Like A Pendulum Do

 

British Museum Bookstore

In our last exciting adventure I discussed my family's recent trip to Crete.  As long as we were on that side of the world we added a few days in London. 

Unfortunately King Charles did not clear his schedule with us so we wound up flying out the same morning  he was getting his new hat.  This meant that we were sharing the city with more tourists than we expected.

A couple of highlights of the trip were meeting face-to-face with two people I have been emailing with for years.

We shared a coffee with Jack Calverley at the new British Library (which was the most expensive public British building of the twentieth century.  It is a beautiful edifice and delightfully busy). 

Jack edited Death of a Bad Neighbour last year, which featured one of my stories. Turns out that like us he is a cyclist so we had a lot to talk about. like the fact that he is obviously crazy to bike in a city this busy.  (And they all drive on the wrong side of the road!)  Oddly, he disagreed.

Me and Maxim

We had dinner with Maxim Jakubowski who edited The Book of Extraordinary Femme Fatale Stories last year, which also found space for one of my tales. Maxim has met a lot of writers I can only dream of knowing.  Sigh...

And now, a riddle:

Q. Why are there pyramids in Egypt?

A: They wouldn't fit in the British Museum.

We spent an exhausting morning visiting a tiny fragment of that institution. I'll say this: they don't hide their light under a bushel.  Walk in to the main hallway, turn left, and immediately you see the Rosetta Stone.

The actual freaking Rosetta Stone, discovered by Napoleon's troops and eventually used to translate the Egyptian heiroglyphs. Sends a shiver down my spine. 

We got to see the Elgin Marbles which were, um, removed from the Parthenon in Athens by Lord Elgin around 1800.  When we visited Greece two years ago we saw the beautiful museum built to hold them if they are ever returned.

Our host in Crete told us that negotiations are ongoing which could result in the Marbles returning to Athens in return for which the British Museum would have first dibs on displays of new discoveries of Greek antiquities.  This seems like such a logical, fair, win-win arrangement that I assume it will never happen.

Heathrow Airport, Coronation Day

Last year I heard an Irish comedian named Neil Delamere say something much like what follows.  He was funnier and more eloquent so I apologize to both you and him.

Recently I was in the British Museum and I was thinking about all the countries who want their stuff back.  But I was also thinking how wonderful it is to be able to go to one great building and see masterpieces from all over the world, and compare them to each other.  Then I saw something from Ireland and said: 'Those thieving bastards!  Let's loot the place!'

So, there's that.  Until next time, pip pip, tally ho, and so on.

Finding Your Story A Forever Home

 I have a new story out this month and I thought would try something different: taking you along the path that led to its eventually finding a publication.  The path turned out to be quite different than I thought it was when I began writing this piece.

Back in 2017 I got an idea for a story.  Here is the log line:

The Witness Protection Program sends a minor criminal to Indiana and orders him to keep quiet, make no waves, because mobsters want him dead.  But someone is stalking his beautiful neighbor....

Truly, our protagonist has a dilemma on his hands.

When I finish a new mystery story my first target is usually the Dell Magazines: Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock.  I generally try EQMM first even though I have much better luck with AHMM (3 sales versus almost 40) because Hitchcock takes about four times as long to make a decision as Queen.  (Of course, if a character has appeared in AHMM before I send it there first.)

But as it happens, I did not go the Dell route this time.  By 2019 I had the story ready to send (I rewrite a lot). But then a new contest was announced: the Bill Crider Prize for Short Fiction.  Entries were supposed to be set in Bill's home state of Texas so I shifted my action from Indiana to the Lone Star State and  sent it in. 

I didn't win.

Fair enough.  Bouchercon was also producing an anthology so I submitted my story to that.

Strike two.

Logically I should have now sent the story to EQMM, but I had a memory lapse and thought I had already gone the Dell route  before switching it to Texas.  So, I shifted my poor protagonist back to Indiana (he must have been tired of packing and unpacking) and shipped it to a different magazine.

Which rejected it.

Again, if I had checked my records, which I do keep scrupulously, I would have noticed that I  hadn't sent the stories to the Dell twins, but I didn't.  The story went into the file of the Great Unpublished, where it sat until last year.

That's when I saw that Jack Calverley was looking for stories for an anthology.  I have worked with Jack before: in the early days of podcasting he ran an outfit called Crime City Central.  They did an audio version of one of my stories, which you can hear here.  (Hear hear!)

Jack was working on an anthology to be titled Death of a Bad Neighbour: Revenge is Criminal.

Hmm.  There in my files was a story about neighbors (or neighbours... Jack is British.)  I didn't think it was a perfect fit (I assume Jack was mostly getting stories about X being mad at Y who lived next door and so X planned to do wicked deeds against Y) but I have found over the years that sometimes a tale with a tangential connection to an anthology theme will sell at least partially because it is different than the other stories received.

But notice the subtitle.  Revenge is implied in my story but I don't think the word actually appeared in it.  That was an easy fix; I made the revenge theme explicit, and I sent it in.

And lo and behold, "Lambs and Wolves" finally found a happy home.  It is the lead-off story in the book, out this week. 

Unanswerable question: If I had remembered to send the story to EQMM or AHMM might it have been purchased there?  We will never know.  But I am delighted that it landed in a book with stories by some of my favorite writers.  And oh, a really great cover too.  

Whether my fictional story has a happy ending you will need to read to find out, but this nonfiction one worked out great.