She is the author of five novels, including A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries and the memoir Lies My Mother Never Told Me. She teaches in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton and in the Wilkes University low-residency MFA program in professional writing.

    Atkins, Meagan J. Saunders, Anne Thomas Soffee, Clint McCown, Conrad Ashley Persons, Clay McLeod Chapman, Pir Rothenberg, David L. Robbins, Hermine Pinson, and Dennis Danvers.FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO RICHMOND NOIR:"In The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, Henry Miller tosses off a hard-bitten assessment of the City on the James: 'I would rather die in Richmond somehow,' he writes, 'though God knows Richmond has little enough to offer.' As editors, we like the dying part, and might point out that in its long history, Richmond, Virginia has offered up many of the disparate elements crucial to meaty noir. The city was born amid deception, conspiracy, and violence . . ."These days, Richmond is a city of winter balls and garden parties on soft summer evenings, a city of private clubs where white-haired old gentlemen, with their martinis or mint juleps in hand, still genuflect in front of portraits of Robert E. Lee. It's also a city of brutal crime scenes and drug corners and okay-everybody-go-on-home-there's-nothing-more-to-see. It's a city of world-class ad agencies and law firms, a city of the FFV (First Families of Virginia) and a city of immigrants--from India, Vietnam, and Africa to Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey. It's a city of finicky manners (you mustn't ever sneeze publicly in Richmond) and old-time neighborliness, and it's a city where you think twice about giving somebody the finger if they cut you off on the Powhite Parkway (that's pronounced Pow-hite, not Po-white, thank you very much) because you might get your head blown off by the shotgun on the rack . . ."

    [It] will satisfy those with a hankering for a taste of the dark side."-- Publishers Weekly "A book full of cries in the dark, heavy drinking in the thin gray light of winter, and other dark poses. In other words, the stories sneak in the back screen door of those summer cottages after Labor Day, after all the tourists have gone home and Cape Codders of the authors' imagination drop their masks and their guards. It's a fun read, a little like tracing the shoreline of a not-quite-familiar coast."-- Boston Globe "David L. Ulin has put together a malicious collection of short stories that will stay with you long after you return home safe."-- The Cult: The Official Chuck Palahniuk Website Includes brand-new stories by Paul Tremblay, Seth Greenland, Ben Greenman, Fred G. Leebron, David L. Ulin, Dana Cameron, Kaylie Jones, and others.Los Angeles Times book critic David L. Ulin has been vacationing in Cape Cod every summer since he was a boy. He knows the terrain inside and out; enough to identify the squalid underbelly of this allegedly idyllic location. His editing prowess is a perfect match for this fine volume.David L. Ulin is book critic of the Los Angeles Times. From 2005 to 2010, he was the paper's book editor. He is the author of The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith, and is the editor of Another City: Writing from Los Angeles and Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a 2002 California Book Award. He has written for the Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, The New York Times Book Review, and National Public Radio’s All Things Considered.

    . . The collection is astonishingly diverse . . . Tyrewala’s anthology [offers] a sampling of brand-new authors and [a] superb introduction. It might provide a fictional contrast to Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers."--Library Journal (Starred review)"Most of the 14 short stories in Akashic’s workmanlike Mumbai volume draw inspiration from the criminal networks and the sordid underbelly the city is infamous for . . . Armchair travelers will find plenty of amusement in touring the seedier parts of this island city in perfect safety."-- Publishers Weekly “The fifteen contributors to Mumbai Noir . . . provide a cool composite narrative of a unique human-intensive metropolitan system, whose magnitude, complexity, diversity, and pace can hardly be captured in writing or, for that matter, any other medium. [Mumbai Noir is] rich and diverse in character and characterization.”-- Rain Taxi Review of Books Featuring brand-new stories by: Annie Zaidi, R. Raj Rao, Abbas Tyrewala, Avtar Singh, Ahmed Bunglowala, Smita Harish Jain, Sonia Faleiro, Altaf Tyrewala, Namita Devidayal, Jerry Pinto, Kalpish Ratna, Riaz Mulla, Paromita Vohra, and Devashish Makhija.Bombay’s communal riots of 1992--in which Hindus were alleged to be the primary perpetrators—were followed by retaliatory bomb blasts in 1993, masterminded by the Muslim-dominated underworld. Over a thousand citizens lost their lives in these internecine bouts of violence and thousands more became refugees in their own city. In a matter of months, Bombay ceased to be the cosmopolitan, wholesome, and middle-class bastion it had been for decades. When the city was renamed Mumbai in 1995, it merely formalized the widespread perception that the Bombay everyone knew and remembered had been lost forever.Today Mumbai is like any other Asian city on the rise, with gigantic construction cranes winding atop upcoming skyscrapers and malls . . . Right-wing violence, failing electricity and water supplies, overcrowding, and the ever-looming threat of terrorist attacks—these are some of the gruesome ground realities that Mumbai’s middle and working classes must deal with every day, while the city’s super-rich . . . zip from roof to roof in their private choppers. Abandoned by its wealthy, mistreated by its politicians and administrators, Mumbai continues to thrive primarily because of the helpless resilience of its hardworking, upright citizens.The stories in Mumbai Noir depict the many ways in which the city’s ever-present shadowy aspects often force themselves onto the lives of ordinary people. . . . What emerges is the sense of a city that, despite its new name and triumphant tryst with capitalism, is yet to heal from the wounds of the early '90s, and from all the subsequent acts of havoc wreaked within its precincts by both local and outside forces.

    Estleman, Craig Holden, P.J. Parrish, Desiree Cooper, Nisi Shawl, M.L. Liebler, Craig Bernier, Joe Boland, Megan Abbott, Dorene O’Brien, Lolita Hernandez, Peter Markus, Roger K. Johnson, Michael Zadoorian, and E.J. Olsen.

    Jones, George Pelecanos, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, James Grady, Julian Mayfield, Marita Golden, Elizabeth Hand, Julian Mazor, Ward Just, Jean Toomer, Roach Brown, Larry Neal, and others.George Pelecanos is an independent film producer, the recipient of numerous international writing awards, a producer and an Emmy-nominated writer of the HBO series The Wire, and the author of fifteen novels set in and around Washington, DC. He is the editor of the best-selling first volume of D.C. Noir.

    Each book is comprised of all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.In this chilling portrait of America's Sin City, lady luck is just as likely to dispense cold hard cash as a cold-hearted killing.Brand-new stories by: John O’Brien, David Corbett, Scott Phillips, Nora Pierce, Bliss Esposito, Felicia Campbell, Jaq Greenspon, José Skinner, Pablo Medina, Christine McKellar, Lori Kozlowski, Vu Tran, Celeste Starr, Preston L. Allen, Tod Goldberg, and Janet Berliner. ??Las Vegas provides the classic sophistication and darkness necessary for a deadly noir story. Stylish, sultry, brimming with ambition and greed, the characters that populate this literary Las Vegas are pushed to the extremes of human experience. From the neon glitter of the Strip to the treacherous views of Red Rock Canyon and Boulder City, from the desperation of Naked City to the racial tensions of the Westside, no other location offers so many different avenues leading to serious trouble.  Many legendary authors have turned their attention to Vegas to investigate the city's moods and mysteries. Now, the most recent crop of acclaimed writers explore the secret neighborhoods and byways of America's most sinful city, offering readers not only compelling noir tales but also an insider's understanding of this steamy oasis. These authors take readers beneath the surface flash of Freemont Street and the Strip and into the gritty multicultural environs of underground Vegas.Jarret Keene is author/editor of three books, including the poetry collection Monster Fashion, the alt-travel tome The Underground Guide to Las Vegas, and the unauthorized rock bio The Killers: Destiny Is Calling Me. He lives in Las Vegas.Todd James Pierce is the author of three books, including the novel A Woman of Stone and the short story collection Newsworld, which won the 2006 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. He is an assistant professor of English at Cal Poly University in San Luis Obispo, California.??

    If you think Dallas is boring or white-bread -- well, perhaps you haven’t gotten out much and seen the dark edges of Big D for yourself. And if you haven’t, maybe you don’t even want to."--Dallas Morning News"If you want to delve into the creepier sides of Dallas, this is a good start."--Lakewood/East Dallas Advocate"Dallas Noir is a fiction mosaic, showing a city of class divisions precariously held together by money, land, and false love. It also shows the expanse of noir and it’s power."--MysteryPeople.com (MysteryPeople Pick of the Month)"The latest entry in Akashic Books’ award-winning noir anthology series doesn’t disappoint, featuring a Texas-sized serving of writing’s heavy hitters and satisfying short fiction."--Criminal Class Press"There are two reasons why you should buy Dallas Noir...Reason No. 1: you’ll enjoy reading it. Reason No. 2: the publisher, Akashic Books, has published these noir series all over the country."--D Magazine/FrontBurner"November 22 looms, and as the watershed nears, a new anthology of short stories sets out with a noble purpose: to make Dallas known for something more than the place where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated."--Dallas Culture Map"Yet, Dallas’ almost-fleeting presence, the glaring contrasts of the stinking rich and the hapless poor, its buxom women and its Texan masculinity teamed with Hispanic folklore, all find their way into each of these 16 short stories."--The Mercury (UTD Student Newspaper)"If we are going to commemorate the milestone anniversary of the worst crime ever committed in Big D, why not precede it with a few tales of bad luck, bad choices, and bad timing?"--M. Denise C."A great collection of brand new short stories."--Kick Ass Book ReviewsFeaturing brand-new stories by: Kathleen Kent, Ben Fountain, James Hime, Harry Hunsicker, Matt Bondurant, Merritt Tierce, Daniel J. Hale, Emma Rathbone, Jonathan Woods, Oscar C. Peña, Clay Reynolds, Lauren Davis, Fran Hillyer, Catherine Cuellar, David Haynes, and J. Suzanne Frank.From the introduction by David Hale Smith:My favorite line in my favorite song about Dallas goes like this: Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eyes / A steel and concrete soul in a warm heart and love disguise . . . The narrator of Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s perfect tune “Dallas” is coming to town as a broke dreamer with the bright lights of the big city on his mind. He’s just seen the Dallas cityscape through the window of his seat on a DC-9 at night. Is he just beginning his quest? Or is he on his way home, flying out of Love Field, reminiscing after seeing the woman who stepped on him when he was down?In a country with so many interesting cities, Dallas is often overlooked—except on November 22 every year. The heartbreaking anniversary keeps coming back around in a nightmare loop, for all of us. On that day in 1963, Dallas became American noir. A permanent black scar on its history that will never be erased, no matter how many happy business stories and hit television shows arise from here. In a stark ongoing counterweight to the JFK tragedy are those two iterations of the TV show. Dallas is not a TV show. It’s a real city . . . For the past forty years, my capacity to be surprised by it has not diminished one bit. I hope the stories in this collection will surprise you too.

    Short Story!Named a Notable Translation of 2014 by World Literature Today "This entry in Akashic's noir series takes the gritty sensibilities born out of American film and fiction to Tehran."-- Publishers Weekly "A tour de force not to be missed."-- World Literature Today "Tehran Noir is not only a solid crime collection, but an illuminating look into day-to-day life in the Middle East, with religious and political implications galore, as well as racial tensions bubbling just beneath the surface...The stories in Tehran Noir aren't always easy to read, but they are engaging in the extreme."-- San Francisco Book Review "The 15 stories in this collection also come from a stellar and diverse cast of Iranian writers....A collection such as this is able to bring Iran to life for the foreign reader in a way other fiction and non-fiction cannot....Superb."--PopMatters"Tehran Noir is a worthy addition to Akashic's collection...bloody and beautiful."--Digging Through the Fat"Tehran Noir will prove fascinating reading to anyone with an interest in Iran. It will be equally intriguing for a reader who is simply curious about a theocratic society in the 21st century, or what became of a vibrant, cosmopolitan society after the fall of its dynastic ruler."--Gumshoe ReviewLaunched with the summer '04 award-winning best seller Brooklyn Noir, Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies. Each book is comprised of all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.Includes brand-new stories by: Gina B. Nahai, Salar Abdoh, Lily Farhadpour, Azardokht Bahrami, Yourik Karim-Masihi, Vali Khalili, Farhaad Heidari Gooran, Aida Moradi Ahani, Mahsa Mohebali, Majed Neisi, Danial Haghighi, Javad Afhami, Sima Saeedi, Mahak Taheri, and Hossein Abkenar.From the Introduction by Salar Abdoh:"There is something of both the absolutely spectacular and positively disgraceful about Tehran. But most writers around the world are inclined to think that their own sprawling metropolis is the capital of every imaginable vice and crime, of impossible love and tenderness and cruelty and malice in measures that seldom exist anywhere else. For me, Tehran's case is no different--except that there really is a difference here. The city may be a hothouse of decadence, a den of inequity, all that. But it still exists under the watchful eye of a very unique entity, the Islamic Republic. The city enforces its own morality police, and there are regular public hangings of drug dealers and thieves. Because of this, there is a raging sense of a split personality about the place--the imposed propriety of the mosque rubbing against the hidden (and more often not so hidden) rhythms of the real city...There is always an element of the end of the world about this place. A feeling of being once removed from the edge of the precipice. Elsewhere I have called it the "Seismic City"--the seismic sanctuary. All of this will end one day. Yes. And maybe sooner than later. And when it does, by God, we will miss it."

    Hall, Barbara Parker, John Dufresne, Paul Levine, Carolina Garcia-Aguilera, Tom Corcoran, Christine Kling, George Tucker, Kevin Allen, Anthony Dale Gagliano, David Beaty, Vicki Hendricks, John Bond, Preston Allen, Lynne Barrett, and Jeffrey Wehr. From the introduction by Les Standiford: The truth is that Miami, though naturally lovely, is a frontier town, perched on the border between the known and the rarely before experienced . . . We are not only on the edge of the continent, we are to this country what New York was in Ellis Island's heyday, what the West Coast was in the middle of the 20th century. This is where the new arrivals debark these days, and it is no mistake that during the last decade of the last century, commentators as diverse as Joan Didion, David Rieff, and T.D. Allman devoted entire volumes to Miami's role as the harbinger for America's future . . . But for now, the novel of crime and punishment is the perfect vehicle to convey the spirit and the timbre of this brawling place to a wider world.CONTENTS Ride along / James W. Hall --Dead storage / Christine Kling --Silence of the stone age / George Tucker --Sawyers / Kevin Allen --Blown away / Anthony Dale Gagliano --One man's ceiling / Tom Corcoran --Solomon & Lord Drop Anchor / Paul Levine --The last of Lord Jitters / David Beaty --The timing of unfelt smiles / John Dufresne --Boozanne, lemme be / Vicki Hendricks --The recipe / Carolina Garcia-Aguilera --T-bird / John Bond --Swap out / Preston Allen --The noir boudoir / Lynne Barrett --Machete / Barbara Parker --The swimmers / Jeffrey Wehr.

    Cain, Chester Himes, Ross MacDonald, Walter Mosley, Naomi Hirahara, Margaret Millar, Joseph Hansen, William Campbell Gault, Jervey Tervalon, Kate Braverman, and Yxta Maya Murray.Editor Denise Hamilton is the author of the Eve Diamond series and the editor of "Los Angeles Noir." Her latest novel, "Los Angeles Times" bestseller "The Last Embrace," has been compared to works by James Ellroy and Raymond Chandler. She lives in Los Angeles.

    Erickson, William Kent Krueger, Ellen Hart, Brad Zeller, Mary Sharratt, Pete Hautman, Larry Millett, Quinton Skinner, Gary Bush, and Chris Everheart.Julie Schaper has been a Twin Cities resident for 11 years. She lives with her husband and two dogs in the Merriam Park neighborhood of St. Paul. Steven Horwitz has worked in publishing for 25 years. He lives with his wife and two dogs in St. Paul.

    Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.Featuring brand-new stories by: Joyce Carol Oates, Lawrence Block, Ed Park, Gary Earl Ross, Kim Chinquee, Christina Milletti, Tom Fontana, Dimitri Anastasopoulos, Lissa Marie Redmond, S.J. Rozan, John Wray, Brooke Costello, and Connie Porter.Buffalo, New York, is still the second-largest metropolis in the state, but in recent years its designation as the Queen City has been elbowed aside by a name that's pure noir: The City of No Illusions. Presidents came from here; and in 1901, a president was killed here while visiting the Pan-American Exposition, by a man who checked into a hotel under a name that translates as Nobody.As Buffalo saw its prosperity wane, those on the outside could only see harsh winters and Rust Belt grit, chicken wings and sports teams that came agonizingly close. (Vincent Gallo's Buffalo 66 is less the doomed quest of a would-be assassin than the collective fever dream of every Bills fan.)Anyone who has spent more than a few days in Buffalo will tell you that this city can spar with any other major American metropolis in the noir arena. This highly anticipated entry in the Akashic Noir Series includes stories from Buffalo-affiliated mystery titans as well as up-and-comers.

    Joining award-winning Jamaican authors such as Marlon James, Leone Ross, and Thomas Glave are two "special guest" writers with no Jamaican lineage: Nigerian-born Chris Abani and British writer Ian Thomson. The menacing tone that runs through some of these stories is counterbalanced by the clever humor in others, such as Kei Miller's �White Gyal with a Camera,” who softens even the hardest of August Town’s gangsters; and Mr. Brown, the private investigator in Kwame Dawes’s story, who explains why his girth works to his advantage: "In Jamaica a woman like a big man. She can see he is prosperous, and that he can be in charge." Together, the outstanding tales in Kingston Noir comprise the best volume of short fiction ever to arise from the literary wellspring that is Jamaica.

    Rich (illustrated by Joelle Jones), Dan DeWeese, Zoe Trope, Luciana Lopez, Karen Karbo, Bill Cameron, Ariel Gore, Floyd Skloot, Megan Kruse, Kimberly Warner-Cohen, and Jonathan Selwood.Editor Kevin Sampsell is a bookstore employee and writer. He is the author of a short story collection, Creamy Bullets (Chiasmus Press), and the upcoming memoir The Suitcase (HarperPerennial, summer 2009). He is also the editor of The Insomniac Reader (Manic D Press) and the publisher of the micropress Future Tense Books.