Long Island Noir

by Kaylie Jones

  JANE CIABATTARI is the author of the collection Stealing the Fire and has had stories published in the Literarian, KGB Bar Lit, Chautauqua, Literary Mama, VerbSap, Ms., the North American Review, Denver Quarterly, and Hampton Shorts, among others. She has received three Pushcart Prize special mentions and fiction fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

  REED FARREL COLEMAN, author of thirteen novels, has been called the “noir poet laureate” in the Huffington Post and a “hard-boiled poet” by NPR. He has won the Shamus Award for Best Novel three times and has been twice nominated for an Edgar Award. Coleman has also won the Macavity, Barry, and Anthony awards. He is an adjunct professor of English at Hofstra University and lives with his family in Suffolk County on Long Island.

  JULES FEIFFER is a cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter, and children’s book author and illustrator. He won a Pulitzer Prize and a George Polk Award for his cartoons; two Obies for his plays; an Academy Award for the animation of his cartoon satire Munro; and lifetime achievement awards from the Writers Guild of America and the National Cartoonist Society. Feiffer lives in Southampton and is a visiting professor at Stony Brook Southampton.

  JZ HOLDEN has settled in East Hampton after living in Israel, Switzerland, England, and New York City. She lives part-time with the love of her life and their two cats, a Maine Coon called Maximillian and his regal sister Sophia. Holden was a journalist for twelve years prior to devoting her heart, creativity, and passion to fiction. She holds an MFA degree in creative writing and literature from Stony Brook University and a BFA from Pratt Institute.

  KAYLIE JONES moved to Sagaponack in 1975, where her family continued to live for more than thirty years. 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.

  SHEILA KOHLER is the author of eight novels, including Becoming Jane Eyre and Love Child, and three collections of short stories. She has won the PEN/O.Henry Prize twice, the Open Voice, the Smart Family Foundation, the Willa Cather, and the Antioch Review awards. She was a fellow at the Cullman Center and teaches at Bennington and Princeton. Cracks, a film directed by Jordan and Ridley Scott and based on Kohler’s work, was released in spring 2011.

  NICK MAMATAS was born on Long Island, in Port Jefferson, and attended college at Stony Brook University. His books include the Lovecraftian Beat road novel Move Under Ground, and the satire Sensation. He has published sixty short stories in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Mississippi Review’s “postmodern pulp” issue, Supernatural Noir, and many other venues. Mamatas’s work has been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award four times, and the International Horror Guild Award.

  MATTHEW MCGEVNA received his MFA in creative writing from Southampton College in 2002. His fiction has appeared in Ozone Park Journal, Karamu, Confrontation Magazine, and Epiphany Magazine. The story included in Long Island Noir is part of a collection based on his experience growing up in Mastic Beach. He currently lives in Center Moriches, New York, with his wife Joanne and his son Jackson.

  TIM MCLOUGHLIN is the editor of Brooklyn Noir and its companion volumes. His debut novel Heart of the Old Country is the basis for the motion picture The Narrows, starring Vincent D’Onofrio. His books have been published in seven languages, and his writing has appeared in New York Quarterly, the Huffington Post, and Best American Mystery Stories. He lives on the western tip of Long Island.

  RICHIE NARVAEZ received his BA and MA at Stony Brook University on “Lawn Guyland.” His work has been featured in Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery, Indian Country Noir, Mississippi Review, Murdaland, Plots with Guns, Storyglossia, A Thousand Faces, and You Don’t Have a Clue: Latino Mystery Stories for Teens.

  CHARLES SALZBERG is the author of a number of nonfiction books, including From Set Shot to Slam Dunk, an oral history of the NBA. His novel Swann’s Last Song was nominated for a Shamus Award for Best First P.I. Novel. The sequel, Swann Dives In, will be published in October 2012. He has been a visiting professor of magazine writing at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and he teaches writing at the New York Writers Workshop, where he is a founding member.

  AMANI SCIPIO, a native of Bridgehampton, Long Island, wrote her first short story, “The Cain Bridge House,” for a high school competition; though the story did not win, she continued to write. Her work has appeared in numerous poetry anthologies, including Painting Daisies Yellow and A Time to Be Free.

  TIM TOMLINSON was born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island. He’s a cofounder of the New York Writers Workshop, and coauthor of its popular text, The Portable MFA in Creative Writing. He teaches in NYU’s Global Liberal Studies Program. His stories and poems have appeared in print and online in many venues, including the Missouri Review, North American Review, Pank, and Underground Voices, among others. He lives with his wife in New York City.

  SARAH WEINMAN has written for the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and many other print and online publications. Her fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and various anthologies, including Baltimore Noir and Dublin Noir. She lives in Brooklyn, just a mile away from the Atlantic Avenue LIRR hub.

  KENNETH WISHNIA’S novels include 23 Shades of Black, an Edgar and Anthony award finalist; Soft Money, a Library Journal Best Mystery of the Year; Red House, a Washington Post Book World “Rave” Book of the Year; and The Fifth Servant, a finalist for the Premio Letterario ADEI-WIZO. He thanks Michael and Mary Mart and SCCC students Vinny Bivona, Aaron Bryant, Lauren Pelisson, and Brian Ratkus for their comments on an early draft of this story.

  STEVEN WISHNIA is the grandson of two illegal immigrants. He went to Ward Melville High School and Stony Brook University before escaping to New York and respected but marginally successful careers as a journalist and bass player. He is the author of Exit 25 Utopia and The Cannabis Companion. He recently completed a novel entitled Very Bad When Drumming Stops.