SMFS Members Nominated for the 2023 The Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence

  

Several SMFS list members were nominated earlier this week for the Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence. There are ten categories with five finalists in each category. SMFS members are finalists in two categories. Winners will be announced on Thursday, May 25^th. The SMFS members who reported their presence as finalists are:

 

Best Short Story

Blair Keetch for "To Catch a Kumiho” in In the Spirit of 13: A spirited crime anthology. (Carrick Publishing)

Sylvia Warsh for "The Natural Order of Things" in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine: May/June 2022

M. H. Callway for "Must Love Dogs - or You're Gone" in GONE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CRIME STORIES. (Red Dog Press)

 

Best Novella

M. H. Callway for “Amdur's Ghost” in In the Spirit of 13: A spirited crime anthology. (Carrick Publishing)

 

For the full list of nominees and other information, please see the Crime Writers of Canada website.

Publication News: Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine

 Among the stories featured in the May/June issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine are:

Daniel Bartlett. "A Complicated History."

Michael Bracken. "Dead Man's Gorge."

Joseph Goodrich. "A Philosophical Difference."

Karen Harrington.  "Lucky Stars."

Smita Harish Jain.  "The Manglik Curse."

Sharyn Kolberg. “The Thesaurus of Love and Death.”  

Sylvia Warsh. "The Natural Order of Things."

Member Publication News: Sylvia Warsh

 "Recreating the Past," by Sylvia Warsh, appears in the current issue of Mystery Readers Journal, "History Mysteries II."

Member Honors: Crime Writers of Canada Excellence Awards

 The Crime Writers of Canada have announced the short list for their Excellence Awards.  In the short story category Marcelle Dubé is nominated for "Cold Wave," (from Crime Wave: A Canada West Anthology) and Sylvia Warsh is included with "Days Without Name" from Grave Diagnosis.

SMFS Member Publishing News: Sylvia Warsh

SMFS list member Sylvia Warsh’s short story, “The Emerald Skull” is the current published selection for Barb Goffman Presents: The Emerald Skull by Sylvia Warsh. Originally published in Thirteen: A Mesdames of Mayhem Anthology, the read is available in eBook form at Wildside Press.

SMFS Member Publication News: Sylvia Warsh

SMFS list member Sylvia Warsh reports that her short story, “The Comeback” appears in the premier issue of Vautrin. Edited and published by Todd Robins, the issue is only available in print at Watermark Books.

Synopsis:

Vautrin - Volume 1, Issue 1, Spring 2019

SKU: 94224022

Publisher/Editor-in-Chief: Todd Robins

It’s widely believed that Balzac’s literary activities wound down when he died in the 19^thcentury, but his ghost visited Todd Robins’s College Hill lair one morning in the fall of 2018.  Balzac's message was clear: (A) found a literary magazine, and (B) name it after his criminal mastermind character, Vautrin.  The great Frenchman then prevailed upon an intriguing mix of writers to contribute to the inaugural issue.  Robins typed the submissions on his Smith Corona Silent from the 50s, resulting in Volume 1, Issue 1 of Wichita’s new print-only literary magazine.  Le voila !

Among the highlights:

·         Fiction from native Wichitan Scott Phillips, titled Labio-Dental Fricative and featuring the return of the wily rogue Bill Ogden of Cottonwood and Hop Alley fame.

·         Poetry from the great Albert Goldbarth, sublimely cast in the Vautrin-esque trickster sweet spot.

·         Mystery fiction from award-winning Canadian writer Sylvia Maultash Warsh.

·         Raucous mafioso crime fiction from New Jersey writer Thomas Pluck, author of the forthcoming novel Riff Raff.

·         An essay about Juan Gabriel Vasquez’s novel The Shape of the Ruins, by former Watermarker, Susan Gusho.

·         An essay about literary movements by former Watermarker Jason Quinn Malott, author of The Evolution of Shadows.

·         Fictional intrigue from the pseudonymous Kerry Page.

·         Debut poetry from the extraordinary Suzannah Guthrie.

·         An astrology-infused crime story from a 1920 issue of The Black Mask (released to the public domain).

·         Essayist Paul Dee Fecteau ponders the Tarot as applicable to the Coen brother’s film The Big Lebowski.

·         An essay about Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle: Book Six, by Chicagoan Andrew Larson.

·         Poetry from Marysville's Scott Richard that sneaks up on us, a la Ezra Pound.   

·         Trump Tower: The First Omen, by Carlos Herrera, in which the political consultant Nigel Strode ponders the reelection run of the GOP's finest.

·         Cover art by former Watermarker, Beth Golay

Short Story Month: Sylvia Warsh

StoryADay.org proclaimed May International Short Story Month back in 2013. As the short story, in the mystery genre, is the reason why the Short Mystery Fiction Society exists, we join in the celebration each year. 

The SMFS spin on festivities is to highlight one or more members' online stories per day. Today, Sylvia Warsh, shares “The Ranchero’s Daughter” archived at her site.

If you would like to be included, email the link to your story to KevinRTipple at Verizon dot net.