Wednesday, August 31, 2016

SMFS Member Peter DiChellis and "Character Rebellion" on MotiveMeansOpportunity Blog

Peter  has a funny guest post titled "Character Rebellion" at the MotiveMeansOpportunity mystery writer blog. Topic: What happens when your characters won't cooperate with the story you want to write?

The characters in Peter's grave-robbing WIP decided robbing graves is too much hard work and issued a list of complaints! They charterers involved may have to be replaced.

Sunday, August 21, 2016

SMFS Member Kaye George Wins a 2016 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award for MURDER ON WHEELS

SMFS Member Kaye George won a 2016 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award for MURDER ON WHEELS. Nominated in the Best Fiction Short Story Anthology category and edited by Ramona DeFelice Long, Murder On Wheels contains  eleven mystery short stories where modes of transportation
past and present serve as a key part of the tale. Kaye George wrote the introduction to the anthology as well as two short stories, “The Wheels On The Bus Go Round And Round” and “Have A Nice Trip.” 


The other authors included in the anthology are: Gale Albright, V. P. Chandler, Scott Montgomery, Laura Oles, SMFS member Earl Staggs, Kathy Walker, Kathy Waller, and Reavis Z. Wortham.

Congratulations to Kaye George and all those in the book.

Friday, August 19, 2016

SMFS Member Nominees for Killer Nashville’s 2016 Silver Falchion Award

The following members have been nominated for awards at this year’s Killer Nashville convention. The complete list of nominees is on the 2016 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Finalists website. Winners will be announced at the 2016 Killer Nashville Guest of Honor & Awards Dinner.

In the Best Fiction Short Story Anthology category there are two nominees.

Kaye George is nominated for Murder On Wheels.

Josh Pachter is nominated for The Tree of Life.

In the Best Nonfiction Young Adult Book category, P. A. De Voe is nominated for Warned, A Mei-hua Adventure. While grateful to be nominated, P. A. would like it to be noted that, despite the nominated category, her book was entered as and is a historical young adult mystery/adventure. The book is also listed a nominee in the Judges’ Choice Award.

In the Best Mystery/Crime category, BV Lawson is nominated for Dies Irae.

In the Best Fiction Adult Book category, member Craig Faustus Buck is nominated for Go Down Hard.

Monday, August 15, 2016

Society Members' News: August 2016

The members below reported their publishing successes this month: 


Jack Bates, "Songs at the End of the Unfinished Road" in Tales From The Lake: Volume 3 (Crystal Lake Publishing, August).

Michael Bracken, "An Unhealthy Death" in Mystery Weekly Magazine (August) and is scheduled to be the August 23 free email. Also, “Dead Things” has been reprinted in issue 3 of M.

Patrick Cooper, “Swans Mate for Life” for Mondays are Murder (Akashic Books, August 15).

James Dorr, "Flightless Rats" in Mocha’s Dark Brew (Mocha Memoir Press, June).

Gail Farrelly,  "The Eyes Have It," in Kings River Life Magazine. (August 21).

John M. Floyd, Pit Stop,” in Mississippi Noir (Akashic Books, August).

Kaye George, “Murder with Crow” in Cooked To Death (Nodin Press, July).

V.S. Kemanis, “Journal Entry, Franklin DeWitt” in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (August).

Paul D. Marks, “Deserted Cities of the Heart” in St. Louis Noir (Akashic Books, August).

William Burton McCormick, “Voices in the Cistern”  in  Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (August).

Susan Oleksiw, When Krishna Calls (An Anita Ray Mystery) (Five Star/Gale/ Cengage, August).

Josh Pacter, “iMurder” in Crime & Mystery Short Stories (Flame Tree Publishing, August) as well as "Joyride" by René Appel, which I translated from Dutch to English for EQMM, in TheYear’s Best Crime and Mystery Stories 2016 (Kobo Books, August).

Jacqueline Seewald, "Kaleidoscope" in New Zenith Magazine (July).

Judy Penz Sheluk,  Skeletons in the Attic: A Marketville Mystery (#1) (Imajin Books, August 2016).

Albert Tucher, “The Dreadful Surge” in Mystery Weekly Magazine (August) as well as “The Forgettable Man” which is also the runner-up in the third annual The Lawyerist short fiction contest.


Email news for next month's post to SMFS president Kevin R. Tipple (KEVINRTIPPLE at VERIZON dot NET).

Sunday, August 14, 2016

Friday, August 5, 2016

Guest Post: Judy Penz Sheluk on "The Fine Art of Procrastination"

In addition to writing short stories, SMFS member Judy Penz Sheluk writes novels. Like the rest of us, she procrastinates when she should be writing. Below are her top five ways of doing so.



Judy Penz Sheluk: The Fine Art of Procrastination


I’m going to let you in on a secret: I procrastinate, even when I have a deadline looming large—or perhaps because I do and suddenly it all begins to feel a bit overwhelming. Here are my top 5 ways to fritter away the time I should spend writing:

Pinterest: Don’t get me wrong, I love Pinterest. If I’m looking for a recipe, or how-to build a wood shed, Pinterest is the first place I look. I have 26 boards relating to movies, books, TV shows, running, golf—the list goes on—and because my profile is linked to my author website, occasionally Pinterest will bring me some traffic. But Pinterest can also be a place where I spend way too much time pinning pins instead of spinning a yarn.

Facebook: The original time suck! I used to have an author page only, so I could justify the time spent finding and scheduling posts. In February 2015, Facebook changed the rules and everyone with an author page had to have it linked to a personal page. Now I’m able to double the time I spend on Facebook…of course, on the plus side, I’ve made a lot of new friends!

Googling Under the Guise of Research: Research is as much a part of writing as the actual writing; some might even argue it’s more important. After all, one wrong fact and you’ve lost the trust of your reader. It’s when I start googling things like “was there a full moon on May 1, 1980, when my protagonist, Callie Barnstable was born?” That might be important to know if I was writing a vampire series. I’m not.

Who was that actor in that TV show I watched last night and why can’t I remember what he/she was in before?: The ultimate mind niggle that won’t let go. It happened to me recently, when I was marathon watching the excellent series, Friday Night Lights (I don’t know how I missed it originally). There’s an actor, Gaius Charles, who played Brian “Smash” Williams, and I’m thinking…where do I know him from? I’m running the shows I regularly watch in my mind, and saying, nope, nope, nope, when suddenly I remember: Grey’s Anatomy. He was Dr. Shane Ross. This of course, leads me to do another google. You never know when Gaius Charles trivia can come in handy.

Office Cleanup: Cleaning up my desk drawer, sorting my paperclips by color (because what self-respecting author would have those plain metal paperclips), tidying up my bookshelf, typing up labels for my file folders using a different font…

What’s not procrastination (even when sometimes it feels like it is)? Writing blog posts, like this one, to help promote my latest novel, SKELETONS IN THE ATTIC. So, without further ado, here’s the blurb. Now, before I get back to my work in progress, I just have to get back to sorting my paperclips.

Judy’s latest release is Skeletons in the Attic, the first book in the Marketville Mysteries:
What goes on behind closed doors doesn’t always stay there…

Calamity (Callie) Barnstable isn’t surprised to learn she’s the sole beneficiary of her late father’s estate, though she is shocked to discover she has inherited a house in the town of Marketville—a house she didn’t know existed. However, there are conditions attached to Callie’s inheritance: she must move to Marketville, live in the house, and solve her mother’s murder.

Callie’s not keen on dredging up a thirty-year-old mystery, but if she doesn’t do it, there’s a scheming psychic named Misty Rivers who is more than happy to expose the Barnstable family secrets. Determined to thwart Misty and fulfill her father’s wishes, Callie accepts the challenge. But is she ready to face the skeletons hidden in the attic?


SKELETONS IN THE ATTIC is now available for pre-order on Amazon Kindle for the special introductory price of .99 (reg. $4.99). Find it here :http://getbook.at/SkeletonsintheAttic

Judy Penz Sheluk ©2016

Judy Penz Sheluk’s debut mystery novel, The Hanged Man’s Noose, was published in July 2015. Skeletons in the Attic, the first book in her Marketville Mystery Series, was published in August 2016.

Judy’s short crime fiction appears in World Enough and Crime, The Whole She-Bang 2, Flash and Bang and Live Free or Tri.

Judy is a member of Sisters in Crime, Crime Writers of Canada, International Thriller Writers and the Short Mystery Fiction Society.

Find Judy on her website/blog at http://www.judypenzsheluk.com, where she interviews other authors and blogs about the writing life.