?
I think I have a preference for the short story, and I have dozens of unpublished shorts I’ve written over twenty years. I first fell in love with mystery/crime fiction as a teenager reading Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue, and The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell, and by the time I read Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, I was convinced that a well-written short story can have such emotional heft that it can change the way you think about the world. I know if I’m setting out to write a short story, or a novel. But, I’ve written a recent short story that members of my writers group tell me should be a novel. We’ll see.
What has been your best experience as a writer?
I hope to have many rewarding experiences as a writer, but for now I’m simply thrilled anytime my characters want to talk to me. It’s happened a few times. Usually, it’s just a whisper that I shouldn’t forget about them. But, the first time it happened, a character announced to me as I was waking up one morning, that he was gay. I remember sitting up in bed and saying aloud: “What?” I was three-quarters through my first novel, about Black soldiers in World War II, and I had to go back and change a lot of the book.
You are a triple minority - female, black and gay. How much does this impact your work, and in what way(s), if any?
As I’ve gotten older, I think of being Black, female and queer as being a triple threat. Like a Broadway performer who can act, sing, and dance. Or a college athlete who plays football, basketball, and runs track and field. I’ve learned to embrace all these aspects of my personality, and don’t think of it as having minority status. Instead, it’s a superpower which gives me at least three different ways of viewing the world, and my place in it, and it also gives me a lot of leeway as a writer. Not all my stories have queer characters, but a lot of them do. My novels primarily have female protagonists, but I adore writing my male characters, and I have the most fun with them. My writing will always be informed by the diversity and inclusion of our world, and I’m
not about to stop using either of those powerful words. They must have power, else why are there those who want to eradicate them?
I have not read all of your work, so forgive me if this is a stupid question: Have you ever written from a perspective that is not your own? (I.e. - men write from a female POV, whites write as people of color) If you have, how hard or easy did you think it was, and why?
Yes. And it’s a very valid question right now. I’ve written, for instance, about a trans woman in my Charlie Mack Motown Mysteries. I got in her head, and she in mine, as we navigated that story. I liked her very much, but I had some anxious moments writing her. I’m very careful when either writing about, or from the POV of, a person different than me. When I do I lead with humility, and ask for help. I always seek out a couple of sensitivity readers - and I pay them. 
As someone who started her literary career after a corporate career, is there any advice you would give to people who are just starting their journey?
We all have stories in us. Some of us must get those stories out into the world. We’re called writers. My corporate career helped me with the discipline needed to get the work done. Writing, and getting better at it, requires practice and consistency. I can’t tell you how often the body memory of my media work gets me to the finish line of a novel. Once you’ve had the job of getting a live newscast on the air at 10 p.m., as I’ve done, having a two-week deadline on a manuscript edit is child’s play.
Who would you recommend that I interview next? (Feel free to name more than one person)
I would recommend Curtis Ippolito a writer based in California.He's recently edited an anthology of crime/mystery stories about climate change, and won the best short story Anthony Award in New Orleans. Ann Aptaker is queer crime fiction writer--a wonderful wordsmith-who has works in several Best Of short story mystery anthologies, and Fay Snowden, novelist and short story writer. She's an amazing writer, and smart person.
Sunday, February 8, 2026
More Recent Publications from the Short Mystery Fiction Society
Still hiding out from the cold? Got some time before the next Olympics event you plan to watch? What better way to spend your time than with the talented writers of the Short Mystery Fiction Society? Read on for just some of the stellar work they've put out to kick off 2026!
- SMFS all-star M. E. Proctor brings us twenty-four of her outstanding tales, touching on crime, fantasy and science fiction in A Book To Live By: Stories From a Different World. You won't be able to stop with just one!
- A mystery classic gets a vibrant twist in an exciting new edition of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon. The multitalented Mark Coggins not only illustrates the story with more than twenty of his own photographs, but also continues the tale in a coda with two new short stories. Dare I say it's the stuff dreams are made of?
- donalee Moulton is one of the most prolific writers in SMFS, and a skilled and experienced freelance journalist. Her skills are on full display in Newsworthy: Media Relations Without The Spin, a guide to navigating encounters with the press in our new digital age. Essential reading!
- donalee also graces Kings River Life with her short story "Moist."
- You never know where you might stumble across a great piece of fiction! Case in point: Shari Held's "How I Spent My Summer," popping up in Seeds, a newsletter for Texas gardeners--but you can enjoy it too!
- Looking for something a little . . . darker? Don't miss issue #7 of Starlite Pulp Review, featuring contributions from Robert J. Binney, Jennifer Slee, and a host of other talented scribes!
- SMFS congratulates member Elena Smith on her second place finish in the Arizona Mystery Writers' short story contest with "Wild Girls in Oatman." Plenty of other great reads here as well!
- Gregory Meece highlights the first issue of Ashton House Magazine with his story of a parish priest's murder in "Snowfall at St. Anselm's." A timely title for much of the country!
Stay warm out there, and look for more great reads soon from SMFS!
Sunday, February 1, 2026
Derringer Award Announcement: 2026 Best Anthology Finalists
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| Image by Bethany Maines |
The Short Mystery Fiction Society is a group of writers, readers, editors, publishers, and others dedicated to the promotion and celebration of mystery and crime short stories. Since 1998, the SMFS has awarded the annual Derringers to outstanding published stories and people who've greatly advanced or supported the form. The inaugural Best Anthology Derringer was presented in 2025.
Society members were allowed two submissions. The anthologies that received the most submissions are the finalists. The winning anthology will be determined via member vote in April and announced May 1. Derringer Award medals will be presented in October at Bouchercon in Calgary, Alberta.
The finalists for the 2026 Best Anthology Derringer Award are
Edited by John Connor
Historically, it would be tricky to define exactly when the concept of the Female Private Investigator first appeared in fiction. But The Female Detective and Revelations of a Lady Detective —both published in 1864, independent of each other—proves that it was a genre whose time had come. And while Miss Gladden may be the first by all of 5 months, it’s Mrs. Paschal who is more the not-so-frail ground breaker —and it should be noted that Conan Doyle was only 5 when these ladies hit the streets.
So what better way to present the modern female investigator than by gathering 15 top class authors and letting them tell you all about the exploits of their creations.
Edited by James M. Jackson
Prepare for twists, reversals, and surprises in Gone Fishin’: Crime Takes a Holiday, The Eighth Guppy Anthology from the 1,100-member Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime. The fun starts with the play-on-words subtitle. “Crime Takes a Holiday.” Crime doesn’t enjoy a bit of time off from skulduggery. Oh no. In these twenty-three stories, Crime Steals, Disrupts, Upends, Wrecks, Destroys and/or Shatters a Holiday.
Join the characters as they travel to pristine northern waters and festering southern bayous, rent a creepy house in Maine, take a Galapagos cruise, enjoy sandy beaches and mountain wildernesses, visit exotic locales across the world, or staycation. The stories feature a wide variety of crime fiction, including murder mysteries, psychological thrillers, and cozy capers.
Hollywood is a place full of dreamers—from the wide-eyed actor hoping to land the role of a lifetime to the hard-working writer trying to sell that breakout script. The lowly production assistant eager to finance their first movie to the craft services worker aspiring to be the next Spielberg.
Whoever they are, these people have one thing in common—they are desperate to bring their dreams to fruition, hustling for opportunity, and willing to do anything to get to the next rung on the ladder. Legal or not.
In Hollywood Kills, you'll find shocking short fiction about the dark underbelly of show business—written by those who know it firsthand.
They’ll take you deep inside their cutthroat world, with sixteen stories featuring a producer, sitcom writer, character actor, entertainment lawyer, sound mixer, background actor, aspiring actor, stuntman, casting director, soap opera star, true crime writer, editor, director, production assistant, set caterer, and screenwriting team.
It's a close-up look at the dark side of ambition with an all-star cast of schemers, dreamers, killers, and con artists…and their stories will stick with you long after the credits roll.
Edited by Judy Penz Sheluk
Desire or desperation, revenge or retribution—how far would you go to realize a dream? The twenty-two authors in this collection explore the possibilities, with predictably unpredictable results.
Edited by Curtis Ippolito
Our world is changing dramatically before our eyes.
Increased average global temperatures have wreaked havoc on ecosystems, economies, and people’s lives. Fires rage. Flood waters rise. Storms and heat waves are occurring out-of-season and are becoming increasingly more dangerous and more frequent.
Neighborhoods are being destroyed. People are losing their lives and livelihoods. Still, some politicians, some pundits, and some corporate oligarchs continue to deny reality and refuse to take responsibility and necessary action to mitigate this existential crisis.
Those who did the least to cause this crisis will suffer the most from its consequences.
In On Fire and Under Water, the new crime fiction anthology from Rock and a Hard Place Press, we explore the intersection of climate change and crime, through the lens of fifteen short stories from some of today’s best crime fiction writers. Edited by Anthony Award-winning author Curtis Ippolito and the editorial team at RHP Press, the stories contained within this anthology peel back the curtain on the ways in which climate change impacts real people in their most desperate hour.
Some say the world will end in fire. Some say flood. In On Fire and Under Water, you get both.
Fight or Flight ... what choices will these characters make? Contract killer, serial killer, killer for hire ... or are they everyday people in bad circumstances? Is the ghost in the house out to harm me ... or am I supposed to help them resolve their death?
These 25 stories are filled with everyday people, private investigators, police personnel, husbands and wives, and others who solve crimes and mysteries their own way. A blend of historical, contemporary, paranormal, serious, and humorous, where each story features an Arizona setting.
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Also, our volunteer judges are currently evaluating 495 story submissions to determine the finalists in four categories. Finalist will be announced April 1. The winners will be determined via member vote in April and announced May 1. Derringer Award medals will be presented in October at Bouchercon in Calgary, Alberta.
The story categories are
- Best Flash Story (Up to 1,000 words)
- Best Short Story (1,001 to 4,000 words)
- Best Long Story (4,001 to 8,000 words)
- Best Novelette (8,001 to 20,000 words)
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