A GUY IN A WOMAN’S WORLD by John M. Floyd All of us know about the heavyweights in the land of short crime fiction: AHMM, EQMM, The Strand, etc. Those publications have been around a long time, and for good reason. They have great stories and great editors, and just about every mystery writer I […]

BILL’S BRIEFS by John M. Floyd I’ll start out with what I’m sure will be a stunning revelation: I sometimes have a tendency to stray from the main subject of this blog. Today, though, I’m not. Today my topic is short crime fiction. In fact it’s very short crime fiction. About a year ago, in […]

OUTSIDE ASSISTANCE by John M. Floyd A few years ago my wife and I attended an “opening” of the residence of the late author Eudora Welty, here in Jackson, Mississippi. While there someone mentioned one of Miss Welty’s odd habits (a superstition, almost) regarding writing: she wrote the ending of each of her stories and […]

Today is the final day of our Christmas Contest. Here is one last hint, courtesy of our fearless librarian, Rob Lopresti: In a puzzle like ours, proper names can be a problem. If, for some reason, you can’t use the word talk you may be able to substitute the word chat. Ditto with could and […]

Our Christmas Contest continues—check it out here. MIXED COMPANY by John M. Floyd Rob’s “Tune It or Die” CB piece a few months ago (“Non-mysteries for the Mystery Fan,” September 2nd) reminded me of something: even though I’m crazy about mysteries, some of the best books and stories I’ve read this past year have been […]

CRIMINAL RECORDS by John M. Floyd On the advice of two of my children (both of them devoted Apple users), I recently bought an iMac, and during the conversion from Windows, I wound up sorting through a lot of my old MS Word files. Many of them were of course story manuscripts — and that […]

IF I WERE A RITCHIE MAN by John M. Floyd Actually I am, and have been since I first read one of his stories. I believe I’ve heard my CB colleague Rob Lopresti say he’s a devoted fan as well. I’m referring to the late Jack Ritchie, one of America’s most prolific short story writers. […]