I'm a member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, an informal association of writers, publishers, and fans that has kept mystery & crime short stories in the public eye since 1996. On April 4, the Society announced the finalists for its 2019 Derringer Awards. A vote of the membership will determine the winners, to be announced in May.
In the meantime, I'm inviting the finalists for interviews. If you'd like to participate, email me your answers to the same following questions.
Josh Pachter's story, "If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Murder", is one of four published in Malice Domestic 13: Mystery Most Geographical contending this year for the Best Short Story Derringer (stories ranging from 1,001 to 4,000 words). Good luck to all.
Describe your story in up to 20 words.
A British bus tour of Belgium and The Netherlands is interrupted by a classical dying-message murder ...whodunnit?!
What were the most difficult and most enjoyable parts of writing the story?
A short story generally features a small cast, but this one has twenty-six characters, most of them with speaking parts. The most difficult part of writing it was to give each speaker a distinctive and believable voice, all within three thousand words.
The most enjoyable part was fitting in shoutouts to some of my favorite writers (Ellery Queen, Agatha Christie, E.F. Benson, Bavo Dhooge, Bob Van Laerhoven, Bram Dehouck) and a couple of my favorite movies (All That Jazz, Murder on the Orient Express), plus coming up with a fair-play new wrinkle on the old dying-message wheeze.
Do you have a (juicy) story about how your story came to be published?
No, nothing juicy here: I saw the call for Mystery Most Geographical, soon after returning from a trip to Holland and Belgium, wrote the story, submitted it, and it was accepted and published. I think I probably drank some juice at various times during the process, but that's all I got!
How does it feel to be a Derringer finalist?
My first short story appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 1968, so I've been publishing fairly regularly for half a century. A couple of stories I translated for EQMM have been finalists for the Edgar (in 1986) and Derringer (in 2018), but this is the first time one of my own stories has made it this far. How does that feel? It feels good! (Does anybody ever say, "Meh, it feels okay, I guess"?)
In the meantime, I'm inviting the finalists for interviews. If you'd like to participate, email me your answers to the same following questions.
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| Josh Pachter |
Describe your story in up to 20 words.
A British bus tour of Belgium and The Netherlands is interrupted by a classical dying-message murder ...whodunnit?!
What were the most difficult and most enjoyable parts of writing the story?
A short story generally features a small cast, but this one has twenty-six characters, most of them with speaking parts. The most difficult part of writing it was to give each speaker a distinctive and believable voice, all within three thousand words.
The most enjoyable part was fitting in shoutouts to some of my favorite writers (Ellery Queen, Agatha Christie, E.F. Benson, Bavo Dhooge, Bob Van Laerhoven, Bram Dehouck) and a couple of my favorite movies (All That Jazz, Murder on the Orient Express), plus coming up with a fair-play new wrinkle on the old dying-message wheeze.
Do you have a (juicy) story about how your story came to be published?
No, nothing juicy here: I saw the call for Mystery Most Geographical, soon after returning from a trip to Holland and Belgium, wrote the story, submitted it, and it was accepted and published. I think I probably drank some juice at various times during the process, but that's all I got!
How does it feel to be a Derringer finalist?
My first short story appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 1968, so I've been publishing fairly regularly for half a century. A couple of stories I translated for EQMM have been finalists for the Edgar (in 1986) and Derringer (in 2018), but this is the first time one of my own stories has made it this far. How does that feel? It feels good! (Does anybody ever say, "Meh, it feels okay, I guess"?)
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