When I was a kid, I read AHMM and its sister publication, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (EQMM), on a regular basis until I just couldn’t keep up with the subscriptions anymore.

I would also, from time to time, submit stories to these magazines during my teens. Shockingly, they were all returned with little white slips—the first rejections I ever got in my life.

Decades later, I finally have some good news to report on that front. This year I committed to submitting my short fiction to magazines on a more regular basis instead of self-pubbing them right off the bat. Besides Even, which ran back in August on Shotgun Honey, two of my short pieces have been bought by Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (AHMM). I couldn’t be more thrilled—penetrating that market has (obviously) been a lifelong dream of mine.

One is a straight-up story of corruption I wrote years ago. The other is one I wrote this year. It’s set in Rome. I’ve been thinking of it as written in the voice of an Italian Jane Austen, if such a thing were even possible. Seriously, the voices of both pieces couldn’t be more different.

They’ll run sometime next year. I’ll post the info when I have it.