My EQMM Story's a Finalist for the Derringer Award!

Wow! It happened again. One of my stories got picked for a Derringer Award.

I was screwing around on my phone last night when I got an email listing this year's finalists. One of them was "The Woman in the Briefcase," the story that ran in the March/April 2016 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

The official announcement is here. The Derringers are the only award in the mystery fiction world that are given solely to short stories. Twenty finalists are chosen—five in four different categories, according to the length of the story. "The Woman in the Briefcase" is up for the "Best Short Story" category, which denotes a story that is 1,001 to 4,000 words long.

For me, it's a cool honor on two levels. It's the first story I ever landed in EQMM. And it's the third time in four years that one of my stories has been picked as a Derringer finalist. (I won for Best Flash Story in 2015.) I'm hugely honored, especially since I haven't really done a lot of short fiction this past two years. I've been tied up with ghostwriting and trying to finish a pair of novels.

What's "The Woman in the Briefcase" about? It's strange, since most of the action takes place 30,000 years ago. A crazy caveman mystery is what it is.

I'm pretty sure the editor will make it available during the month-long judging period. But you can use Bookfunnel right now to download a copy of a quick-and-dirty e-book I just put together. I'll post EQMM's link if and when I have it. Either way, enjoy.

Look for My New Story in Mystery Weekly!

Look for my short story, “Double-Slay,” in the April 2017 issue of Mystery Weekly. The hard-copy issue hits newsstands today, April 1, and digital issues are already available.

As the editors describe it, "Double-Slay" is the story of how a pair of sweet senior citizens turn the tables on the worst serial killer ever.

Mystery Weekly is a lovely magazine published out of Canada. You can buy digital issues via the Kindle Newsstand, and print copies via Amazon. You can also snag digital copies via Google Play, the App Store, or direct from their website here. If you want to check out my story, make sure you are downloading the April issue shown here.

Submissions stats: I finished this story sometime in June 2012, but never got around to submitting anywhere until this year. I'd been hearing good things about Mystery Weekly, so I submitted. They took only 12 days to say yes, and the story is appearing about one month from acceptance. Payment was $20.

Yes, I will someday release an e-book version of “Double-Slay," which I’ll offer free to readers on my list. If you’d rather wait for the free copy, please join my e-newsletter.