I'm happy to announce my next three guest editors for
Hardluck Stories Zine: J. Michael Blue, G. Miki Hayden, and
Thomas Deja. J. Michael Blue has the 2003 Summer issue, G.
Miki Hayden the 2003 Fall issue, and Thomas Deja the Winter
2004 issue. Submissions are now open for all three issue.
Submission guidelines can be found at:
http://www.hardluckstories.com/zineGuidelines.htm#Submission%20Guideline
s
-Dave Zeltserman
J. Michael Blue has published more than 150 short stories,
essays and articles in publications as diverse as Byline, The
Flying Island, The Concho River Review, Blue Murder Magazine,
Papyrus, Hand-Held Crime, The Timber Creek Review, Literally,
The Writer's Journal, Vintage Northwest, Arts Indiana, and
Plots With Guns. His short fiction has won awards in a dozen
contests.
Blue Murder Press published a trade paperback edition of J.
Michael's first novel in August of 2000. New editions of
Justified Crimes and A Favor For Zodiac have been reissued
under the Mystery Writers of America Presents imprint, along
with a collection of short fiction entitled 3 Lady Blues +
12. All three books are available as e-books through
Coffee-Cup Press. For more information, please visit: http://www.jmblue.com
G. Miki Hayden is the author of Writing the Mystery, a
Macavity winner and Agatha and Anthony nomination. Miki's
cross-genre alternate history Pacific Empire, a novel
comprising seven intertwined crime stories, was on the
NYTimes summer reading list the year it was issued. Miki, a
longtime MWA member and a current board member, won a place
in two of the organization's anthologies: "War Crimes," in A
Hot and Sultry Night for Crime (editor, Jeffrey Deaver) and
"The Maids," coming in Blood on Their Hands (editor Lawrence
Block). Miki has been a regular columnist for such
publications as Murderous Intent, Blue Murder, and now for
Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine.
Miki has chosen an animal theme for her issue; which could be
any number of things (a fixed horse race, the "animal
within", someone being a
"snake", a stool pigeon, etc.)
Thomas Deja has lived and worked in New York City all his
life-which may explain why most of what he writes is horror
fiction. From his earliest work for the seminal humor 'zine
Inside Joke to stories in magazines like Creatio ex Nihilo,
After Hours, Rictus, Bare Bone and Not One of Us, as well as
the short-story anthologies The Asylum Volume One: The Psycho
Ward, and Decadence, he has continued to deliver the message
that runs through all his work: the nature of life is
changing, and it hates you. His work has received Honorable
Mention in The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, and
has been published in four languages. Mr. Deja's most
well-known stories, however, are those that have appeared in
the Marvel Comics paperback anthologies The Ultimate Hulk,
X-Men Legends and Five Decades of the X-Men. Presently, he is
preparing to undertake an original dark science fiction novel
called The Jefferson Doctrine.
Mr. Deja has a long standing relationship with Fangoria
magazine; from his highly controversial X-FILES Episode
Guides to his author profiles and book reviews, his work
always generates talk. In 2001, he was appointed Fiction
Editor for Fangoria's "Frightful Fiction" section, accessible
on the magazine's website (www.fangoria.com). This has led to
his writing a series of articles on how to get published for
Scavenger's Newsletter, his editing of the debut issue of
Underworlds, and upcoming ventures with the e-publisher
cyberpulp.
With Mr. Deja's issue we're trying something ambitious, a
celebration of Richard Prather. For anyone who hasn't read
any Shell Scott stories or novels, I highly recommend them.
Richard Prather was one of the greats in our field and his
works are a lot of fun.
ARTICLES: I'm looking for critical studies, appreciations,
reviews, and light pieces concerning Richard Prather and
Shell Scott. They should be no more than 1000 words in
length, and should be written towards the popular reader--I
may use a really literate/erudite analysis, but I don't
anticipate using more than one or two.
STORIES: The two things to keep in mind, first and foremost,
in writing a story in the tradition of Prather and Scott are
that they should be fun and they should have a sense of the
absurd. This doesn't necessarily mean that I'm looking only
for broad comedy pieces (the mysteries at the core of the
Scott novels were generally serious), but they should have a
definite light flavor to them. They don't have to be period
pieces--even though Shell's popularity was primarily a
product of the 50's and early 60's, Scott novels were
published through the 80's--but they could have the same sort
of sensibility of the time. The most important thing, to me,
is that the writer have fun with the story, and that the
reader is grinning to beat the band while reading it. Don't
be disrespectful, but by all means don't be serious. Shell
was the antithesis of Mickey Spillane's grim and gritty Mike
Hammer, a private eye who always saw the lighter side of
life, and the stories and character in this issue of HARDLUCK
STORIES should do the same.
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