Murder the World Over

So the other day Paul D. Brazill and I were on Giovanni Gelati's blogtalk radio show talking about--what else--noir/hard boiled writing!  It's not like the three of us were going to be discussing molecular recombination and the rejuvenation of honest-to-god dinosaurs!

(as Bugs Bunny would say, "Ha! Ha! Ha!  What a bunch of maroons!)

Anyway . . . where was I?  Oh; writing noir/hard boiled.  The idea came up that Giovanni's Trestle Press should put together an anthology of great up-and-coming and maybe-already-arrived writers who swim in those murky, dangerous waters called noir.

(again Bugs Bunny; "Don't get me started on talking about noir.  It's too dark!)

I mean . . . come on!  Think about it.  Is the motive for murder the same all over the world?  Is the definition of murder the same in Baden Baden as it is in Casablanca?  Do cops work a case in Mogadishu as they do in Chicago?

Mmmmm . . .  I'm thinking maybe not.  Maybe there are twists and turns and dead ends and nuances none of us have ever considered before.  Culture and sociological norms come into play here.  What might be considered murder in Kansas may be just 'turning the cheek' in Uzbekistan.

So the idea is to find stories---writers---from all over the world and let's see how they do it.  How do they paint a scene . . . describe a body . . . develop characterizations . . .explore the human psyche.  There could be some amazing discoveries here.  New voices . . . old voices never before heard  (or maybe even forgotten) might rise to the top and just sit all of us on our duffs and amaze us!

So there's an invitation out now.  To any writer around the world who would like to contribute to this effort.  Write a story and send it in.  Trestle Press is . . . literately . . . dying to hear from you!   I'm going to be in the anthology; pretty sure Paul D. Brazill will be in there as well.  And best of all . . . it's not going to be a one-shot deal.  The first one goes down and meets reasonable success; more will follow.  New writers.  New short stories.


So why not submit?  What do you have to lose, bub?