Issue 3 Advance Details

The Lineup #3 will open to submissions on June 15, 2009. From June 15 to July 31, both solicited and unsolicited submissions will be considered.

From September 1 to October 31, only invited submissions will be considered. Do not submit during this second period unless you've been invited by one of the editors (Sarah Cortez, Richie Narvaez, Anthony Rainone, or Gerald So).

See the submission guidelines.

We plan to release Issue 3 in April 2010 to coincide with National Poetry Month.

The Lineup 2 arrives at Houston's Murder By The Book

The Lineup 2 has arrived at Murder By the Book in Houston, TX. Thanks again to David Thompson and McKenna Jordan, the first booksellers to take a chance on our collection of crime poetry.

On Amazon.com Marketplace

You now have a third option for buying The Lineup 1 and 2. Lulu.com has begun listing our books on Amazon.com Marketplace. A 30% markup covers Amazon's listing fee. Our revenue remains the same.

Thank you, Crimespree Magazine

Our ad appears on Page 77 of the current issue of Crimespree Magazine. Though primarily feature articles and fiction, Crimespree published my poem "Mickey Spillane" on the occasion of Spillane's death in 2006. The poem came to the attention of Anthony Rainone, who asked to reprint it in his 2007 Mystery Scene article "Raven in a Trenchcoat: Hardboiled and Noir Poetry". I referred to the article when The Lineup was just a possibly good idea, and the rest is history.

Also, on Page 60 of this issue, my Blu-ray review of Quantum of Solace.

Crimespree is celebrating its fifth anniversary with a special deal.

Dave White reviews The Lineup 2

Dave White is the author of When One Man Dies and The Evil That Men Do featuring New Jersey P.I. Jackson Donne, who previously appeared in Derringer Award-winning stories on The Thrilling Detective Web Site.

Dave has also lent his ear to several of my poems, so I've been waiting to hear his thoughts on The Lineup #2.

Twanalyst.com calls Dave a poet, so I hope he's convinced to submit to The Lineup himself.

John Harvey reflects on The Lineup 2

John Harvey received his contributor copy of The Lineup 2 today and blogged an account of our meeting at last year's Bouchercon:

One of the most pleasant times I had at last year’s Bouchercon in Baltimore was sitting quietly, having ducked out of some fun party or other, and talking to Gerald So, the fiction editor of the Thrilling Detective web site and editor-in-chief of The Lineup, an annual magazine of poems on or about crime. I’d met Gerald earlier, when we were both on a panel discussing poetry and its links with crime writing, and it was good to get a chance to speak with him at greater length.

The new issue of The Lineup has just been published – I have my copy in front of me – and it looks very smart indeed. Aside from the couple of poems Gerald winkled out of me – a reworking of “Always Chinatown”, which appeared in Bluer Than This, and a little poem now called “Story”, which had never previously been published – there are poems by, amongst others, Sophie Hannah, Carol Novack, Manuel Ramos and the redoubtable Reed Farrel Coleman.

Thanks again, John.

Mysterious Company

I was in Manhattan today for lunch with incoming Lineup editor Sarah Cortez and Liz Martinez at Tír na nÓg. Then I headed to The Mysterious Bookshop to follow up on their interest in carrying The Lineup. The outlook is hopeful.

I stuck around for the Hit List reading and signing, chatting with fellow editors Anthony Rainone and Richie Narvaez and making some neat contacts like Linda Addison, Henry Chang, and Adam Berlin and Jeffrey Heiman of J Journal.

Photographic evidence to come from The Mysterious staff.

Tomorrow

...I mail copies of The Lineup #2 to the contributors and blurbers, and both issues of The Lineup arrive at Once Upon a Crime in Minneapolis.

Gerald and Ali Go to Bouchercon

Today on his blog (Existentialist Man) chemist, thriller writer, and critic Ali Karim mentions our meeting at Bouchercon 2008 in Baltimore:

I was delighted to actually spend some time [last autumn in Baltimore] with Gerald So - after many years of reading his work as fiction editor at Thrilling Detective, his blogging, his Twittering and his work as editor at ‘The Line-Up’. Gerald and his fellow co-editors Patrick Shawn Bagley, R. Narvaez, and Anthony Rainone have now produced Volume II of their collections of Crime-Fiction Poetry. Gerald kindly asked me to contribute to this volume, but due to my usual deadline juggling battles was unable to meet the timeline. I got my copy of ‘The Line-Up’ Vol II and was very impressed to find amongst the collection, pieces by award-winning poet Sophie Hannah as well as CWA Diamond Dagger Winner John Harvey both of whom incidentally attended the Baltimore event last year.

Ali goes on to urge his readers to buy The Lineup, plug our appearance on CrimeWAV, and offer this memento of our meeting:

CrimeWAV 36: The Lineup - Poems on Crime

Go to the episode entry on CrimeWAV.

Richie Narvaez reads his poem "Metro" and Patrick Shawn Bagley's "110 M.P.H. in a Stolen Pickup".

I read my poem "Four Minutes", "Prayer of an Arson Investigator" by Sarah Cortez, "Don Henley Will Be Mine" by Misti Rainwater-Lites, and "Visiting Hours, State Pen" by Amy MacLennan.

Stephen D. Rogers reads his poem "A Whisper of Smoke".

And Christopher Watkins reads his poem "A Wild Flaw Amongst Us".

Thanks once again to CrimeWAV host Seth Harwood and producer Mystery Dawg Aldo Calcagno.

Issue 2 Introduction

Outgoing co-editor Patrick Shawn Bagley has reprinted his introduction to The Lineup #2 on his blog:

What does poetry have to do with crime?

Almost a year after the first volume of The Lineup: Poems on Crime was published, and two or three years since Anthony Rainone’s article on noir poetry appeared in Mystery Scene Magazine, I still hear that same question. The people who seem most bewildered by the notion tend to be fans of mystery and crime prose. I suspect their last exposure to poetry came in high school, where they were likely forced to read odes to various sorts of classical pottery, sonnets comparing summer days to dark ladies and verse after verse about tasting liquor never brewed, mending walls or daring to disturb the universe.

So what does poetry have to do with crime?

Poets do not ask that question.

People for whom poetry is a vital part of their reading life do not ask that question.

They do not need to. One cannot separate the medium’s affinity for what Czeslaw Milosz called “luminous things” from its need to examine the darker side of nature, society and the self. American poets have long dealt with the consequences of criminal acts. For a mere handful of examples, track down Claude McKay’s “The Lynching” (1920), Robert Hayden’s “Night, Death, Mississippi” (1966), C.K. Williams’ “Hood” (1969), Ai’s “Child Beater” (1973) or Amy Uyematsu’s “Ten Million Flames of Los Angeles” (1998). With his 1968 poem “Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane,” Etheridge Knight accomplished in just six stanzas something that took Ken Kesey an entire novel.

Weldon Kees’ “Crime Club” (1947) screamed “that nothing can be solved.” So why do we write crime fiction, let alone crime poetry? One may as well ask why we write—or read—anything at all. We do it in an attempt to understand. We do it to find some kind of meaning in events that all too often leave victims, perpetrators and everyone around them damaged or destroyed.

The poems in this volume of The Lineup carry that tradition forward. In the following pages, you will find prison guards, losers heading for the final fall, burned out detectives, victims of sexual abuse, victims of random violence, shoplifters, rubberneckers and people who slide into crime as their only remaining means of survival. Here you will find proof beyond any reasonable doubt of poetry’s relevance to modern life.

Any questions?

Patrick Shawn Bagley
Madison, Maine
March 2009

Once again I thank Patrick for helping make The Lineup a reality, and wish him the best with his novel and future endeavors.

The Lineup on Facebook

I'm not on Facebook, but Richie Narvaez has created a Facebook group for our contributors, friends, and fans.

We're Back!

The Lineup 2 is officially on sale on Lulu. Click on the cover image at right, buy, enjoy.

Copies are coming to Murder By the Book in Houston and Once Upon a Crime in Minneapolis within the next few weeks.

Lined Up, Dos

I just received my copies of the second issue of The Lineup. They smell great, look crisp, and read pretty damn nice, if I don't say so myself. The books will go officially on sale very soon, so look for the announcement and link here. In the meantime, I'll be hawking copies at my desk.

May 15-17: BookHampton Mystery Festival

Click on the poster to enlarge.

Cinco de Harwood

CrimeWAV host Seth Harwood's novel Jack Wakes Up goes on sale tomorrow, Cinco de Harwood. You can learn more about the book, including how to order and how to hear the entire book as a podcast, here.

Thanks again to Seth and Mystery Dawg Aldo Calcagno for featuring The Lineup on the next episode of CrimeWAV.

Get The Lineup

You can buy The Lineup from Lulu.com or these fine independent bookstores:

Murder By the Book (Houston, TX)
Once Upon a Crime (Minneapolis, MN)
The Mysterious Bookshop (New York, NY)

Issues 1 ($6.50), 2 ($6.00), and 3 ($7.00) are available now.

Issues 1 and 2 are also available on Amazon.com Marketplace.

Two copies of each issue The Lineup are sent to the Library of Congress upon publication.

The Turtle Lake (Wisconsin) Public Library has copies of Issues 2 and 3, and has requested Issue 4 (To be published in 2011).

The University of Michigan Special Collections Library has a copy of Issue 3.

If you represent an independent bookstore or public library and would like to carry The Lineup, we'd be happy to discuss. E-mail Gerald: g_so AT yahoo DOT com.

This post will be updated as more independent bookstores and libraries order The Lineup.

Once Upon a Crime

Once Upon a Crime Mystery Bookstore in Minneapolis, MN has ordered six copies each of The Lineup #1 and #2.