Earlier this year, Stefano Serafini, Sarah Martin, Mia Dormer, and I launched Golden Age Mysteries Limited, a hive for events and publications celebrating vintage crime and mystery fiction. Next year, we’re publishing our first book. And we need your help.
Ten Little Mysteries: Short Stories Inspired by Agatha Christie and the Golden Age of Detective Fiction
Golden Age Mysteries Limited is to mark 10 years of Agatha Christie and Golden Age of Crime conferences with its first Golden Age Mysteries Press publication in late 2024.
Ten Little Mysteries will be a collection of original short stories inspired by the Golden Age of crime fiction and with a commentary by experts in the field.
We are inviting submissions of new, unpublished, and completely original short stories of up to 10,000 words each.
Short story closing date – Monday 26 February 2024
Please read ‘More Info’ and ‘Rules’ before proceeding.
More Info
Your short story should pay tribute in some way to the ‘Golden Age’ of crime and detective fiction typified by the work of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, John Dickson Carr, and Ellery Queen. It may include, for example, a key theme or idea famous from that period such as:
- An amateur detective
- A locked room
- ‘The 10 Commandments’ or ‘rules’ of crime writing
- Self-referentiality (‘if this were a detective story…’)
- An ‘impossible’ mystery
The story needs to include a puzzle element. While we encourage experimentation it should be appealing to general readers of ‘whodunit’ crime fiction.
Please do not use any character or setting created by another writer, even if you believe them/it to be out of copyright.
If your story is selected, you will work with an editor to revise it for publication. You will receive a copy of the finished book.
Please submit your work in .doc, .docx, .rtf, .odt, or .pages format to editors Jamie, Sarah, Mia, and Stefano at info@goldenagemysteries.co.uk no later than 26th February 2024. Please direct any queries to the same address.
Rules
- No entry form is needed. Entry is free online, or by post if required.
- You may enter as many times as you wish.
- This short story competition is open to writers of any nationality writing in English.
- Adhere to the theme and style – any story not in keeping with the ‘Golden Age’ of crime theme as detailed in FAQs will not be considered.
- Maximum number of words is 10,000.
- The winning stories must be available for the anthology, and therefore must not have been published previously.
- Golden Age Mysteries Limited holds publishing rights for work published in the anthology for one year after publication, after which rights revert to the author. (Please acknowledge Golden Age Mysteries Limited in any subsequent publications.)
- Notification of receipt of entry will normally be by email.
- The judges’ verdict is final. No correspondence will be entered into.
- Stories cannot be altered or substituted once they have been entered.
- Entry is taken as acceptance of these rules.
JC Bernthal 