CRIMINAL BRIEF ENCOUNTER

by James Lincoln Warren

Ever since I first conceived of Criminal Brief, it has been my fervent desire to encourage as much reader participation as possible, even beyond trying to stimulate responses to our posts. CB was first and foremost intended as an advocacy site for short crime fiction, a voice for encouraging people to read short stories—although I freely admit that we can travel all over the map in serving that goal. To me, advocacy has always meant engaging the Gentle Readers and giving them the opportunity to contribute in whatever manner possible to the Cause.

In its first incarnation, CB had a feature called “Instant Reviews” (which later morphed into “De Novo Review” in keeping with my preference for naming every feature on the site after some legal term or court proceeding) that allowed anyone who wanted to share their opinions a means for recommending their favorite stories to the CB readership. At first it was quite popular, but it shortly fizzled, so that the only folks adding reviews seemed to be the regular CB columnists. Eventually, I conceded defeat and removed the feature, keeping “De Novo Review” as a column category for guest columnists who wanted to write criticism.

But now, with the consent of the staff, I am trying again. This time, however, rather than limiting reader participation to the submission of reviews of short stories, I’m opening the discussion to any topic a reader would like to contribute. In other words, Criminal Brief is opening up to unsolicited submissions of columns by readers. In the Sidebar at right, you will notice a new box: “Rules of Court”. Within the box is a link called “Submission Guidelines”, which will lead the reader to a page describing what we’re looking for, what we’re not looking for, and how to submit articles to me for consideration.

There are essentially three categories open for contribution:

• Mystery Masterclass: This category is restricted to professional writers. By “professional”, I mean a writer who has been paid by an editor, publisher, or producer for contributing a manuscript that was published or produced. The form of publication or production isn’t relevant as long as there was money paid for the manuscript, i.e., web publication, ebook publication, film and television, radio, and traditional markets are all included. This category is not open for contributions by the self-published.
• De Novo Review: This category is open to all readers who wish to submit a review of a work relevant to short crime fiction. Reviews of novels are generally not acceptable, unless there is a clear nexus to short crime fiction. Self-promotion is expressly forbidden.
• From the Gallery: This new category is open to fans to write about anything they’d like to get off their chests, as long as it is of interest to the readership and has some relevance to the mystery short story. Polemics and gossip are not allowed.

This is an experiment. If it works, we’ll try to publish at least one to four unsolicited columns every month. If it doesn’t work, just remember that we want to hear from you and are grateful for your participation.