Tag Archive for: John Floyd

The Red Penguin Collection

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by Paula Gail Benson

Red Penguin Books, a small publishing company based in New York and headed by Stephanie Larkin, began an imprint to showcase new and established writers of shorter works. Its Red Penguin Collection currently has twenty-eight volumes of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, essays, monologues, and short plays. The editor is J.K. Larkin, Stephanie’s son, who has published his own autobiography, not kidding.

The collection first drew my attention when I noticed that John Floyd had been published in one of its romance volumes, A Heart Full of Love, and two of its mystery anthologies, Behind Closed Doors, and the recently released, Pets on the Prowl.

I decided to check out submissions opportunities and was fortunate enough to have my own work included in An Empty Stage: A Collection of Monologues and Once Upon a Time, fairy tales written for adults.

I received an even bigger thrill when my “A Fairy Godmother’s Christmas” was selected for a second publication in Stand Out: The Best of the Red Penguin Collection, Volume 2, which also contains two of John Floyd’s stories.

If you write short fiction, poetry, essays, or plays, you definitely should check out the submission opportunities at this link. While many of the anthologies are non-paying, an upcoming humor short story contest offers monetary prizes for first, second, and third place.

Additionally, Red Penguin has encouraged its authors to participate in marketing efforts, join in group meetings, and learn from virtual programs. It offers an excellent chance for authors to see their work in print, have a publisher that supports them, and become part of a writing community.

Short Story Update

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by Paula Gail Benson

The Palmetto Chapter of Sisters in Crime and the Southeast Chapter of Mystery Writers of America were delighted with the response to Mystery in the Midlands. We started off with a terrific panel on short stories featuring John Floyd, Tara Laskowski, and Art Taylor. Among them, those talented writers have been nominated and are recipients of the Agatha, Anthony, Derringer, Edgar, Macavity, and Thriller for their short stories. All of them have been involved with editing anthologies and preparing collections of their own work.

Listeners had many questions for this panel and links were left in the chat line to a number of excellent sources for short story writers.

Clockwise from upper right: Dana Kaye, Moderator, John Floyd, Tara Laskowski, and Art Taylor
The Short Story Panel from Mystery in the Midlands
Photo by Kathryn Prater Bomey, shared by Tara Laskowski

 A number of folks have asked to see a replay of the session. Here’s the link where you can access the entire program from Mystery in the Midlands:

Coming up in August is another great event for short story writers. Agatha winner Gigi Pandian is presenting “The Art and History of Locked Room Mysteries,” on Saturday, August 15 from 1:00 to 3:00 PM Pacific Time for the Sacramento-based Capitol Crimes Chapter of Sisters in Crime. Here’s the link to register:
Gigi Pandian
I hope you’ll be able to access these programs and enjoy!

Mystery in the Midlands ONLINE and FREE!!!! Saturday, July 25, 2020

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by Paula Gail Benson

For the last two years, the Palmetto Chapter of Sisters in Crime and the Southeast Chapter of Mystery Writers of America have sponsored a mid-summer conference for readers and writers in “famously hot” Columbia, S.C. While we had to cancel our in person gathering due to Covid 19, our third venture as an online conference, to be held on Saturday, July 25, 2020, looks to be a charm with a terrifically HOT lineup and a program offered free of charge (thanks to Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America for generous support). Anyone can attend. You don’t have to be a member of Sisters in Crime or Mystery Writers of America to join in the fun!


All you have to do is register at this link, then click through to the Crowdcast link to save your spot.


REGISTER TODAY!!!!
Here’s the link again:



Today, Monday, July 20, 2020, is the last day to register! You don’t want to miss this fabulous program hosted by Dana Kaye with books available through Jill Hendrix’s Fiction Addiction Bookstore in Greenville, S.C.


Here’s the schedule for Mystery in the Midlands, on Saturday, July 25, 2020:

10:00 am to 10:15 am EST   Welcome
Dana
Kaye (moderator), Debra Goldstein (SEMWA), and Paula Gail Benson (Palmetto
Chapter SinC)

10:30 am to 11:15 am EST   Slip into Some Shorts
Dana Kaye (moderator) – John Floyd, Tara Laskowski, and Art Taylor
11:30 am to 12:00 pm EST  Mystery Writers Are Always Hot! Keynote
Charlaine
Harris
12:15 pm to 1:00 pm EST       Spectres
Rather Than Heat Mirages
Dana
Kaye (moderator) – Alexia Gordon, Toni L.P. Kelner, and Gigi Pandian
1:15 pm to 2:00 pm EST      Pages Burning Their Way to the Screen
Dana
Kaye (moderator) – Dana Cameron, Jeffrey Deaver, and Charlaine Harris
2:15 pm to 2:30 pm EST      Everybody in the Pool!

Dana Kaye
(moderator), Debra Goldstein (SEMWA), and Paula Gail Benson (Palmetto Chapter
SinC)

Here’s some information about our fabulous authors:

Charlaine Harris is a true
daughter of the South. She was born in Mississippi and has lived in Tennessee,
South Carolina, Arkansas, and Texas. After years of dabbling with poetry,
plays, and essays, her career as a novelist began when her husband invited her
to write full time. Her first book, Sweet
and Deadly, appeared in 1981. When Charlaine’s career as a mystery writer
began to falter, she decided to write a cross-genre book that would appeal to
fans of mystery, science fiction, romance, and suspense. She could not have
anticipated the huge surge of reader interest in the adventures of a barmaid in
Louisiana, or the fact that Alan Ball would come knocking at her door. Since
then, Charlaine’s novels have been adapted for several other television series,
with two in development now. Charlaine is a voracious reader. She has one
husband, three children, two grandchilden, and two rescue dogs. She leads a
busy life.
John M. Floyd’s short
fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen
Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, and many
other publications. Three of his stories have been selected for the
annual Best American Mystery Stories anthology (the 2015,
2018, and 2020 editions) and another was recently optioned for film. A former
Air Force captain and IBM systems engineer, John is also an Edgar nominee, a four-time
Derringer Award winner, a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a recipient of the
Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer Award for lifetime achievement, and
the author of eight books. He and his wife Carolyn live in Mississippi.
Tara Laskowski’s debut
novel, One Night Gone, won the 2019 Agatha Award for Best First
Novel and was a finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark, Anthony, Macavity, and
Lefty Awards. It was hailed by Tana French as “a subtly but relentlessly
unsettling novel.” Tara is also the author of two short story
collections, Modern Manners for Your Inner Demons and Bystanders,
which The Guardian named a best book of 2017. She has had
stories published in Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery
Queen’s Mystery Magazines and has won both an Agatha Award and a Thriller
Award for her short fiction. She was a longtime editor of the flash fiction
journal SmokeLong Quarterly. Tara earned a BA in English from
Susquehanna University and an MFA from George Mason University and lives in
Northern Virginia with her husband, writer Art Taylor, and their son, Dashiell.
Art Taylor is
the author of the story collection The Boy Detective & The Summer
of ’74 and Other Tales of Suspense and of the novel in stories On
the Road with Del & Louise, winner of the Agatha Award for Best
First Novel. He won the 2019 Edgar Award for Best Short Story for
“English 398: Fiction Workshop,” originally published in Ellery
Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and he has won three additional Agatha Awards,
an Anthony Award, three Macavity Awards, and three consecutive Derringer Awards
for his short fiction. He is an associate professor of English at George Mason
University.
Virginia native, physician by training, author by passion, Alexia Gordon writes the award-winning
Gethsemane Brown Mysteries, with Book 5, Execution in E, being released March
24, 2020. She is a member of MWA, SinC, ITW, and CWoC; blogs at
Missdemeanors.com and with the Femmes Fatales
(femmesfatales.typepad.com/my_weblog/); and hosts the podcast, The Cozy Corner
with Alexia Gordon. Find her on social media (Facebook: AlexiaGordon.writer,
Twitter: @AlexiaGordon, Instagram: DrLex1995) and visit her website (www.alexiagordon.net) to sign up for her
newsletter.
Toni L.P. Kelner/Leigh
Perry is two authors in one. As Leigh Perry, she
writes the Family Skeleton Mysteries. The sixth, The Skeleton Stuffs a
Stocking, was released in Fall 2019. As Toni L.P. Kelner, she wrote eight novels in the Laura Fleming
mystery series and three “Where Are They Now?” mysteries. Kelner also co-edited seven urban fantasy
anthologies with New Your Times best-seller Charlaine
Harris. Under both names she writes short fiction, including recent
publications in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and a forthcoming story in Shattering Glass. Kelner has won the Agatha
Award and an RT BookClub Lifetime Achievement Award and has been nominated
multiple times for the Anthony, the Macavity, and the Derringer.
http://tonilpkelner.com/


Gigi Pandian is a USA Today bestselling and Agatha
Award-winning mystery author, breast cancer survivor, and accidental
almost-vegan. The child of anthropologists from New Mexico and the southern tip
of India, she spent her childhood traveling around the world on their research
trips, and now lives in California with her husband and a gargoyle who watches
over the garden. Gigi writes the
Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt mysteries, Accidental Alchemist mysteries, and
locked-room mystery short stories.
Dana Cameron writes
across many genres, but especially crime and speculative fiction. Her work,
inspired by her career in archaeology, has won multiple Anthony, Agatha, and
Macavity Awards, and has been nominated for the Edgar Award. Dana’s Emma
Fielding archaeology mysteries were optioned by Muse Entertainment; the third
movie, based on More Bitter Than Death,
will premier on the Hallmark Movie & Mystery Channel in January, 2019. When
she’s not traveling or visiting museums, she’s usually yelling at the TV about
historical inaccuracies.
http://www.danacameron.com/


A former journalist, folksinger and attorney, Jeffery Deaver is an international
number-one bestselling author. His novels have appeared on bestseller lists
around the world, including the New York Times, the Times
of London, Italy’s Corriere della Sera, the Sydney
Morning Herald and the Los Angeles Times. His books are
sold in 150 countries and have been translated into over twenty-five languages.
He has sold 50 million books worldwide. The author of over thirty-five novels,
three collections of short stories and a nonfiction law book, and a lyricist of
a country-western album, he’s received or been shortlisted for dozens of
awards around the world. His book A Maiden’s Grave was
made into an HBO movie, his novel The Bone Collector was
a feature release from Universal Pictures, and in 2019, NBC picked up a series
called “Lincoln,” based on his books. Lifetime aired an adaptation of his The Devil’s Teardrop.



We hope that you’ll all join us for Mystery in the Midlands, Saturday, July 25, 2020!




 

Writing for Woman’s World Short Fiction Markets

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by Paula
Gail Benson

If
you’re interested in writing short romance or mystery stories, you might want
to consider submitting to Woman’s World
(WW), a weekly magazine found in most grocery stores. Before sending in a
story, you’ll definitely want to read the publication. Its fiction guidelines
are strict: (1) romances must be contemporary and no more than 800 words, and
(2) mysteries must be up to 700 words written in a “solve-it-yourself” format to
allow readers to test their sleuthing skills with the resolution at the end.
The pay is excellent (about $800 for romances and $500 for mysteries), but the
competition is fierce. If your story is selected, you’ll become part of a distinguished
group, including John Floyd and B.K. Stevens.

Several
websites have been developed to help writers determine how best to hone their
submissions.

The
following provide guidelines:

for
romances

and
for mini-mysteries

Until
September 6, 2016, when she had to suspend her messages to concentrate on
caring for her mother, Jody Lebel, a WW published mystery author, analyzed the
mini-mysteries and listed other markets accepting shorts. Her blog is well
worth reading to understand the type stories and formatting that WW is seeking.
Here’s the link:

In
addition, two Sleuthsayers blog messages from R.T. Lawton (“Me and the
Mini-Mystery”) and John Floyd (“A Woman’s World Survival Guide”) give some
excellent advice for successful submissions. They can be accessed at: http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2012/08/me-and-mini-mystery.html
and http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2012/08/a-womans-world-survival-guide.html.