NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

DOUBLE DERRINGER!

When I started The Back Alley Webzine just over a year ago, my intent was to foster and support the finest in hardboiled and noir short-storytelling. Over the last year, we've presented stories by previous Edgar Award winners, Derringer Award winners, Shamus and Anthony Award nominees, and even an Agatha nominee (how did that one sneak in?), along with some exciting work by relatively new voices in the genre.

As I stated in the previous issue, The Back Alley Webzine was privileged to receive two Derringer Award nominations in April.

The first was for Chicago scribe John Weagly's story In The Shadows of Wrigley Field, which was nominated in the 1001-4000 word category.

In addition, a story by some upstart named Eric Shane, Paper Walls/Glass Houses, was nominated in the 8001-17,500 word category. It is with some humility that I can announce to the world that Eric Shane and I are one and the same.

It is with the greatest pleasure that I can also announce that BOTH OF THESE STORIES WON!

That's right, campers. In its very first year of existence, The Back Alley Webzine managed to garner HALF of the SMFS Derringer Awards handed out.

But wait! There's more! Another one of my stories, The Gospel According to Gordon Black, which was published in November 2007 on Kevin Burton Smith's Thrilling Detective Website, was also nominated in the 4001-8000 word category, and - would'ja believe it? - IT WON TOO!

I'd like to take a moment to offer my sincerest thanks to Kevin and to Gerald So, who edited the story, for their fine work and for affording me the opportunity to become the only author ever to win two Derringer Awards in the same year.

The only author not associated with The Back Alley Webzine to win a Derringer this year was Patti Abbott, who won in the 0-1000 word category. It's only fitting, therefore, that we include her in the current issue.

On another completely different front, it appears that we will have to wait for at least another year before being vetted as an MWA Approved Publisher. After applying last year, MWA sent us several suggestions for changes - which were all implemented - and then asked us to re-apply after the webzine had been in existence for a year. I contacted the Membership Committee in June, as I was preparing this issue. Their reply was complimentary, but succinct. Because Back Alley Books, the imprint of Barbadoes Hall Communications that publishes The Back Alley Webzine, had not published any other authors beside myself prior to June 2007, we would have to wait the entire two years to be approved. That means that The Back Alley can't be an MWA Approved Publisher until July 2009.

It's a tough break but, as I stated in an earlier editor's note, when you join an organization you agree to play by their rules, whether you agree with them or not. I definitely don't agree with MWA's current rules for voting membership, or their (in my humble opinion) arbitrary guidelines for qualified publishers, but the rules are the rules, and until they can be changed they constitute the environment in which we operate.

On the other hand, our mission here at The Back Alley remains the same - to bring you the gritty, hard-hitting kind of stories that you crave. You know, the kind that make you want to shower after reading them, just to wash some of the grime and blood off your soul. You asked for it, and we're gonna keep slinging it your way!

Welcome to the first issue of the second volume of The Back Alley Webzine! We're in this for the long haul!

PATRICIA ABBOTT has published stories in journals such as Fourteen Hills, Inkwell, The Potomac Review and The Portland Review, along with more... um, genre-related publications as Thuglit, Demolition, Hardluck Stories, Shred of Evidence, The Spinetingler, SHOTS, The Thrilling Detective, Murdaland Mouth Full of Bullets and, now, The Back Alley. She won the 2008 Derringer Award for her story My Hero, which appeared in Muzzle Flash.

JACK BLUDIS is an accomplished author in many genres. His short story Munchies was nominated for the Shamus and Anthony Awards. His book Shadow of  the Dahlia was also nominated for the Shamus Award. His writing career has spanned four - perhaps five - decades, during which he has been published under myriad names. He has had stories published in anthologies such as Baltimore Noir and Down These Wicked Streets, and online at Thrilling Detective, 3rd Degree, and elsewhere. He is the author of series featuring Rick Page, Brian Kane and Ken Sligo, all set in post-WWII Los Angeles. 

TONY BLACK was born in Newcastle, NSW to Scottish parents in 1972. His crime novel PAYING FOR IT is to be published by Random House in the UK in 2008. Ken Bruen kindly praised the book, saying: "This is one adrenaline-pumped novel that is as moving and compassionate as it is so stylishly written".

Black currently lives and works in the Scottish capital, Edinburgh. More of his writing can be found online at: Scotsman.com, ThugLit, Pulp Pusher, Shots Magazine and Demolition.

GREG LEE does many things. But first and foremost, he has always been a writer. He started his writing career by winning the Colorado Language of Arts Award, which merited his first publication "Under the Pressure to Succeed" in the Rocky Mountain News.  Later, he published the Science Fiction short "Courage and Confidence 101" in Samsara Magazine.  This is his first hardboiled publication.
 
Greg also works as a freelance illustrator and software developer.  He lives in Colorado with his wife, and is working on his first novel.
 

LINEUP FOR VOLUME II, NUMBER 1

CHRIS F. HOLM  is a writer and scientist who currently manages a marine biology lab on the coast of Maine. His short fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and he recently completed his first novel, a supernatural thriller titled THE ANGELS' SHARE. He won the 2007 Spinetingler Award for Best Short Story for Seven Days of Rain, which appeared in Demolition Ezine.

FRANK NORRIS holds a very special place in the history of noir fiction. Despite his relative lack of renown today, around the turn of the twentieth century he was setting the world on fire with  his naturalistic, dark stories of doomed people. 

His greatest contribution, however, came with the first volume of his projected three-volume epic tracing the role of wheat in society, The Octopus. Sadly, his trilogy was left unfinished when he died of complications from appendix surgery in 1901.

Continuing in this issue, we present Part III of  McTeague, and attempt in each issue to include some history or critical analysis of the incredible literary work of Frank Norris.

 

W.D. HOWELLS was an American realist author and a literary critic. The author of several novels (Their Wedding Journey, 1872; A Modern Instance, 1882; The Rise of Silas Lapham, 1885 among others) Howells was a strong proponent of the rejection of the romantic literature of the middle nineteenth century, in favor of a view of life that was more realistic, harder-edged, and not always happily ended. He is quoted as saying, "We hope the time is coming when not only the artist, but the common, average man...will reject the ideal grasshopper wherever he finds it...Because it is not like a real grasshopper".

 

His eulogy of Frank Norris, included in this issue, was originally published in The North American Review, in December 1902.