Mysterious Thoughts

Over at Mysterious Matters there are two posts about writing in the Mystery genre that I found both enlightening and helpful. The first is a look at writing cross-genre stories and why they fly or don't in the marketplace. http://mysteriousmatters.typepad.com/mysterious_matters_myster/2010/05/writing-the-crossgenre-mystery-keep-it-sexy.html

The second post was a look at the PI novel with some good tips on how to keep it fresh. http://mysteriousmatters.typepad.com/mysterious_matters_myster/2010/06/writing-the-professional-sleuth-keep-it-smart-and-cynical.html

Sarah Monette has an interesting piece over at Storytellers Unplugged this week. It's about finding the story in the story. In other words, what the heck is this story really about? http://storytellersunplugged.com/sarahmonette/2010/06/07/finding-the-story-in-the-story/

And a couple of markets notes. Anthologies Online has posted their June submission calls. There's lots of calls for shorts, non-fiction, poetry and contests. http://www.anthologiesonline.com/

For our Vampire writers, here's a bit of a different spin for you, Alien Vampires. Hungur magazine is looking for stories of 2500 to 6000 words. The pay is $12 for original stories and $5 for reprints. Hungur is published twice a year on November 1 and April 30 by Sam's Dot Publishing. You can find all the details here http://www.samsdotpublishing.com/HungurGL.htm