Volume 1

I had planned this month to write something pithy about the decline of the hardboiled market and the seriously discouraging trend toward 'hobby cozies' and 'books with hooks'. Now, I know this site has a decided bias toward the rougher side of crime, but honestly! Do you really want to read about cat-sitting knitters solving murders?

Raymond Chandler probably put it best when he said that it was important to take murder out of the drawing room and put it back on the streets, where it belongs.

Like I said, I had planned to write about this, but every time I put fingers to keyboard my head would lock up like Marion Penitentiary on a Saturday night, and nothing would flow. So I junked the idea. If you're reading this site, you already know most of my gripes anyway.

Among the best of the news is the revival, by Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine's Janet Hutchings, of Black Mask - or at least a vague semblance of it. Every other issue, Hutchings plans to include a classic hardboiled and a new hardboiled story, using the Black Mask header. That means that, six times a year (more or less) those of us who like a little blood in our violence have a shot at cracking the hardest market in mystery short fiction. It ain't much, but it's more than we had last year. I dig it the most.

Also, I am extremely pleased and proud to announce that - in it's very first year of existence - The Back Alley has garnered TWO DERRINGER AWARD NOMINATIONS!

The Derringers are awarded each year by the Short Mystery Fiction Society, an Internet gathering of almost a thousand mystery short story authors and aficionados. Awards are given in four categories, based on story length. Finalists were announced on Tuesday, April 1, 2008, and I can tell you that was a great day in The Back Alley.

John Weagly received a nomination in the 1001-4000 Word Category for his story In The Shadows Of Wrigley Field, which appeared in our November issue. John is a Chicago-based author who is also a playwright, and produces theatrical works. He's also had at least one other Derringer nomination that I could determine, so he's really on a roll!

In the 8001-17500 Word Category, Paper Walls/Glass Houses received a nomination. This story was written by some guy named Eric Shane, and appeared in our first issue, in June 2007. I am very familiar with this Shane fellow, as he has been sleeping with my wife for most of the last quarter century. I shower with him every morning, and sometimes I even brush his teeth.

Okay, you got me. Eric Shane is the pseudonym I created for myself when it became obvious that I had no future selling my books to New York publishers under my original name. But that's another story.

Just to make it fair, I also submitted a story written under my own name, and wouldn't you know it? It got nominated too! The Gospel According to Gordon Black, an Eamon Gold short published in Thrilling Detective's fall issue, is a finalist in the 4001-8000 Word Category for the Derringers.

I would strongly urge you, if you are a member of SMFS, to wander over to their site at yahoogroups.com and vote for these stories, so we can pull off a strong finish when the awards are announced on May 15th.

The important thing is that a brand new hardboiled/noir webzine surged to the front of the pack this year and stole away with ONE EIGHTH of all the nominations in the Derringer Awards. I can't tell you how proud I am of this endeavor, and of all the authors who have graced its pages in its first three issues, including that wacky group of funsters listed below.

My point is this - our commitment at The Back Alley is to bring you the finest new hardboiled and noir literature and commentary, with absolutely no frills, in the online marketplace. My good buddy Kevin Burton Smith just celebrated the tenth anniversary of the birth of The Thrilling Detective Website, and I can't wait for the day that we crack open a bottle of bubbly to do the same for this quarterly madhouse of murder and mayhem.

So, if you're returning for another hit at the ol' Back Alley bong, welcome back! If it's your first time in the joint, then allow me to welcome you to the show. The more the merrier!

TIM WOHLFORTH’S story “Jesus Christ Is Dead!” made the “Distinguished Mystery Stories” list in Otto Penzler’s 2005 Best American Mystery Stories. A story of his was chosen for inclusion in the Mystery Writers of America’s Death Do Us Part, edited by Harlan Coben published in August 2006 by Little Brown. Dennis McMillan has published a Crip and Henrietta story as part of his Plots With Guns anthology. He is a Pushcart Prize Nominee and has received a Certificate of Excellence from the Dana Literary Society. Wohlforth has had seventy-four short stories accepted for publication in print magazines, ezines, and in twelve anthologies. He co-authored the non-fiction book, On The Edge: Political Cults Right and Left, published by M.E. Sharpe.

According to his website, Derringer Award Nominee JUSTIN GUSTAINIS attended college at the University of Scranton, a Jesuit university that figures prominently in several of his writings. Following military service, he held a variety of jobs, including speechwriter and professional bodyguard, before earning a Ph.D. at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Mr. Gustainis currently lives in Plattsburgh, New York, where he is a Professor of Communication at Plattsburgh State University. His academic publications include the book American Rhetoric and the Vietnam War, published in 1993. His two novels in print are The Hades Project, and Black Magic Woman.

According to her blog, CLAIR DICKSON is a bitter cynical Alternative High School Teacher (do they hire anyone other?) with a dark sense of humor, a weakness for word play, and a love of Crime Noir and Hardboiled detectives. Writing is her bread, and teaching is her butter… or maybe teaching is her bread and writing is her butter… or maybe… no,.. well, let’s just say that writing and teaching are her various breads and butters (I would apologize to Woody Allen, but he never did so to me, so there we are). The best part of her job is that she gets to teach fun courses like Movies vs. Books and read Raymond Chandler! Her Bo Fexler stories have appeared in Muzzle Flash, Sons of Spade, Yellow Mama, Mysterical-E, and New Mystery Reader.

According to Amazon.com, JOCHEM VAN DER STEEN has been writing all his life. With the Internet he found a chance to share his work with the rest of the world. His main influences include the old guys like Hammett and Chandler as well as wit slingers like Harlan Coben and Robert B. Parker. He’s also a big fan of alternative rock and comic books, which explains a lot of the pop culture references in his work. The proprietor of the Sons of Spade website, Jochem somehow manages to capture the essence of the American PI ethos, despite the fact that he lives far away in the Netherlands. His Noah Milano novel The White Knight Syndrome, was published in 2003.

GAY TOLTL KINMAN is a three-time Agatha Award Nominee (strange to see one of those in The Back Alley!), an Eppie Award Winner and a Derringer Award Nominee. She has published short stories in HandHeld Crime, Shots, Detective Mystery Stories, Futures, Crime and Suspense, and Mysterical-E. She co-edited a cookbook, and a book promotion publication for Sisters in Crime, and was on the Board of SINC / LA. She coordinated workshops for writers at California State University, San Bernardino; and is a scholar for the Library of Congress / UCLA "Women of Mystery" discussion groups. Kinman has a library degree and a law degree. Judging by her picture, she's also a Fifth Degree Jedi, but that's another genre...

FRANK NORRIS holds a very special place in the history of noir fiction. Despite his relative lack of renown today, around the turn of the twentieth century he was setting the world on fire with his naturalistic, dark stories of doomed people. Many of the novels he produced during his tragically brief life were later made into movies, such as Moran of the Lady Letty, and the immensely classic silent film Greed (1924, Erich von Stroheim), which was based on his massive novel McTeague.

Continuing in this issue, we present Part II of McTeague, and attempt in each issue to include some history or critical analysis of the incredible literary work of Frank Norris.

BRUCE STIRLING'S poetry and prose appear in number of literary journals including Out Of The Gutter, and Thieves Jargon. His crime story "Woman Want" was co-winner of the 2007 Fish-Knife Award for Short Crime Fiction. He's also published fiction in Debris, Eclectica, Pen Pricks, Bewildering Stories, Opium, and Sensorotica.

Bruce is a little camera-shy, so we've substituted a picture of a gun-toting monkey. That'll teach him a thing or two about deadlines!