In 1987, while living in Germany, I wrote and "published" eight issues of The Short Sheet, a mimeographed monthly newsletter about the world of mystery short stories. It was a lot of work, and, since there were only about 100 subscribers, it wasn't making me any money, so I eventually gave it up.

One result, though, was that I enjoyed a brief notoriety as an expect on mystery shorts, so Martin H. Greenberg, the king of mystery and science-fiction anthologies, approached me and asked me to co-edit an annual audio collection of the year's best.

I selected the stories — including my own "On the Beach," which had been published in Espionage as by Chas. J. Thorpe! — and Marty handled the business side.

The resulting package contains four cassettes, runs approximately six hours, and includes 10 unabridged stories. I don't know who the readers were — except that Harlan Ellison read his own Edgar-winning story, "Soft Monkey" — but the quality is pretty good.

The next year, Becca and her mother moved from Germany back to the US, and I was so embroiled in the resultant custody battle that I had to withdraw from the project. Marty graciously kept my name on the 1989 and 1990 collections, even though I had nothing at all to do with them. The next year, publisher Dercum Audio dropped the project.

Reurn to Bibliography.