"Crooked" Magazine Is Here!

Geoff Eighinger of Eastern Standard Crime saw crime ezines falling by the wayside and he rushed in to fill the void, by creating Crooked Magzine. We're talking quality crime fiction by Sandra Seamans, Albert Tucher, Kaye George, Michael S. Chong, Eric Beetner, and Sandra Ruttan.

Not to mention an interview with Hard Case Crime publisher, Charles Ardai and a story by that surly hack, Cormac Brown, called "Retribution." It is the third story of the "Heist Man" series and if you don't read it, that Cormac bastard will fling tepid coffee at you.

And just to let the aspiring writers out there know, Geoff is also accepting submissions for the second issue. The story requirements:

• In the hard-boiled genre, noir or something along those lines
• A word count of 2,000 words or more
• The story cannot have been previously published anywhere else

If interested, please contact: geoffeighinger@yahoo.com.

The Screenwriter Always Rings Twice

You can't trust writers. Anything you say or do is fair game to us. We dress you up in a different gown and use your words and your hair and your eyes and steal your soul.

from "Robbie's Wife" by Russell Hill.

"Robbie's Wife" was a good read, a bit of James M. Cain goes to England if you will, and I mean that in the best possible sense. And while that quote is a little too on the nose and that character literally writes down each and everything that he experiences, it made sense within the plot.

Of course I can't imagine an actual screenwriter (the protagonist's profession) this side of Joe Ezterhas at his most self-indulgent, writing every other thing down in an almost verbatim fashion. So trust me when I say that unlike the police, I will not hold everything you say against you...

...unless it's juicy enough. Then, I'm at least going to change your gender and ethnic origin.