80 Years of EQMM
From the Editor’s Desk at 80 Years
In 2016, EQMM’s 75th anniversary year, the highlight of our celebration was a symposium and special exhibition hosted by Columbia University. You can still watch that symposium’s delightful and informative panels and learn all about EQMM’s storied history through links from this website, but I know that with our 80th anniversary issue going on sale this week many readers will also want to hear about what we’ve been doing since then.
One significant recent change to our lineup occurred with the May/June 2020 EQMM, when we began featuring a true crime article in each issue of the magazine. Entitled Stanger Than Fiction and written by journalist and professor Dean Jobb, the new department originated two and a half years earlier as a web-only column available exclusively through this website and featuring primarily book reviews. With the transition to the magazine, the award-winning author of six highly praised true crime books began treating readers to accounts of famous crimes based on his own research—and he’s one of the best researchers and writers in the field!
As you page through our 80th Anniversary Issue, you’ll find a number of other names new to our pages too, including Emmy Award winning TV writer Matt Goldman and New York Times bestselling author Juliet Grames, who contribute short stories alongside Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Bill Pronzini, multiple Anthony Award winner Hilary Davidson, Jerome Charyn (a writer hailed by Michael Chabon as “one of the most important writers in American literature”) and other popular crime writers.
The year’s special offerings don’t end there either. Our November/December issue, on sale October 19, leads with a newly discovered, never before published Elizabeth Peters story by MWA Grand Master Barbara Mertz (September 29, 1927 –August 8, 2013).
We’ve also got some special podcasts that you won’t want to miss, especially one by Dale Andrews in which the Ellery Queen characters appear and our first true crime podcast by Dean Jobb.
Last but not least, today we open our 80th Anniversary EQMM Trivia Contest. We hope you’ll participate, and I’ll give you a hint: If there are answers you don’t yet know, watching some of the panels from the 2016 Columbia University symposium that I mentioned above should fill in some of the blanks. Have fun!
—Janet Hutchings