Short Stories

"Mary Anne's Tan" was featured in Fort Lauderdale Magazine. Read the story online here.

Illustration for "Mary Anne's Tan," Fort Lauderdale Magazine

Short Stories

Short Stories in Magazines, Anthologies, Textbooks, & More

Short Stories in Anthologies, Textbooks, & More

"To Go" is among the pre-21st century stories selected for Miami Noir: The Classics, forthcoming in November 2020 from Akashic Books.

Two of my flash fiction pieces, "Distance" and "Little Red Returns," are included in John Dufresne's Flash! Writing the Very Short Story.

Published by Norton, the book offers a great array of flash writing along with lots of exercises and prompts to try.

My short story "Texaco on Biscayne," which appears in Magpies, was selected for inclusion in Florida International University's new Lit 1000 textbook: The FIU Introduction to Literature, a collaboration with W.W. Norton and Company that includes some works with a South Florida setting. The book's launch was celebrated at the Green Library on FIU's MMC Campus, with a book cover image on the cake. More details here.

Just to Watch Them Die: Crime Stories Inspired by the Songs of Johnny Cash, from Gutter Books, includes my story "A Boy Named Zoé."

Great News: The anthology was a finalist for the Anthony Award for Best Anthology 2018.

"Morning Glories" is in Fifteen Views of Miami burrowpress.com/product/miami/, a collection of lightly linked stories, published by Burrow Press and edited by Jaquira Diaz.

One of “the 7 best books about Miami.” –Miami New Times

One of “our 10 favorite books set in South Florida.” –The New Tropic

“15 Views of Miami offers a sprawling portrait of Miami-Dade … a complex web of stories keep the reader searching for clues and meaning around every corner. In 15 Views of Miami, we see our city for what it is — a place risen from the ashes by investment capital and developers, but defined by the stories of the people that ignited the flame… If the goal was to paint a literary portrait of Miami’s profound uniqueness and shifting cultural identity, than Díaz succeeded. Each story is its own world, told by characters filled with longing for a Miami past a reader can’t help but relate to.”–The New Tropic

"Little Red Returns" appears and is discussed in the chapter on "The Contemporary Tale" in Susan M. Tiberghien's One Year to a Writing Life, Twelve Lessons to Deepen Every Writer's Art and Craft.

The book has now been published in Chinese and Japanese editions.

"Little Red Returns" was first published in River City (now The Pinch.)

And (see above) it has now also been included in Flash! Writing the Very Short Story.

"Dancing in the Dark" appears in Trouble in the Heartland: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Bruce Springsteen, edited by Joe Clifford and published by Gutter Books. (Part of the proceeds benefit the Bob Woodruff Foundation.) Read more about the project, from editor Joe Clifford. (Cover by Chuck Regan of Zelmer Pulp.)

Trouble in the Heartland was a finalist for an Anthony Award for Best Anthology or Collection.

"The Noir Boudoir," which is included in Magpies, was first published in Akashic Books' Miami Noir, editing by Les Standiford, which is loaded with great South Florida crime stories. (Psssst: there are rumors of a Miami Noir: the Classics in the works.)

“For different reasons these stories cultivate a little something special, a radiance, a humanity, even a grace, in the midst of the noir gloom, and thereby set themselves apart. Variety, familiarity, mood and tone, and the occasional gem of a story make Miami Noir a collection to savor.”
—Miami Herald

“Sixteen new, diverse and highly entertaining mystery stories pack Akashic’s latest city-by-city tour of modem noir . . . This volume is as solid as the coral rock lying beneath the Miami streets.”
—Publishers Weekly

“This well-chosen short story collection isn’t just a thoughtful compilation of work by some of South Florida’s best and upcoming writers. Each Miami Noir story also is a window on a different part or Miami-Dade and its melting pot of cultures.”
—Sun Sentinel

Current Miami Noir cover, done when the book went into extra printings.

“Murder is nothing new in Miami—or any other big city, for that matter. But seldom has it been so entertaining as it is in the 16 short stories included in Miami Noir.”
--Palm Beach Daily News

Miami Noir's original cover. The image is a photo by Tom Corcoran.

"Walk-In," is in Blue Christmas, Holiday Stories for the Rest of Us, an anthology of unsentimental Christmas stories edited by John Dufresne. Published in 2011, the collection can be purchased online directly from Books & Books' website.

Read USA Today's review and a thoughtful review by Leslie Greffenius at Beyond the Margins.

Delta Blues

"Blues for Veneece" is included in the Tyrus Books anthology Delta Blues, edited by Carolyn Haines, with an introduction by Morgan Freeman, which was published in May 2010. A percentage of the receipts for this book go to assist the Rock River Foundation in its work for literacy in Mississippi. An e-book version of Delta Blues is available.

Book Critis Oline Cogdill named Delta Blues one of the best mystery books of 2010.

Great review of Delta Blues in the Mobile Press-Register, with attention to "Blues for Veneece."

Emily Bingham of U. South Alabama interviewed me on writing and "Blues for Veneece." The interview is online.

The Delta Blues' launch weekend included a reception hosted by the Delta Writers chapter of the Mississippi Writers Guild, and an awards ceremony for a writing competition for high school students where the winners were thrilled not only with their awards but with the presence of Morgan Freeman.

I sang a couple of numbers with the authors' blues band, The Blues Muse, as well as being a Boomette backup singer for the launch of Delta Blues, March 27, 2010 at Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale, Mississippi. One number is now up on Youtube.

Billy Howell's interview with me about my Delta Blues story and the anthology, as well as coverage of the launch events, can be read online at the Clarksdale Press Register.

"Blue Vandas" appears in A Hell of a Woman, An Anthology of Female Noir, edited by Megan Abbott, published by Busted Flush Press in 2007

Reviewed in Crime Scene Scotland: "The problem with many anthologies is that certain stories feel like they're coasting. Usually, these stories come from the biggest names in the anthology. But here, everyone's on form from the names you know down to the names you don't. They're all on board and running with the idea of femininity as a concept, an actuality, a myth... something to embrace and something to be terrified of."

Some nice words for "Blue Vandas" and A Hell of a Woman. More from Booklist Online.

Blue Vandas went out of print when Busted Flush Press folded. I think it must be a collector's item by now because it has so many great writers in it.

"Hush Money" appeared in Marilyn: Shades of Blonde, edited by Carole Nelson Douglas, which was published by Forge in 1997.

It is included in my second collection, The Secret Names of Women.

"Beauty" was first published in Mondo Barbie, edited by Lucinda Ebersole and Richard Peabody, St. Martin's Press. The book has pink paper and is shaped like a Barbie box.

I first met Denise Duhamel, my friend and now longtime colleague, when we did a reading for Mondo Barbie at the Miami Book Fair.

"Beauty" later appeared in Having a Wonderful Time: an Anthology of South Florida Writers, Simon & Schuster, edited by Cynthia Chinelly, John Dufresne, and Michael Hettich, 1997.

My earlier short stories were published in
Redbook
the minnesota review
The Greensboro Review
Sou'wester
Carolina Quarterly
Colorado State Review
Quarterly West
the minnesota review (Pushcart Prize Honor Roll)
West Branch
The Pennsylvania Review
& more.

My stories have received multiple Pushcart and O'Henry nominations, and have been nominated for Best of the Net, and other awards. A number of them have gone on to be republished in anthologies and textbooks.

"Elvis Lives," published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine received the Edgar Award for Best Mystery Story, and was subsequently published in Best of and other anthologies, including in Japanese, Korean, and French translations.

"To Go," first published in the Tampa Review, and "Beauty," which appeared first in Mondo Barbie, were presented on stage by the Shee Theatre Company.

"To Go," will be included in Miami Noir: The Classics, forthcoming in Fall 2020 from Akashic Books.

Short Stories in Magazines

"The Old Broads of the Mermaid Beach Apartments" is in the Summer 2020 issue of Orange Blossom Review.

Issue #13 of New Flash Fiction Review includes my very short story "Accordion."

Set in South Florida, "Marble" appeared in the Spring 2017 print issue of Mystery Tribune.

This issue is now available in ebook form.

... and I'm honored that "Marble" made the list of "Other Distinguished Mystery Stories of 2017" in Best American Mysteries 2018, edited by Louise Penny.
Series editor Otto Penzler's foreword describes the process of reading more than three thousand published stories in print journals, e-zines, and anthologies to cull from 3000 plus short stories to fifty, of which twenty are printed, which shows both how strong the interest in short crime fiction is today, and how tough the competition.

"Quickstep" appeared in the Summer 2017 issue of The Miami Rail. Read the story here and you can follow links to explore the rest of the issue. The Miami Rail is available in print form at many venues around Miami-Dade County.

Thomas Carr, "The Path of Solitude" via The Miami Rail

My short story "Returning" was published online in Necessary Fiction.

Longform.org then chose "Returning" as their "Fiction Pick of the Week."

"The Willows," magical realist flash fiction, was published online in the Summer 2016 issue of Rose Red Review.

"The Tree Man" was published in Wraparound South.

A brief excerpt from the story was used as the text for a broadsheet Pip Brandt and I did for the Sweat Broadsheet project.

The editors of Wraparound South nominated "The Tree Man" for Sundress Publications' Best of the Net anthology, the Million Writers Prize, and for a Pushcart Prize.

"Mary Anne's Tan" was published in the April 2014 issue of Fort Lauderdale Magazine. As the cover says, "a culinary short story."

"Conchology" was published in the Feb. 2013 issue of Real South Magazine.

Audio Story Publication

My reading of "Macy is the Other Woman," which appears in The Secret Names of Women and was first published in Other Voices, is in the great audio literary magazine The Drum.

"The Borges Cure" appeared in Night Train Magazine.
Night Train is now inactive and the archives are incomplete, so the story is not online currently.

Kristi Peterson Schoonover blogged about the story here.

"The Borges Cure" was longlisted by Wigleaf.

"Alchemy" was published in the online magazine Pig in a Poke,which sadly shut down after the death of its editor, the poet Harry Calhoun.

My short story "When, He Wondered" appeared in the March/April 2010 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. It features Florida sinkholes and how both boom and bust reveal the fissures in a friendship.

It's included in Magpies.

"Texaco on Biscayne"was first published in Saw Palm, a journal of Florida literature and art. It appears, in revised form, in my collection Magpies.

Gift Wrap" was first published in the Fort Lauderale Sun-Sentinel, as a special Christmas feature.

It went on to be included in A Dixie Christmas: Holiday Stories from the South's Best Writers, edited by Charline McCord and Judy Tucker, with an introduction by Fred Chappell, published by Algonquin Books in 2005.

And it appears in Irrepressible Appetites, edited by Tracey Broussard, published by Rock Press. In this food-centric anthology my story is accompanied by my great-grandmother's recipe for Lebkuchen.

"Gift Wrap" centers on a couple from very different places and backgrounds who are making a home in South Florida. With time, I kept going back to discover about them. Thinking about how they got together, I wrote "One Mississippi" which was published in Apalachee Review, which nominated it for a Pushcart. And later still, "Cave of the Winds" finds them tested by the tensions of one hurricane season.

All three are included in Magpies.

"Links" was published in the New Jersey Issue of Painted Bride Quarterly.

The many adventures of "Elvis Lives," winner of the Edgar Award for Best Mystery Short Story

Lynne Barrett, cover of EQMM, August 1992.

EQMM cover September 1990

"Elvis Lives," my most-anthologized story, originally appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and then won an Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America.

"Elvis Lives" appears in many anthologies, and has been translated into Korean, French, and Japanese.

For me, one thrill of attending the Edgar Awards ceremony, where winners are announced, in April 1991 was meeting many mystery writers whose work I admire. One was Ed Hoch, who for many years had a short story (often locked room puzzles) in EQMM, and I was honored that "Elvis Lives" was included in (see below) The Year's Best Mystery and Suspense 1991, which he edited.

Others were my gracious fellow nominees Lawrence Block and Clark Howard, whose short stories read over a period of years had led me to haev the nerve submit mine. Clark's nominated story was also in EQMM, and we met earlier that day when both of us had cover photo shoots. (He was behind bars, in his.) He told me what the ceremony would be like, and suggested that I should have a thank you speech ready. (He had won the Edgar before and would go on to win the Golden Derringer Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Short Fiction Mystery Society in 2009,among other honors.)

I greatly regret that the then-Editor of EQMM, Eleanor Sullivan, was seriously ill and could not be there, and died not long after. I had heard her speak about mystery writing once, and she taught me that the victim has to be well worth killing.

"Elvis Lives" also appeared in:

Simply the Best Mysteries, edited by Janet Huchings, Carroll & Graf (1998)

Murder to Music, edited by Cynthia Manson & Kathleen Halligan, Carroll & Graf (1997).

From Kirkus Reviews: "As even the perfect Wagnerite knows, it's not easy to tell a compelling story while providing great music, and atmosphere prevails over mystery-mongering in most of these 15 stories (194793) chosen by Manson and Hallican (Murder Intercontinental, 1996). Six involve the opera, but except for James Yaffe's sprightly armchair matriarch ("Mom Sings an Aria"), the stories are more successful when they get down and dirty (Doug Allyn's "The Sultans of Soul" and John Lutz's "The Right to Sing the Blues") or hit the road (Lynne Barrett's droll trio of Elvis impersonators)."

The King is Dead: Tales of Elvis Postmortem, edited by Paul M. Sammon, published by Delta Delta.

The Year's 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories 1992, James Frankel, Editor, introduction by Jon L. Breen, Carrol & Graf

And the first of all was: The Year's Best Mystery and Suspense Stories 1991, edited by Edward Hoch, published by Walker and Co.

From Publishers Weekly: "The winner, Lynne Barrett, scored with "Elvis Lives," in which a reluctant and increasingly alcoholic impersonator of the King stumbles on a foolproof method of dissolving his contract. . ."

And from Kirkus Reviews: "Long-time anthologist Hoch this time includes all five Edgar-nominated stories in his "Best'' compilation, and Lynne Barrett's "Elvis Lives,'' the ultimate Edgar winner—a dark, garish look at the Presley-impersonator industry—is reason enough to own the book. . ."