"The Hitter" to Appear in THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES 2011!
A few months back, Steve Weddle told me he and John Hornor Jacobs were putting together a new print mag, and asked if I'd like to contribute something to their second issue. I said sure. I started kicking around a couple ideas. One was lean and mean at maybe 3,000 words. The other was a monster, a behemoth. The kind of story you know could get away from you. The kind you know could be a risk. It was big and burly and ambitious as all hell. Here's what I said to Steve about the latter when I emailed him to see which he'd prefer: I had this idea about a week ago. Got me out of bed. Sat down in the dark and cranked out a bunch of notes, all the while thinking I really had something... it's big, and it's dark, and there's no place else for it. I told him how long I thought it'd be. I pitched the other story, too. I thought for sure he'd take the safe bet. The one that looked like all my other stories. But then, I hadn't seen issue #1 of ...