Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 2018 READERS AWARD

ElleryQueen Mystery Magazine Readers Award 2018

Stacy Woodson has won first place with her story “Duty, Honor, Hammett” from the November/December 2018 issue’s Department of First Stories. EQMM readers enjoyed the way the D.C.-based U.S. Army veteran combined a military setting, a suspenseful plot, and some crime-fiction history in her first professionally published tale. Stacy is also the winner of the 2017 Daphne du Maurier Award for Best Romantic Suspense in the single title, unpublished category. She contributes to Publishers Weekly and her short fiction can be found in a handful of upcoming anthologies.

Second place is Virginia translator, writer, editor, and instructor Josh Pachter, whose winning story “50” (from the November/December 2018 issue) marks a special occasion: the half-century anniversary of his first fiction publication (in our Department of First Stories), an event that occurred when he was still a teenager and made him the second-youngest author to be published in EQMM. The tale, a classical whodunit, brings back the characters from that original story and gives a nod to Ellery Queen. Josh is the editor of The Misadventures of Ellery Queen (Wildside Press) among other titles.

In third place is retired New Jersey police chief David Dean with his chilling “Sofee,” about a child seeking justice for a friend (from the March/April 2018 issue). David is a prolific short-story writer whose work has received nominations for almost all of the major mystery awards, including the Edgar. He is also a novelist (see The Thirteenth Child, The Purple Robe, and Starvation Cay), and a previous EQMM Readers Award winner (for “Ibrahim’s Eyes” in 2007).

For more information on these authors and their work, and to see the announcement of the runners up, check out our May/June 2019 issue.

HT: Kevin Tipple