ellery queen part two

Part one of this post is here.

These days, Ellery Queen is probably known mostly for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, which I read all the time when I was young.

By the way, unlike some of the books I wrote about last time, this was not a case of EQ selling the Queen name. Frederic Dannay, one of the two men who comprised “Ellery Queen,” was the editor of the magazine from the beginning in 1941 until his death in 1982. His name was never mentioned within its pages, though — his editorials and other notes were always signed “EQ.”

(This is the funny bit, by the way. It all starts with two Jewish kids from Brooklyn, cousins, named Daniel Nathan and Emanuel Benjamin Lepofsky. Wanting to be writers, and not wanting to be perceived as two Jewish kids from Brooklyn, they changed their names to Fredric Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee. And then they proceeded to never use either of those new names, since everything they did professionally was under the name “Ellery Queen.”)

Anyway, when writing the first half of this post I started to think about Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and to my surprise, even in these difficult days for magazines, it continues to chug along. Still digest sized, and apparently pretty much the same as it ever was.

I’ll report in more detail after my first copy arrives (I subscribed immediately, natch). It comes in digital format now, too, but I want it, at least for now, the way it always was.

But I had another thought, beyond mere subscription.

1. They publish mystery stories.
2. I write mystery stories.
3. They accept submissions over the transom.
4. They are flexible about other genres mixing in with their mysteries (I remember reading a story way back when about how alibis could work in the future when people get places by teleporting).
5. A regular feature of the magazine has always been the Department of First Stories — publishing writers who have never published professionally before.

Okay, why have I never submitted a story to this magazine?

Hmm.

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