My story "Field of Bodies" appears in Black Cat Weekly #224.

The Best Private Eye Stories of the Year 2025, featuring the 20 best PI stories of 2025 and an essay on the state of the genre by Kevin Burton Smith, is now available. www.amazon.com/Best-Private...

Coming to ShortCon 2026? Need a room? Hotel registration information is now available! Scroll down to the bottom of the home page for the link: www.eastcoastcrime.com#/

Looking for a good Christmas read? Consider Murder, Neat—winner of the Derringer Award for Best Anthology AND an Anthony Award nominee for Best Anthology. Edited by Barb Goffman and me, it features stories by the writers who blog together at SleuthSayers. bookshop.org/p/books/murd...

Today is National Adoption Day, and today my romance story "Forever Family" was published by Micromance. micromancemagazine.substack.com/p/forever-fa...

Coming Soon from Level Best Books: The Best Private Eye Stories of the Year 2025.

If you had (or will have) a PI story published this year and you want it considered for The Best Private Eye Stories of the Year 2026, follow the submission instructions here: www.crimefictionwriter.com/submissions.... Remember: If I don't see your story, I can't consider your story.

“Janie’s Got a Gun”—the third single from Aerosmith’s album Pump—was released this week in 1989, and it’s the title of an anthology of crime stories inspired by the music of Aerosmith. Order here: www.mistimedia.com/product/janie/

KissMet Quarterly: The Greatest Holiday Romance Stories Ever Written releases tomorrow and it includes my story "Home for the Holidays." The ebook is available now; the paperback will be available soon. www.amazon.com/KissMet-Quar...

A week or so ago, I was interviewed by Rich Ehisen for The Open Mic: Writers in Their Own Words, and the interview was posted today at YouTub and all the major Podcast outlets. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLP7...

It's been a tough few weeks for crime fiction short-story writers. Hell, it's been a tough year. Anthology publishers have closed and periodical publishers have closed, gone on indefinite hiatus, or announced closure in the near future. What's a writer to do? www.sleuthsayers.org/2025/10/its-...

#ICYMI #ShortStory #Review Kevin's Corner: Short Story Wednesday Review: Renovated to Death by Michael Bracken and Sandra Murphy kevintipplescorner.blogspot.com/2025/06/shor...

EXCITED that “Won’t You Be Vine?” appears in this week’s edition of Black Cat Weekly (@wildsidepress.bsky.social). Everybody loves nature, and sometimes nature loves you back! Thanks to editor extraordinaire Michael Bracken for accepting this story—I guess it grew on him!

A little something from "Diana and the Princess," in SLEUTHS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN, edited by the amazing Michael Bracken -- out today from Down & Out Books! Where you get your books!

Lunatic Fringe, which contains my story "Black Velvet," is now available for preorder. whitecitypress.com/product/luna...

Now available for preorder: The Vigilante Crime Pulp Fiction Anthology, which includes my story "4:13 a.m." amzn.to/48ZXrrS

Coming Saturday, October 18: Mystery in the Midlands: Writing Short Mystery Fiction, a free, one-day online conference. Register at us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Coming tomorrow: www.sincchicago.com/chapter-meet...

Submit to The Best Private Eye Stories of the Year 2026. SJ Rozan will be the guest editor. If you had or will have a PI story published this year, ensure that I get a copy. If I don't see your story, I can't consider it. www.crimefictionwriter.com/submissions....

My short romance, "Banking on Love," appears today at Micromance Magazine. open.substack.com/pub/microman...

Attempting to predict anything in publishing is a mug’s game, especially trying to predict how long it will take for a short story to find a home. In today's post, I examine my 10 most recent acceptances. (Hint: one took 22 years to place.) www.sleuthsayers.org/2025/08/hot-...

My story "Curves" appears today as a Guilty Flash on Guilty Crime Story Magazine's website: www.guiltycrimemag.com/flash/curves...

In "Crafting an Interconnected World, One Short Story at a Time" (Writer's Digest, S/O 2025). P.M. Raymond discusses how the Chop Shop stories all tie together. She also interviewed Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier about her interconnected stories set in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.

PW reviewed The Best American Mystery & Suspense 2025 and gave a shout out to Gary Phillips’s “The Darklight Gizmo Matter,” which offers "tantalizing twists on the classic PI story." The original publication: Private Dicks and Disco Balls (Down & Out Books). www.publishersweekly.com/9780063422292

I have stories in the September/October issues of AHMM & EQMM.: "The Girl in the Shop" in AHMM and "Blind Pig" in EQMM.

ShortCon 2026, The Premiere Conference for Writers of Short Crime Fiction, will be held at Elaine's Literary Salon, Alexandria, Virginia, on June 6, 2026 and feature: Gary Phillips, Michele Slung, Art Taylor & Stacy Woodson Registration limited to 50. www.eastcoastcrime.com#/

In advance of our appearance at Vintage Bookstore & Wine Bar in Austin this Saturday to discuss Sleuths Just Wanna Have Fun, Laura Oles Author, Mark Thielman, William Dylan Powell, Andrew Hearn, & I were interviewed by Scott Montgomery at The Hard Word: www.thehardword.org/single-post/...

In "Schrödinger's Blonde," PI Morris Ronald Boyette is hired to find a potential witness to a decades-old unsolved murder, and all he has to work with is a faded Polaroid of a blonde with Farah Fawcett hair.

Like to listen to a playlist while reading a music-themed anthology? Check out this playlist for Janie's Got a Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Aerosmith (White City Press): www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJDt...

My short romance "Cowboy Up" was published today in KissMet Quarterly: A Serendipitous Summer. www.amazon.com/dp/B0FH79WTF2

I wish more people wanted to impress Jodie Foster.

Some #editing tips: www.missdemeanors.com/the-long-and... Today on Miss Demeanors.

Gag Me With a Spoon, which includes my story “The Safety Dance,” releases July 8 but is now available for preorder from the publisher. whitecitypress.com/product/gagm...

Congratulations to Art Taylor, whose Murder, Neat story "Two for One" has been nominated for a Macavity Award.

Join Andrew Hearn, Mark Thielman, Laura Oles, William Dylan Powell, and me at 1 p.m., Sat. July 19, at Vintage Bookstore in Austin, TX, where Scott Montgomery will lead us through a discussion about Sleuths Just Wanna Have Fun and other PIs of the '80s. www.vintagebooksandwine.com/events/29744...

Today's Black Cat Weekly features "Renovated to Death," the sixth story Sandra Murphy and I have co-authored.

Congratulations to Martine Elise Proctor! Her story "Drop Dead Gorgeous," published in Janie's Got a Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Aerosmith (White City Press), has been nominated for a Shamus Award by the Private Eye Writers of America. www.privateeyewriters.com/news.html

Attention short story mystery writers: Did you or will you publish a PI story in 2025? Check out www.crimefictionwriter.com @crimefictionwriter.bsky.social

The Best Private Eye Stories of the Year 2025, containing the best PI stories published in 2024, will be released later this year. Now I'm looking for the best private eye stories published in 2025 for next year. Complete instructions on how to submit: www.crimefictionwriter.com/submissions....

ShortCon gets a shoutout today in Julie Hastrup’s article about short stories. www.thebigthrill.org/2025/06/the-...

In celebration of Pride Month, Deep Desires Press has discounted the Kindle edition of Queer Bait (Book 2 of the 3-volume Men in Love and Lust series of short story collections) to $2.99. www.amazon.com/Queer-Bait-L...

My story "Banzai Pipeline," in which a private eye investigates a death that occurred during a surfing competition, appears online in the Kelp Journal. www.kelpjournal.com/post/fiction...

Today only, the digital edition of THE BEAT OF BLACK WINGS: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY THE SONGS OF JONI MITCHELL (Open Road Integrated Media) is 73% off at the 'Zon, marked down from $14.99 to only $3.99! #jonimitchell #crimefiction

SleuthFest takes place later this week in St. Petersburg, Florida. If you see me there, say howdy. Better still, join me at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday for "Writing Short," a presentation on how to establish and maintain a long-term career as a writer of short crime fiction. sleuthfest.com

Coming up!