LEAVES FROM THE QUEEN’S NOTEBOOKS by Steven Steinbock It’s a new year, and I’d like to start it by launching the first of an occasional series of columns revisiting past issues of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Today we’ll do a retrospective of what you’d find if you opened an issue of EQMM a half century […]

BLISSFUL BLANKS by Deborah Elliott-Upton After all the wonderful craziness of the scurrying around for the holidays and right before the New Year officially begins (along with those pesky resolutions!), I’ve learned to take time to breathe. Usually, I am content to sit quietly and read. Today I find myself feeling more like an empty […]

IT’S A GIFT by Rob Lopresti ’Twas the week before Christmas and my wife and I were wandering around the bookstore where she works, looking for gifts. The interesting part is, we had no idea who we were shopping for. I don’t know if every independent bookstore does this, but I doubt that it is […]

STARBUCKS OF THE SOUL by Melodie Johnson Howe Driving to our daughter’s home for Christmas dinner I found the malls beside the freeway with their homogenized architecture (if it can even be called architecture), comforting. I liked seeing Starbucks, Home Depot and Best Buy. Even the prefab townhouses and condos that line the hills in […]

MY ANNUAL MERRY NONSECTARIAN WINTER SOLSTICE RETAIL FRENZY FESTIVAL SEASON NEWSLETTER by James Lincoln Warren Dear Friends, It’s been quite a year! Perhaps the most unusual thing that happened this year was my abduction by aliens, who I am pretty sure rewired my brain. I have no direct evidence for this except for a persistent […]

BOXING DAY by Leigh Lundin Tis the day after Christmas     And after the fray, Comes the burning question:     What the heck’s Boxing Day? Is it regifting, returning?     Reboxing for eBay? Please tell us, CB,     What the heck’s Boxing Day? It’s that time of year again, the second […]

COMFORT AND JOY by John M. Floyd A few days ago I attended what used to be an annual event for our extended family: a Christmas gathering at the home of one of our nearby cousins. In the recent past this event has unfortunately not been so annual; we sometimes go for several years at […]