Wait. What? Surely that Email Isn’t for Me.

Yesterday, I checked my email and saw one from Otto Penzler, the owner of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City and book publisher The Mysterious Press, and the editor of many tremendous anthologies, including the series of The Best American Mystery Stories. The email’s subject line was “Kwik Krimes.” My first thought: Excellent, a new anthology I’ll be able to read!

When I opened the email and saw what it actually said, I was ecstatic — truly, “ecstatic” doesn’t begin to describe the feeling — to see that Mr. Penzler wanted to include one of my stories in his upcoming Kwik Krimes anthology. (I read the email several times before I decided that I wasn’t confused. Then I called Beth to the computer to confirm that I wasn’t confused.)

A large part of me remains convinced that I must have received his email in error. But I replied with “yes” and he replied to that with an email that included the words “your story will be in the collection.” And today I’m sending in a contract. So I think it’s too late for the mistake to be corrected.

Thus, my story “Fortune”, which would never have been written if it weren’t for the many hours I spent working as a short-order cook at The Corn Crib in Christiana, Pennsylvania, and the Gap Diner in Gap, Pennsylvania, will appear in Kwik Krimes.

All of the stories in Kwik Krimes will be less than 1,000 words long, and based on Mr. Penzler’s Facebook post about the collection, it should be out in Spring 2013. I’ll definitely let you know.