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In July 1997, Lynn Kaczmarek and Chris Aldrich announced the formation of Black Raven Press, a partnership that shortly thereafter acquired Mystery News, a publication dedicated to mystery reviews, interviews and previews of upcoming books. Amazingly, we're celebrating our 10-year anniversary of publishing Mystery News and we're still going strong!

Mystery News first came on the scene in the early 80s, and for more than 10 years, Harriet and Larry Stay published it.  In early 1997, the Stays decided that it was time to change the focus of their lives.  With a home in a wonderfully scenic area in Washington State, they decided to devote their energy to their mystery dinner business.

Lynn and Chris are longtime mystery readers who met in early 1995 in a spirited discussion of food in mysteries in the Mystery section of the CompuServe Literary Forum. Up to that point, Lynn had published reviews on-line on CompuServe & other Internet sites, and on paper in DAPA-EM and Mystery News.  Chris had been an enthusiastic reader and fledgling collector of mystery fiction. Lynn lived in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, while in the past 10 years Chris has lived in San Francisco, New Jersey, and now in the New York City suburb of Levittown. 

We finally met face-to-face in June of 1995, at EyeCon ’95, in Milwaukee, and our friendship was furthered during panels, signings and repeated visits to the book dealer’s room. Over the next couple of years, we met often at mystery conventions and corresponded by email in between.  If we lived in the same city, we’d probably open a mystery bookstore together, but instead we looked for a way to create a small business involved with mysteries.  As you can imagine, the partnership relies heavily on email & phone conversations and we are big supporters of the US Postal Service, UPS and FedEx.

When the Stays offered us the opportunity to make the transition from “Mystery Readers” to “Mystery Fans”, we decided to form Black Raven Press, choosing that name to keep the door open for future publishing ventures.  We’ve published Mystery News for more than 10 years now, and we’re still having fun.  Now when we meet at conventions, you can usually find us in the book dealers’ room signing up new subscribers and greeting old friends.

We continue to work to further our goal -- to revitalize Mystery News while continuing the tradition of bringing insightful interviews, concise and unbiased reviews, and timely previews into the homes of hundreds of mystery readers.  We’ve updated the look of Mystery News with a new layout and graphics, and we’ve gotten high marks from longtime readers, as well as new ones.  We added an Internet site and in late 2000, started to beef up the content on the site. In June 2001, Mystery News was nominated for the 2001 Anthony Award in the Best Fan Publication category. To our great surprise and pleasure, we were awarded the Anthony for Best Fan Publication of 2000 on November 3, 2001. In 2004 and 2006, we were again nominated for a Best Fan Publication Anthony Award, and in 2007, we were nominated for the Special Services Anthony Award.

One of the most significant factors in our success is the team of reviewers, interviewers and columnists who write for Mystery News.  We are fortunate to have a really terrific crew of contributors.  Our reviewers and interviewers include:  Helene Androski, Reed Andrus, Colleen Barnett, Mary Helen Becker, James Clar, Tim Davis, Frank Denton, Leslie Doran, Sally Fellows, Ted Hertel, Virginia R. Knight, Pam Lawrence, John Leech, Lisa Lundquist, Dave Magayna, Thomas McNulty, Stephen Miller, Gary Warren Niebuhr, W.E. Reinka, Dick Saxe, Janie Shimer, Harriet Stay, Cindy Tambourine, Bill Turner, Maddy Van Hertbruggen, Diana Vickery, Gayle Wedgwood, Chris Aldrich and Lynn Kaczmarek. 

Our regular columnists are Marv Lachman, Dave Magayna, Stephen Miller and Roger M. Sobin.

From time to time, we have published guest reviews including some by Bill Crider, Joe Guglielmelli, and Michelle Babicz. Edgar winners Jan Burke and S.J.Rozan have contributed interviews. Sharon Zukowski has contributed mystery-related travel articles from time to time.

Check out our photo pages where you can see some of our contributors. And us, and the Anthony Award...

Lynn Kaczmarek recently retired from her job as a Senior Marketing Manager for a major medical products company in the Chicago area, and serves as Managing Editor for Mystery News.  Mack Bonk, Lynn’s husband, manages distribution. Chris Aldrich, who currently works as a product manager for a software company specializing in international regulatory compliance, is the Business Manager and webmaster.

 Mystery News is a 36-page tabloid-style paper, published every 2 months (in the middle of each even-numbered month). Each issue features 3-5 interviews and articles, 2-4 columns on a variety of mystery-related subjects, about 70-80 reviews and dozens of previews of upcoming mysteries. We also include a convention calendar in each issue.

Black Raven Press started publication in August 1997, with Volume 15 issue 4 of Mystery News.

For additional information about Black Raven Press or Mystery News, contact Chris Aldrich by e-mail at: caldrich@blackravenpress.com.  Find us on the web at www.blackravenpress.com. Our submission guidelines can be found here:

Our mailing address is :

Black Raven Press
7645 State Hwy 42
Egg Harbor, WI 54209

(This page was updated June 29, 2008)

 

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