CHRIS HOLM

After a crap-ass day in which neither I nor the universe seemed to do anything right, I'm happy to report things seem to be turning around. I've now got a working furnace, some tasty Chinese food, and word from Thuglit that they've accepted my short story "Eight Pounds" for their November/December issue! Much obliged, Todd. Happy to be aboard.

A few weeks back, writer and editor Lyman Feero hit me up to write a story for a new venture he had cookin' called The Feral Pages. Never one to turn down a submission invite, I said sure. Problem was, I had nothing. When I had four weeks to come up with something, it was no big deal. Three weeks left, and I was fine. At two weeks, I began to sweat. When this weekend rolled around, and I realized I only had four days to get my ass in gear, I started thinking maybe I wasn't gonna come through. Skipping deadlines, even deadlines set by friends, is the height of writerly bad form, and I didn't much relish the thought of missing this one, but every story I sketched out sucked, and the ones I'd started never seemed to cross the finish line. My head was too full of book-thoughts; short stories just wouldn't come. I got nervous. I tossed. I turned. And somewhere along the way, I got to wondering what that scratching in my walls was all about. The result of that wondering i...

Photo courtesy Stephanie MacDerment The other day, I was poking around my cousin Steph's blog, and came across the picture above. She'd taken it at the Syracuse PD tent at the New York State Fair. Seeing it rocked me back, because the scrawny young man receiving his Police Academy diploma is my grandfather. My grandfather (Papa, to us grandkids, because nobody, but nobody , called him Grandpa) was a great many things. A decent man. A stern disciplinarian. A fierce competitor. A consummate storyteller. But most of all, my Papa was a cop. A damn good one, by all accounts. Papa rose through the ranks of the Syracuse PD from beat cop all the way to Deputy Chief, and despite everything he'd seen along the way, the man still never locked his doors at night. "If they want to get in, they'll get in," he'd say. "No point having them break a window to do it." I remember clear as day the joy of riding with him in his Caddy (he always said when he made i...

I just got word that my short story "Action" has been accepted by Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine! The publication-date is still to be determined, but that ain't stopping me from rockin' a little chair-dancing as we speak. "Action" is a dark comedy/caper story conceived as a sort of homage to the late, great Donald Westlake. I'm elated that it'll appear in AHMM.

I'm delighted to report that "The Big Score" was named a finalist for this year's Derringer Award! Big thanks to Richard Helms, editor of The Back Alley, for putting my story out into the world. Thanks also to Patrick Shawn Bagley, for prodding me to write the thing in the first place, and to the Short Fiction Mystery Society, for totally making my day. I'd also like to take a moment to congratulate all the other finalists, particularly the fantastic Sophie Littlefield, who was nominated for her brilliant short "A Taste for It." Oh, and for those of you reading who happen to be members of the SFMS: don't forget to vote! If you vote for me, great. If not, that's cool too—there are a bunch of fantastic stories on the docket.

Today has been a good day. Nay, a great day. Not to mention an unprecedented day (for me, at least). Today was a two-acceptance day. I just received word that my short story "The Toll Collectors" has been accepted by Beat to a Pulp, and is scheduled to go live sometime in February. "The Toll Collectors" is a creepy little cross-genre crime/horror piece, and I couldn't be happier at where it ended up. But wait—there's more! I also received word that "The Well," a nasty little piece of horror flash that may well be the scariest thing I've ever written, is going to appear in Flashes in the Dark! When, you ask? Funny thing, that. It's also gonna go live sometime in February. Which means a big fat February double-feature of me. Big thanks to David and Tony, the editors of BtaP and FitD, respectively. You two just made my day.