Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine

"Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine" is a monthly digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction. Launched in 1941 by Mercury Press, "EQMM" is named for the author Ellery Queen, who wrote novels and short stories about a fictional detective named Ellery Queen.

Ellery Queen was the pseudonym of the team of Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, who had been writing under the name since 1929. "EQMM" was created to provide a market for mystery fiction above the common run of pulp crime magazines of the day. Dannay served as the magazine's editor-in-chief (although still under the name Ellery Queen) from its creation until his death in 1982, when managing editor Eleanor Sullivan succeeded to the post. Following her death in 1991, Janet Hutchings became editor of "EQMM".

In "Bloody Murder", Julian Symons offered this description of the publication::It is... a compendium of every possible kind of crime story. Some of the kinds are more important than others, not all of the stories are masterpieces, and some will madden anybody who has a fixed idea of what the crime short story should be like. Yet the value of the magazine far transcends any criticisms that may be made of it. No doubt short stories would have been written if "EQMM" had never existed, but they would have been much less various in style and interest, and almost certainly much poorer in quality. [Symons, Julian. "Bloody Murder". Faber and Faber, 1972. Revisions in Penguin Books edition, 1974. ISBN 0-1400-3794-2]

Because of its high editorial standards, "EQMM" was one of a relative handful of fiction magazines to survive the decline in short-fiction publications from the 1950s to the 1970s. It is now the longest-running mystery fiction magazine in existence. Throughout its history it has actively encouraged new writers, and today, when most major publications will only accept submissions through literary agents, "EQMM" still accepts submissions "over the transom" (that is, unsolicited submissions through the mail). The magazine's "Department of First Stories" has introduced hundreds of new writers, many of whom became regular contributors.

"EQMM" regularly publishes short fiction from established mystery novelists such as Dick Francis, Michael Gilbert, Peter Lovesey, Ruth Rendell and Janwillem van de Wetering. It has also published both new and classic stories from authors not generally considered mystery writers, including such diverse names as A. A. Milne, Stephen King, W. Somerset Maugham, P. G. Wodehouse, Joyce Carol Oates, Theodore Sturgeon and Phyllis Diller. Cover art was by George Salter, Nicholas Solovioff and others.

"EQMM" has always depended heavily on series characters and stories, such as the "Black Widowers" tales of Isaac Asimov, the "Rumpole of the Bailey" stories of John Mortimer, or the "Ganelon" stories of James Powell. Foremost among series authors is Edward D. Hoch, who has created at least a dozen independent series for "EQMM" since his first story appeared in 1962. Since the May 1973 issue he has had at least one original story in "every" issue of "EQMM", a string that reached an unparalleled 34 years in May 2007; in that same period he also had about 50 stories in EQMM's sister publication, "Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine".

References

External links

* [http://www.themysteryplace.com/eqmm/ "Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine" official site]
* [http://hycyber.com/MYST/MYST_indices.html Mystery and Suspense: Original Sources Indexed]
* [http://www.quaggabooks.co.uk/eqmm/ Issue by issue story listings]