Monday, April 11, 2016

Agatha Nominees for Best Short Story



With so many mystery readers getting ready to attend Malice Domestic at the end of April, we are delighted to give you the opportunity to read the five stories that have been nominated for the 2015 Agatha Award for Best Short Story and to introduce you to the talented authors who wrote them. Just click on the link to read the entire story. 

“A Year Without Santa Claus?” (PDF) by Barb Goffman (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Jan./Feb. 2015)
“A Questionable Death” (PDF) by Edith Maxwell, History & Mystery, Oh My (Mystery & Horror, LLC)
“A Killing at the Beausoleil” (PDF) by Terrie Farley Moran (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Nov. 2015)
“Suffer the Poor” (PDF) by Harriette Sackler, History & Mystery, Oh My (Mystery & Horror, LLC)
“A Joy Forever” (PDF) by B.K. Stevens (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, March 2015)



Barb Goffman has won the Macavity and Silver Falchion awards for her short crime fiction. She’s been a finalist seventeen times for national crime-writing awards, including the Agatha, Anthony, and Derringer awards. Her Silver Falchion-winning story collection, Don’t Get Mad, Get Even, includes seven of her nominated stories. In April, she’ll have two new stories published: “Stepmonster” in Chesapeake Crimes: Storm Warning (Wildside Press) and “The Best-Laid Plans” in Malice Domestic: Murder Most Conventional (Wildside Press). Barb is an editor of the multiple award-winning Chesapeake Crimes series and runs a freelance editing and proofreading service focusing on crime and general fiction. Website:www.barbgoffman.com

Edith Maxwell writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries and the Local Foods Mysteries, the Country Store Mysteries (as Maddie Day), and the Lauren Rousseau Mysteries (as Tace Baker), as well as award-winning short crime fiction. Her short story, “A Questionable Death,” is nominated for a 2016 Agatha Award for Best Short Story. The tale features the 1888 setting and characters from Delivering the Truth, which releases on April 8.Maxwell is Vice-President of Sisters in Crime New England and Clerk of Amesbury Friends Meeting. She lives north of Boston and blogs with the other Wicked Cozy Authors, and you can find her on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, and at her web site, edithmaxwell.com.


Terrie Farley Moran is the best-selling author of the Read 'Em and Eat cozy mysteries series. Well Read, Then Dead, winner of the Agatha Award for Best First Novel 2014, was followed by Caught Read-Handed in 2015. Read to Death will be released in July 2016. Terrie’s short mystery fiction has been published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and numerous anthologies. Her short story, “A Killing at the Beausoleil” prequel to the Read ’Em and Eat novels, has recently been nominated for an Agatha Award for Best Short Story. She also co-writes Laura Childs’s Scrapbooking Mystery series. Together they have written Parchment and Old Lace (October 2015) and Crepe Factor (October 2016).Website: www.terriefarleymoran.com



Harriette Sackler serves as Grants Chair of the Malice Domestic Board of Directors.  She is a multi-published short story writer.  Her latest story, “Suffer the Poor,” appears in History and Mystery, Oh My! and has been nominated for this year’s Agatha Award for Best Short Story.  She is a member of Dames of Detection and is co-owner, co-publisher and co-editor at Level Best Books.  Her nonfiction book about House with a Heart Senior Pet Sanctuary will be published in 2017. Harriette lives in the D.C. suburbs with her husband and their two dogs. Website: www.harriettesackler.com




B.K. (Bonnie) Stevens has published over fifty short stories, most in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Some stories have been nominated for awards including the Agatha, Macavity, and Derringer. This year, “A Joy Forever” is an Agatha nominee; so is Fighting Chance, B.K.’s martial arts mystery for teens. Her first novel, Interpretation of Murder, is a whodunit offering readers insights into deaf culture. A collection of B.K.’s stories, Her Infinite Variety: Tales of Women and Crime, is being published by Wildside Press. B.K. and her husband, Dennis, live in Virginia and have two grown daughters.  Website: http://www.bkstevensmysteries.com

The award will be given out at the Malice Domestic Convention in Bethesda, MD on April 29th. 

2 comments:

  1. Hi Deb, thanks so very much for linking our stories so they are available to all the fantastic readers who frequent Mystery Playground.

    ReplyDelete