Stacy Woodson, the most recent winner of the EQMM Readers Award, made her fiction debut in EQMM’s Department of First Stories in the November/December 2018 issue. That debut story is only the second first story in the thirty-four years of Readers Award history to take first place. While in New York City for the awards ceremony last month, the Washington D.C. area author read her winning tale for this podcast.

http://stacywoodson.com
https://www.purple-planet.com

One of the current nominees for the Malice Domestic Convention’s Agatha Awards (winners to be determined in May), our featured story this month is set at a most unusual Thanksgiving dinner. Author Barb Goffman’s many previous honors include the Agatha, Macavity, and Silver Falchion awards. Here she is reading “Bug Appétit,” her EQMM debut, from our November/December 2018 issue.

http://www.barbgoffman.com

Currently nominated for both the MWA’s Edgar Allan Poe Award and the Malice Domestic Convention’s Agatha Award for best short story, our selection this month is by Art Taylor, who debuted in EQMM’s Department of First Stories in 1995 and has become a star in the field of the mystery and crime short story. Here he is reading “English 398: Fiction Workshop,” from the July/August 2018 EQMM. Both the author and EQMM wish to thank several staff members from the English Department at George Mason University, where Art Taylor teaches, for their assistance in this reading: Mary Baldwin (a linguist), Lisa DesRochers-Short (a poet), and Jay Patel (a fiction writer)—and the reader of the story’s final section, Madison Gaines, Class of 2021, who’s pursuing a dual concentration in fiction and poetry in Mason’s BFA Program in Creative Writing.

http://www.arttaylorwriter.com
http://malicedomestic.org
http://theedgars.com
https://www2.gmu.edu

A tale from Edgar nominee John Lantigua’s popular Willie Cuesta private eye series is featured in this episode of our podcast series. Readers are sure to enjoy this intriguing case, set in Miami’s Little Havana. Here is “The Cuban Prisoner” by John Lantigua, originally published in the September/October 2018 issue of EQMM and read for us by professional actor and voiceover artist Carlos Alayeto.

http://johnlantigua.com

Teresa Solana received a nomination for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for her first contribution to EQMM, “Still Life No. 41.” The story was translated from Catalan by her husband, Peter Bush, and was featured in EQMM’s Passport to Crime department in March/April 2012. Reading that celebrated story for this podcast is EQMM’s associate editor, Jackie Sherbow. The tale is also included in a new digital anthology co-edited by Emily Hockaday and Jackie Sherbow, entitled Terror at the Crossroads: Tales of Horror, Delusion, and the Unknown.

https://www.bitterlemonpress.com/blogs/authors/19585859-teresa-solana
http://www.elleryqueenmysterymagazine.com/terror-at-the-crossroads-tales-of-horror-delusion-and-the-unknown/
https://www.purple-planet.com

Edgar Allan Poe Award winner John Morgan Wilson has been contributing short stories to EQMM since 2003. Many listeners will know his long fiction, which includes the Benjamin Justice mystery series and several novels cowritten with band leader Peter Duchin. The California author’s short stories range from suspense to the classical whodunit. For this podcast he chose to read his twisty tale “Edward at the Edge,” from the January 2005 issue of EQMM.

This month’s podcast takes us back to 1968 and the debut of one of EQMM’s youngest contributors ever, Josh Pachter. At the age of sixteen the budding author and Ellery Queen fan produced this story, which saw print in EQMM's December 1968 issue, in the Department of First Stories. This month marks the fiftieth anniversary of that issue going on sale. In the ensuing years Josh Pachter has produced dozens of other distinguished short stories and collaborative works, as well as crime-fiction translations. To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of his EQMM debut, a new story featuring the central character of this tale, Ellery Queen Griffen, appears in our current issue, November/December 2018, and the author has recorded for our podcast this reading of “E.Q. Griffen Earns His Name."

http://joshpachter.com
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Our selection this month is by a writer who debuted in EQMM and has gone on to have work chosen for the yearly Best American Mystery Stories anthology and to appear again in EQMM and other publications, such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Here is Chris Muessig reading his story “Bias,” from the July 2009 issue of EQMM.

Dramatic Interlude by Alexander Nakarada | https://www.serpentsoundstudios.com
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Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

EQMM’s famous Department of First Stories is the source for this month’s podcast. The debut story, which appears in EQMM’s current issue, takes us into the life of a new writer who enjoys success, but at a cost. Author Nancy Novick, a medical writer, editor, and writing instructor, came to EQMM’s offices to do this recording of her story “How Does He Die This Time?” from the September/October 2018 EQMM.

https://nancynovick.com

Impatience by Punch Deck | https://soundcloud.com/punch-deck
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At the Malice Domestic convention in Bethesda, Maryland, this past spring, EQMM had the pleasure of recording Shelly Dickson Carr, author of the award-winning YA novel “Ripped,” reading a story by her grandfather, the great Golden Age mystery writer John Dickson Carr. The most celebrated master of the “locked room” mystery, John Dickson Carr contributed both fiction and book reviews to EQMM. His April 1950 story “The Gentleman From Paris" was one of the winners of EQMM’s Worldwide Short Story Contests.

www.ripped-book.com