Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, No. 1. Whole No. 833, January 2011

EQMM turns 70!

The ringing in of a new year always seems to bring a mix of reflections on what’s gone before and plans, hopes, and expectations for the future. This year that’s especially true for EQMM, because we’ve come to an important milestone: the start of our 70th year of publication.

More than a dozen American magazines exceed EQMM’s longevity — Scientific American, Harper’s, The New Yorker, and literary magazines such as The Virginia Quarterly and The Yale Review, to name a few. But if we consider only magazines that publish popular fiction, there is, I believe, just one that can claim continuous publication for longer than EQMM and that’s one of our sister magazines, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, which began life under the title Astounding in 1930.

We’ve reached this near-record run thanks to continued contributions to our pages from top writers in the field and because we have the good fortune to have a discriminating and loyal readership. Another factor in our success, I think, has been staying true to our original purpose, which Ellery Queen stated in the very first issue as being to provide “all types of detective and crime short stories” and for “consistently good writing” to be as important a requirement for inclusion as “original ideas, excitement, and craftsmanship.”

Despite shifts in fashion, EQMM covers as much of the genre as possible in each issue. Hardboiled private-eye stories are found shoulder to shoulder with “cozies,” “impossible crime” tales, psychological suspense, noir pieces, and police procedurals. Over the years, as the fortunes of the various sub-genres have waxed and waned, EQMM has provided the same steady home for them, sometimes sustaining writers whose novels have been temporarily cut from book publishers’ lists due to changes in the prevailing winds, only to see them come back into novelistic favor again a few years later.

Serving the community of writers was, for Ellery Queen, the other side of the coin to providing readers with a rich reading experience. In that first issue he said: “We propose to give you stories by the big-name writers, by lesser-known writers, and by unknown writers.” To that end, in the late 1940s he instituted one of EQMM’s most famous features, the Department of First Stories, and in its pages brought into print for the first time many writers who came to be among mystery’s leading lights.

Over the course of this anniversary year we’ll be highlighting aspects of EQMM’s history and current attractions and also making some projections for the future. We start, as seems appropriate with the new year about to arrive and Baby New Year running across our cover, with a salute to EQMM’s first-time writers. In The Jury Box, Jon L. Breen reviews the novels of several authors who got their start in EQMM, and we’re presenting the short-story debuts of two new writers in this issue. One appears, as is traditional, in the Department of First Stories, the other, because the style of his story is so fitting for Black Mask, under that department’s aegis.

Since 1941, when EQMM’s first issue — described by Ellery Queen as “experimental” — found its way into readers’ hands, many other mystery and crime short-story publications have come and (mostly) gone. EQMM remains because of your enthusiastic support. As we celebrate our milestone, it’s with special appreciation for all of you.

Janet Hutchings, Editor