Welcome to the latest issue of The Big Click! We’re thrilled to offer you two great stories, one from Heather L. Nelson, and the other from well-known crime writer Gary Phillips.

Nelson came in via our query system—send us an introductory note and tell us about a story you might like us to see, and when we do read it we may just like it enough to acquire it, publish it, and pay real money. A hundred smackers money!

We’ve also been getting more queries lately, so here is a brief guide to writing one:

• Describe the story to us. Most often people just tell us the premise of the story, which is not actually a description of the story. Premise-only queries are just descriptions of the first page.
• Don’t write your query like cover copy for a book, or an ad for a motion picture.
• If you apologize for or say anything negative about your own story in your query, we’ll pass on it instantly. Simply because it’s easier for us that way!
• We pretty much reject anything that is just about a detective solving a crime, or that is in any way described as a “classic.”

And when we get your story, please please, please do not send us something that:

• ends with a single-sentence paragraph.
• makes a pointed reference to something in the first paragraph in the last sentence.
• ends with a sentence that somehow integrates the story’s  title into the text.

Well, that covers about 90 percent of what we reject. Really!

We also have a new column by Barry Graham, the return of the mother-in-law review corner (spoiler: she didn’t like it!), and other fun stuff. Buy an ebook or a subscription to keep us going and come on back in July for a special Molly Tanzer-edited Bizarro Crime issue!