Summer Season
July 1, 2024
I've always felt New England does summer better than just about anywhere else in the country. And so far this year is no different. It might be a little hotter, and certainly a little wetter, but it is mostly gorgeous. The heat doesn't bother me because it makes me think of India and starting another Anita Ray mystery. The fifth Anita Ray is out in paperback, and once again the cover is perfect. I'm convinced the publisher sends someone to Kovalam to take pictures.
I'm working on the sixth Anita Ray, which I hope will be available late fall, and then on to the seventh Anita Ray, which will be set during Pongala, a women's festival in South India that is the largest gathering of women in the world, up to 3 million now (or just before the pandemic).
As a regular member of the Program Committee for Crime Bake, I get to tell you how excited we are about this year's conference scheduled for November 8-10. Registration is open, so hop on over and take a look at the schedule. https://www.crimebake.org
The summer months are also when I find myself deep into editing. This can be something of mine, or, as is often the case, the short stories accepted for the next Best New England Crime Stories. This year's anthology, Devil's Snare, has an exciting and impressive collection of tales, and I'm enjoying reading them for the third time (and there will be a fourth at least).
As a member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, I get to listen to other, more accomplished writers and editors talk about how they go about their work, and I can consider how I might adapt some of their practices, particularly in how they organize the selections. One of the most interesting topics for discussion this year was the condition of the mss when they come in—formatting.
This seems a good opportunity to remind writers to follow directions: read submission guidelines and make sure your manuscript conforms to them before sending it to us. Plenty of writers, especially new ones, are not familiar with standard formatting, but should be able to pick it up from reading guidelines. We have not included a page on the Crime Spell Books website as an illustration but after some of the entries we received this year, I think I'll add a sample page for the next anthology, 2025. https://crimespellbooks.wixsite.com/my-site/submission-guidelines
Two of the most egregious departures from standard formatting were paragraphing and line spacing. I received two stories typed single-spaced with block paragraphs. Neither had proper identification of the author and contact information. I refused to read both of them. It's unfortunate that a writer could spend so much time composing a work of fiction but care so little about its presentation that it gets rejected before it's read.
Let me add here that all of us, no matter how many books we've published, have to follow the same rules if we want to be considered professional and have our work taken seriously. I hope anyone reading this will consider this friendly advice. Read the guidelines. Follow them. And if you're still not sure what is standard formatting, ask someone.
And now, I hope you can get out there and enjoy the best New England has to offer—July, August, and September.