"iMurder"

"When Josh Pachter debuted in EQMM's Department of First Stories in 1968, he was still a teenager, and one of the youngest writers ever to place a story with us. He has contributed to EQMM many times since, as a short story writer, a translator from the Dutch, and recently as a collaborator on a story with his daughter Rebecca. Despite his long history with EQMM, we can always depend on him to be up-to-date, and this latest story proves it. It's not only about an iPhone, the author, now a professor in Maryland, tells us he wrote it on his iPhone!"

Although the name of the first-person narrator of this story is never mentioned, he's identified as being an adjunct professor at Cuyahoga Community College's Western Campus in Cleveland, OH, and living in an apartment in nearby Strongsville. Since I was a CCC-West adjunct from 1991 to 2006 and lived in an apartment in Strongsville from 2001 to 2006, you can draw your own conclusions.

It's probably worth noting that, early in my time at CCC, I was up for a full-time position which ultimately went to a woman named Andie Peck. When you read the story, you'll see why I mention that here....

As editor Janet Hutchings notes in her introduction to the story, I debuted in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 1968. Since I published subsequent stories in the magazine in the '70s, '80s, '90s, and '00s, the appearance of "iMurder" in 2011 marks the sixth consecutive decade in which I've sold new fiction to EQMM. I think there are others who've hit EQMM six decades in a row, but I don't think anyone's yet done seven. Since I'm only 59 years old as "iMurder" appears in print, I figure I've got plenty of time to set a new record!

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