NEWS
HELMS OPENS HARDBOILED / NOIR WEBZINE
June 25, 2007: Three-Time Shamus Award nominee Richard Helms has established a new webzine, specifically tailored toward hardboiled and noir literature and commentary.
Entitled The Back Alley, the first issue includes stories by Shamus and Anthony Award nominee Jack Bludis; Edgar Award recipient G. Miki Hayden; Derringer Award recipient Stephen D. Rogers; screenwriter John Lau; and Helms himself, writing as Eric Shane. Future issues will included commentary and historical articles from various acknowledged authorities in the field.
According to Helms, the growth of other hardboiled sites such as ThugLit, Mouth Full Of Bullets, and Destruction has shown that there is both a demand for the genre, and a wealth of new, young writers who have become interested in it. Helms also intends for The Back Alley to become a Mystery Writers of America Qualified Publisher, and toward that end he has made The Back Alley a paying market. Initially, stories will pay $25 each regardless of length, in order to meet the MWA guidelines.
Helms' books up to this point have been edited by C.E. Gaulden (whom those close to Helms know as his lovely spouse, Elaine). With The Back Alley, however, Helms has taken on the role of Executive Editor as well as Publisher. He makes no bones about his goal to seek out the finest established and emerging voices in the hardboiled and noir genres, and to submit stories from The Back Alley for the major mystery award programs.
RICHARD HELMS WINS TWO DERRINGER AWARDS!
May 2, 2008: Richard Helms was the recipient of two Short Mystery Fiction Society Derringer Awards when 2008 winners were announced today.
According to the SMFS website The Derringer Award was created in 1997 by the Short Mystery Fiction Society to honor excellence in the creative artform of short mystery and crime stories. The name 'Derringer' - after the palm-sized handgun - was chosen as a metaphor for a mystery or crime short story -- small, but dangerous. The award is in the form of a certificate suitable for framing.
Helms won in the 4001-8000 Word Category for The Gospel According to Gordon Black, a short story featuring his series character, San Francisco PI Eamon Gold, which was published in the Fall 2007 Issue of The Thrilling Detective Website.
He also won in the 8001-17500 Word Category for Paper Walls/Glass Houses, written under his pseudonym Eric Shane, which was published in the June 2007 Issue of The Back Alley Webzine.
According to the best information available as of this writing, Richard Helms has become the only person ever to win TWO Derringer Awards in the same year!
Finally, The Back Alley Webzine, for which Helms serves as Executive Editor and Publisher, received another win in the 1001-4000 Word Category, with John Weagly's In the Shadows of Wrigley Field, published in the November issue of the Webzine.
In all, Helms and his webzine, The Back Alley, accounted for 75% of the Derringer Awards handed out this year!
All of the stories nominated for the 2008 Derringer Awards were available for review and voting by the nearly 1000 members of the Short Mystery Fiction Society between April 1 and April 30. Winners were be announced on the Short Mystery Fiction Society website on May 2, 2008.
FIVE STAR/CENGAGE TO PUBLISH SIX MILE CREEK!
DECEMBER 11, 2008: SIX MILE CREEK, the first book in Richard Helms' new Judd Wheeler series, will be published by Five Star/Cengage in March 2010.
SIX MILE CREEK is set in the fictional North Carolina town of Prosperity, where Wheeler is the chief of police. A hometown boy who left the state to become an Atlanta street cop, Wheeler returned eight years before the opening of SIX MILE CREEK, at first to take over the family farm. Prosperity, however, along with the rest of Bliss County, was undergoing rapid change, as upperclass interlopers, attracted by low tax rates, streamed into the town from nearby Parker County.
In need of a police force, the Prosperity Town Council pressed Wheeler into service, and at the opening of the novel he has been the chief of the local police department for seven years. They've been mostly quiet years, but tensions have slowly grown between the farm families who have populated the town for over two centuries, the wealthy 'tax refugees', and a newly arrived contingent of illegal Mexican immigrants lured by the promise of work in the burgeoning town.
The formerly bucolic town of Prosperity is a powder keg, just waiting for a spark, which flares up when the body of Gitana Camarena, a young Mexican girl, is found lying on the banks of Six Mile Creek.
It's the first murder in Prosperity in over a decade, and Wheeler has to battle his own personal demons as he tries to find Gitana Camarena's killer, while simultaneously keeping a lid on rising racial and class tensions in his town.
In the small North Carolina town of Prosperity, the line between desperation and salvation runs right down the middle of SIX MILE CREEK.
SIX MILE CREEK is being edited by Diane Piron-Gelman, and is slated for release in March of 2010. Five Star/Cengage prints over 150 fiction titles each year, primarily to the library trade. Richard Helms is in the process of planning a six-month publicity tour of bookstores, libraries, and writing/mystery conferences to coincide with the publication date.
FIVE STAR MYSTERIES MAKES SIX MILE CREEK A FEATURED TITLE
JANUARY 8, 2010: SIX MILE CREEK, the first book in Richard Helms' new Judd Wheeler series, has been named as a Featured Title for March 2010 by Five Star Mysteries.
SIX MILE CREEK was selected by the publishers at Five Star as the Choice #1 Featured Title, meaning that it will be the automatic selection for library purchasers (Five Star's primary market) who are on one of several automatic purchase programs. Libraries who are on standing purchase plans will have SIX MILE CREEK automatically shipped in early April, in anticipation by Five Star that the title will be in high demand on library reserve lists.
When informed about this selection by Five Star, Richard Helms stated, "This is thrilling. SIX MILE CREEK is my first title published by Five Star, and for them to put such great faith in this book is very gratifying. I look forward to doing everything I can to make this title a great success!"