Category Archives: Uncategorized

Mystery Writing Prompts from English 101 (by H. Hodgkins)

H. Hodgkins has taught English Literature at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for many years and is the author of Style and the Single Girl: How Modern Women Re-Dressed the Novel, 1922-1977. Her professional fiction debut, the story “When Baptists Go Bad,” appears … Continue reading

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ShortCon (by Michael Bracken)

A winner of the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement from the Short Mystery Fiction Society and many other honors, Michael Bracken is one of the most prolific and popular short-story writers (he’s also a novelist!) in … Continue reading

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SPRING WISHES FROM EQMM!

Happy reading this season and all others!

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Behind The Sinister Door: Acknowledging The Unsettling and Undeniable Presence of Captive Women in Mystery Fiction (by Sophia Lynch)

Sophia Lynch made her fiction debut with the story “Rendering,” in the Department of First Stories of EQMM’s January/February 2024 issue. The story turns around a life model who agrees to a private session at an artist’s home—a situation with … Continue reading

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How Stories Unearth Memories (by Janice Law)

Edgar Allan Poe Award nominee Janice Law created one of the first fictional female private eyes with her Anna Peters series, launched in 1976. She has continued writing in the crime fiction genre at both novel and short-story length. Her … Continue reading

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Patricia Highsmith’s Two Severed Hands (by R.T. Raichev)

R. T. Raichev’s articles related to mystery fiction have appeared on this site frequently. This time, he trains his critical eye on Patricia Highsmith, an author whose short stories appeared in EQMM over several decades. R.T. Raichev is also a novelist and … Continue reading

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The Long-Ago Death (by Peter Lance Graves)

Peter Lance Graves told EQMM that it was his discovery of the Ellery Queen novel The Greek Coffin Mystery, as an adolescent, that sparked his love of crime fiction. He went on to read Agatha Christie and “took way too long … Continue reading

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Frederick Forsyth’s Final Fictions (by Kevin Mims)

Two years ago, essayist and short story writer Kevin Mims contributed a post to this site about the work of Frederick Forsyth. He’s clearly a big fan of the best-selling English thriller writer, although he prefers the author’s earlier works … Continue reading

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THE MOST DANGEROUS EMOTION

P.D. James once said, in an interview about her famous series sleuth Dalgliesh, “An experienced senior detective told Adam Dalgliesh, when Adam was new to the CID, that all the motives for murder came under the letter L: love, lust, … Continue reading

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The Peculiar Noir of Friedrich Dürrenmatt (by Nils Gilbertson)

The Black Mask department of EQMM’s March/April issue (on sale next Wednesday) features a story by Nils Gilbertson entitled “Apple Juice.” Despite the cosy-sounding title, it’s a gritty noir story. In this post, the San Francisco Bay area native tells … Continue reading

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