Criminal Minds: What Happened to Jack and Jill on That Hill? Twenty Writing Prompts from James W. Ziskin

Criminal Minds: What Happened to Jack and Jill on That Hill? Twent...: Does a background in any other kind of business give you a head start as a professional writer? If you were designing a course of study for ...

Criminal Minds: Claiming the Title of Writer from James W. Ziskin

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Criminal Minds: Six Bits of Writing Advice from James W. Ziskin

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KRL: Writing an Expatriate Thriller: Bombay Monsoon by James W. Ziskin

 KRL: Writing an Expatriate Thriller: Bombay Monsoon by James W. Ziskin

Jungle Red Writers: James Ziskin--Bombay Monsoon

Jungle Red Writers: James Ziskin--Bombay Monsoon: DEBORAH CROMBIE : I'm a huge fan of James Ziskin's award-winning Ellie Stone novels, featuring 1960s New York reporter Ellie Stone, ...

Criminal Minds: How Many Books Does My Mother Need to Buy to Make Me a Bestselling Author? from James W. Ziskin

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Criminal Minds: Come Rain or Shine from James W. Ziskin

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Criminal Minds: Superman or Batman? from James W. Ziskin

Criminal Minds: Superman or Batman? from James W. Ziskin: Which side of the fence are you most comfortable writing from, the good, the bad, or the ugly? Do you consider one side or the other more ma...

Member Honors: Macavity Award Nominations

 Mystery Readers International have announced the nominations for the Macavity Awards and Short Mystery Fiction Society members have taken over the entire Short Story category.

• Barb Goffman: “Dear Emily Etiquette” (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Sept/Oct 2020)
• Art Taylor: “The Boy Detective & The Summer of ‘74” (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Jan/Feb 2020)
• Gabriel Valjan: “Elysian Fields” (California Schemin’: The 2020 Bouchercon Anthology, edited by Art Taylor; Wildside Press)
• Elaine Viets: “Dog Eat Dog” (The Beat of Black Wings: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Joni Mitchell, edited by Josh Pachter; Untreed Reads Publishing)
• James W. Ziskin: “The Twenty-Five Year Engagement” (In League with Sherlock Holmes : Stories Inspired by the Sherlock Holmes Canon, edited by Laurie R. King; Pegasus Crime)

Member Honors: Anthony Nominations

 The nominations for the 2021 Anthony Awards were announced today and there were plenty of members of the SMFS among the story categories.

Best Short Story nominees included:

“Dear Emily Etiquette,” by Barb Goffman, EQMM (Dell Magazines)

“The Boy Detective & The Summer of ’74,” by Art Taylor, AHMM (Jan-Feb) (Dell Magazines)

“Elysian Fields,” by Gabriel Valjan, California Schemin’ (Wildside Press)

“The Twenty-Five Year Engagement,” by James W. Ziskin, In League with Sherlock Holmes (Pegasus Crime)

Best Anthology or Collection nominees include:

Noiryorican, by Richie Narvaez (Down & Out Books)

The Beat of Black Wings: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Joni Mitchell, edited by Josh Pachter (Untreed Reads Publishing)

California Schemin,‘ edited by Art Taylor (Wildside Press)

Lockdown: Stories of Crime, Terror, and Hope During a Pandemic, edited by Nick Kolakowski and Steve Weddle (Polis Books)

SMFS Members Nominated for the 2021 Edgar Awards

The nominees for 2021 Edgar Awards, so named to honor Edgar Allen Poe, have been announced by the Mystery Writers Of America. Winners will be announced on April 29, 2021. There are twelve categories in fiction and nonfiction and SMFS list members have been nominated this year in two categories.

 

The nominated members and their categories are:

 

Best Short Story 

Leslie Elman for “The Summer Uncle Cat Came to Stay," published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine: January/February 2020 issue. 

Joseph S. Walker for "Etta at the End of the World," published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine: May/June 2020 issue. 

James W. Ziskin for “The Twenty-Five-Year Engagement,” in the anthology, In League with Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Sherlock Holmes Canon.

 

 

The G. P. Putnam’s Son Sue Grafton Memorial Award

James W. Ziskin with Turn To Stone: An Ellie Stone Novel published by Seventh Street Books. The book is also under consideration for a Lefty for Best Historical Mystery Novel.

 

 

SMFS salutes our list members in this accomplishment and wish them all the best as they represent the SMFS. The full list of all the nominees can be found on the MWA website.

2021 SMFS Lefty Award Nominees

Several SMFS list members are up for the 2021 Lefty Awards. There are four categories in total with 23 books. SMFS list members are competing in two different categories regarding books first published in 2020. Due to the ongoing pandemic, the winners will be announced online on April 10, 2021. The SMFS list members and their books in the respective categories are:

 

Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery Novel

Jennifer J. Chow, Mimi Lee Gets a Clue (Berkley Prime Crime)

Cynthia Kuhn, The Study of Secrets (Henery Press) 

 

Lefty for Best Historical Mystery Novel (The Bruce Alexander Memorial for books covering events before 1970)

James W. Ziskin, Turn to Stone (Seventh Street Books)

 

For a full list of all the books and their authors under award consideration, go to the official Left Coast site at 2021 Lefty Awards: The Unconvention

The First Two Pages: “The Twenty-Five-Year Engagement” by James W. Ziskin

 The First Two Pages: “The Twenty-Five-Year Engagement” by James W. Ziskin

SMFS Member Publishing News: James W. Ziskin

SMFS list member James W. Ziskin’s short story, "The Twenty-Five-Year Engagement" appears in the new anthology, In League with Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Sherlock Holmes Canon. Published today by Pegasus Crime, edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger, the read is available in audio, eBook, and print formats at the publisher, Amazon, and other vendors. 

 

Synopsis: 

The latest entry in Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger’s popular Sherlock Holmes-inspired mystery series, featuring fifteen talented authors and a multitude of new cases for Arthur Conan Doyle’s most acclaimed detective.

Sherlock Holmes has not only captivated readers for more than a century and a quarter, he has fascinated writers as well. Almost immediately, the detective’s genius, mastery, and heroism became the standard by which other creators measured their creations, and the friendship between Holmes and Dr. Watson served as a brilliant model for those who followed Doyle. Not only did the Holmes tales influence the mystery genre but also tales of science-fiction, adventure, and the supernatural. It is little wonder, then, that when the renowned Sherlockians Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger invited their writer-friends and colleagues to be inspired by the Holmes canon, a cornucopia of stories sprang forth, with more than sixty of the greatest modern writers participating in four acclaimed anthologies.

Now, King and Klinger have invited another fifteen masters to become In League with Sherlock Holmes. The contributors to the pair’s next volume, due out in December 2020, include award-winning authors of horror, thrillers, mysteries, westerns, and science-fiction, all bound together in admiration and affection for the original stories. Past tales have spanned the Victorian era, World War I, World War II, the post-war era, and contemporary America and England. They have featured familiar figures from literature and history, children, master sleuths, official police, unassuming amateurs, unlikely protagonists, even ghosts and robots. Some were new tales about Holmes and Watson; others were about people from Holmes’s world or admirers of Holmes and his methods. The resulting stories are funny, haunting, thrilling, and surprising. All are unforgettable. The new collection promises more of the same!

Criminal Minds: Know What You Don’t Know from James W. Ziskin

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Little Big Crimes Review: Pan Paniscus by James W. Ziskin

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