Edith/Maddie here, with a thrilling announcement. No, I didn’t (yet) hit the New York Times bestseller list.

But I do have “While the Iron is Hot,” a short crime story, in the latest issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, one of the two premier mystery magazines!

I have loved the phrase Carpe Diem for many years. According to Wikipedia, “Carpe diem is a Latin aphorism , usually translated “seize the day”, taken from book 1 of the Roman poet Horace’s work Odes (23 BC).”

It seems to me that the related aphorism, “Strike while the iron is hot,” has a similar meaning. If you have a chance, take it. Don’t waste opportunities. More pragmatically, once your iron is well-heated, press the wrinkles out of another shirt or brand another steer or straighten your hair’s frizz or curls or do whatever you might use a hot iron for.

So, why did I title my story that way? I wish I kept as careful a track of my process for writing short stories as Sherry Harris does, but I don’t. I know last year sometime I was remembering the way some people reacted at the start of the pandemic lockdown. I had neighbors who set their groceries on the front stoop to air and be wiped down with sanitizer before they brought them in the house. Others let delivered mail sit for three days before touching it. Others washed all produce in bleach, and so on.

Most of us are past that, thank goodness. But what if somebody took an abundance of caution to the point of paranoia? That was the germ of my story. I had great fun going darker than in my novels, playing with the three characters and how the narrator interpreted “seize the day.”

I hope you love it! Several good friends and past guests of the Wickeds also have stories in this issue of the magazine, like Rob Osler and Lori Rader-Day, so be sure you read it cover to cover. I love the springlike-yet-murderous front cover, which ties in with some garden work in my story.

Readers: How often do you pick up a short story collection or magazine?