Reviewing Cha's The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2021

In my first three installments I looked at culture wars in history and literature, how they have popped up in mystery writing resulting in the schism of the year's best mystery stories into two very different volumes, and then went on to review Otto Penzler's The Best Mystery Stories of the...

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Reviewing Otto Penzler's Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2021

In my first entry to this series, I presented the broader picture of how a culture war is playing out in America as to who gets to tell history and what history is told. I showed how these battles have extended in the past decade to the science fiction writing community. In the second entry,...

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A Divide in the Mystery Writing Community

In the first installment, I examined the culture wars taking place as the storytellers of history — and science fiction — have been changing from the predominately white male narrators. Compared to the puppy wars in science fiction, the mystery writing community, to its credit, undergone had a milder...

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The Culture War over History and Fiction

In this post I have three parts to present. First, the context of my piece: a battle is being fought over who should tell the narrative of history. Second, I demonstrate that the same fight is taking place in fiction: who gets to be the storytellers is changing. Third, I discuss how these cultural wars...

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Three Strange Rejections

Writing and sending out manuscripts for decades now, I've had my share of rejections. From the submission tracker Duotrope, I am told that my 14.3% acceptance rate is higher than the average for those authors who have sent to the same publications. Still that means 85.7% rejection.In the past two months,...

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Where Has COVID-19 Had Its Highest Death Rates Since The Delta Variant Appeared?

 The COVID-19 Fatality Rates in the Time of the Delta Variant and Vaccine AvailabilityThe COVID-19 infection has passed over the United States in several waves. The death rates before and since the appearance of the Delta variant and the general availability of the vaccine tell a dramatic story. So,...

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Reviewing the Short Story Nominees for Mystery Writers of America

Five stories have been nominated for the Edgar Award in the category of best short story from the Mystery Writers of America. In my previous post, I wrote about where you can purchase the magazine issue or anthology.In this post, I am writing about my impressions from reading them.Here is a list of...

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Mystery Writers of America Short Story Nominees: Where to Find Them

 This January I had finally achieved enough sales to the proper magazines to qualify as a member of the Mystery Writers of America. I consider this a big honor. I now belong to the Florida chapter.Each year the MWA hands out the Edgar Awards for a whole number of categories, including Best Novel,...

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