For Your Bouchercon Consideration

The Bouchercon ballots went out Saturday, and it occurs to me that I ought to mention which works of mine are eligible for the Anthony Awards. And yes, I feel icky announcing this to the world, but I’ve seen other authors do it, so why not work with me here for a sec?

Three of my 2014 pieces are eligible for the short story category:

• "Harm and Hammer," October 2014, Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine - This is the crime story of a lonely young woman who obsessively teaches herself how to play a blacksmith's anvil as a musical instrument, with tragic results.
• "How Lil’ Jimmie Beat the Big C," May 12, 2014, Shotgun Honey - This is the piece about the incarcerated cancer patient that was just chosen as a Derringer finalist this past weekend. Profanity alert.
• “Nighthawks,"  April 2014, Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine - My crime story that tries to explain what’s going on in the classic Edward Hopper painting of the same same.

You’ll find free PDFs of all these stories at this link.

Theoretically my novel, THE MARSHAL OF THE BORGO, should be eligible for the novel or paperback original categories because it pubbed in 2014, but it’s self-pubbed; Anthony Award rules are vague on the matter. If anyone knows for certain if it’s eligible, kindly let me know.

For that matter, if you have a story, book, nonfiction/critical work that is elegible this year, kindly leave a comment below or shoot me a note via my contact page, if you prefer to be more discreet. A handful of us authors from the Asheville area are all going to the conference, and we’re looking for great books and stories to nominate. Help us do our job.

There. I’m done. That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?

Look for my short story "Nighthawks" in Hitchcock’s Mystery Mag!

Look for my short story in Hitchcock’s Mystery Mag!

Almost forgot. One of those short stories I was telling you about appears in the April 2014 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (AHMM), on newsstands now.

The story is called “Nighthawks,” after Edward Hopper’s famous 1942 painting of the same name. It’s probably the most parodied painting on the planet after the Mona Lisa. Four people sit in an oddly shaped diner in the middle of the night. What’s going on there? Well, my story offers just one scenario.

The artist Hopper said the painting was inspired by a diner on Greenwich Avenue in New York, but no one has ever located the original site. Some years ago, blogger Jeremiah Moss investigated the mystery, and has written about his search in the New York Times, the Financial Times, and on his blog. Great reading, if you’re fascinated by the painting.

You can find a hard-copy version of AHMM wherever magazines are sold. (My local B&N tends to carry it.) Failing that, in a few days you can download a single digital issue via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple iTunes, Zinio, Magzter, Sony, and Google Play. Just make sure you are downloading the April 2014 issue shown above.