Authors in This Issue
Joyce Carol Oates’s more than seventy books include award-winning novels, memoirs, and collections of short stories, poetry, and criticism. Just out in July: the short-story collection Zero-Sum, which PW called “Captivating. . . Readers will be spellbound.”
Curtis Ippolito is a current best-short-story Anthony Award nominee and a ecent Derringer Award flash-fiction nominee. This is his EQMM debut. For more of his work, see his novel Burying the Newspaper Man.
Liza Cody is the author of sixteen novels (the latest 2020’s Gift or Theft), and about three dozen short stories. When she first appeared on the mystery scene in the 1980s it was to immediate recognition with the John Creasey Memorial Prize for best first novel. She has since earned two Edgar nominations, two CWA Dagger nominations, an Anthony Award, and The Marlowe.
Rob Osler made his fiction debut in EQMM’s Department of First Stories in 2021 with the Robert L. Fish Award winning story “Analogue.” In 2022 his first novel, Devil’s Chew Toy, appeared. It was a nominee for the Agatha and Left Coast Crime awards for best first novel and is currently nominated for the Anthony Award in that category.
With more than half of his ninety novels belonging to his “Nameless Detective” series and six Edgar Allan Poe Award nominations, multiple Shamus awards, and the MWA Grand Master award to his credit, Bill Pronzini is naturally thought of as primarily a crime writer. But in fact, he writes in several genres; his latest book, High Concepts, collects his science fiction and fantasy stories.
The author of nearly a dozen novels, most in two popular series, Twist Phelan is also an award-winning short-story writer. Many of her stories first appeared in EQMM, including “The Bridge,” which was long-listed for the Irish Book Awards Short Story of the Year for 2022.
PW said of the first of U.K. author Amita Murray’s Arya Winters mystery novels, Arya Winters and the Tiramisu of Death, “[it] turns the cosy genre on its head.” Her story collection Marmite and Mango Chutney won the SI Leeds Literary Prize in 2016.
Tyler Fiecke debuted as a fiction writer in the Department of First Stories of EQMM’s May/June 2022 issue with the story “Runner.” For a brief period years ago, EQMM had a Department of Second Stories, for which this tale would have qualified as the author’s second published work. Mystery writers often have parallel careers. This author is a Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef by day.
Cath Staincliffe is a novelist with more than two dozen books in print, a radio playwright, and the creator of the ITV hit series Blue Murder. She’s also a short-story writer who won (jointly) the British Crime Writers Association’s Short Story Dagger in 2012.
A native San Franciscan, Jerry Kennealy is the current president of the Private Eye Writers of America; in 2017 he received the PWA’s lifetime achievement award. He’s a former police officer and licensed P.I. who has twenty-six novels and ten short stories in print. This new story brings back Johnny O’Rorke, who starred in two Kennealy novels.
William Burton McCormick placed second for our 2021 Readers Award with “Demon in the Depths,” which starred Santa Ezeriņa, this story’s sleuth. He was nominated for a 2023 Edgar for “Locked-In” (AHMM).
Anna Scotti has sold a dozen stories to EQMM in the five years since her EQMM debut. Many have been in the series to which this story belongs, starring WITSEC participant Cam Baker. One of her nonseries stories, “Schrödinger, Cat” placed third for the 2022 Readers Award and is now up for the ITW Thriller Award.
Joseph Koenig’s first novel, Floater (1986), was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award. His fiction has also brought him nominations for the Shamus and Macavity awards, and his novel Brides of Blood (1993) was named a New York Times Notable Book. The New York author’s work previously appeared in EQMM in 1992.
In addition to producing series in several other genres, Thomas K. Carpenter has been writing historical mysteries set in the Ancient World for at least a decade. His series character Magistrate Ovid of Alexandria returns here in a remarkable case: one that involves thrilling action, a brilliant puzzle, absorbing history, and early scientific discoveries
Kathrin Heinrichs was born in a small village in Germany’s Sauerland region. Since 1999 she’s worked as a freelance author and cabaret artist. In addition to two series of crime novels, she’s produced many satirical pieces about everyday life and short mystery stories. This one won the 2022 Glauser prize for the best German language short crime fiction.
Nearly twenty years ago the first of several stories featuring series character John Ennis appeared in EQMM. Ennis was in law enforcement (a deputy) in all of his seven EQMM appearances prior to this one. In this new case he’s retired, but acting against some old nemeses from his time wearing a badge. His creator, David Knadler, is a former newspaper journalist.
Gabriela Stiteler is a writer and educator based in Portland, Maine. She tells us that she grew up in Northwestern Pennsylvania on a steady diet of paperbacks from the Golden Age of detective fiction and classic noir films. Lately, she says, she’s been thinking about how bad a person can be before they’re irredeemable, a question underlying this, her first, published story.
Paul O’Connor briefly wrote comics and for decades developed video games, most recently as game director for Amazon’s Lord of the Rings. His haunting debut fiction is set at a video-game studio.