Summer is here and I couldn’t be happier. After the last year, we should all take a deep breath and enjoy some fresh air. I am excited about the amazing talent we have in this issue and am in awe of my editors as well. It takes a team to curate this incredible magazine, and I am honored and humbled to work with such kind, caring, and hard-working people.
We are so very excited to launch our imprint this month, Kelp Books. We have a fantastic poetry collection coming out very soon from the talented Caleb Nichols. And on August 1st, we launch our first annual “surf noir” anthology, The Silver Waves of Summer. We have a big launch party coming up for the book in Hermosa Beach, in Southern California, and I hope to see you all there. Below is a link to the event. I hope you all enjoy these works of art and have a safe and beautiful summer.
-David M. Olsen
What do you get when you pair the beach with some of today’s most talented writers? The Silver Waves of Summer is a collection of short stories by a dozen of today’s best storytellers, including New York Times best sellers, international best sellers, Edgar and Shamus Awards winners, and more. With a blend of styles ranging from literary fiction to crime noir, the beach is the common denominator in this incredible collection of summer stories. In “Lighthouse Scene for Miles,” internationally best-selling writer Michael Scott Moore (The Desert and the Sea: 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast) takes us back to the famed Lighthouse Cafe in 1950’s Southern California, in a story featuring the great jazz legend, Miles Davis. NY Times best-selling writer Tod Goldberg (Gangsterland, Living Dead Girl) brings us a compelling new short story, “The Summer of ’86,” where a recently released bank robber, Mitch Lenney, travels to a sleepy seaside town on the Monterey Bay to help his sister run a bike shop after her boyfriend suddenly disappears. This is a crime noir short not to be missed. In “Off the 405,” Edgar Award winner Naomi Hirahara (Snakeskin Shamisen, Clark and Division) takes us on a beach excursion where three families meet on a hot, sunny day in Southern California that ends with a high-speed chase up the 405, against traffic. In a murder mystery that rivals Agatha Christie, “The Naked and the Dead” by Shamus Award winner Charles Ardai (Songs of Innocence, Little Girl Lost) transports us to a private nude beach on the East Coast, where a member is murdered in an impossible fashion. It is up to private detective Susan Jaffe to solve the case. In “In the Bank” by Antoine Wilson (Panorama City, Mouth to Mouth), two friends embark on an adventure to intercept a drug cartel’s shipment by disguising an old fishing boat as US Coast Guard to disastrous consequences. In “The Five Thieves of the Bombay Beach” by Rob Roberge (Liar, More than They Could Chew), we follow Duane Reed to the Salton Sea with its postapocalyptic landscape in a search of a missing person: Duane’s father, Walt Reed, who disappeared years before somewhere in Bombay Beach. Things take a sinister turn in a new horror story by the talented Samantha Tkac. In “Sundays are for Robberies,” two sisters have each other’s back at all costs, including when it comes to murder. The anthology includes stories by Charles Ardai, Oliver Brennan, Tod Goldberg, Naomi Hirahara, Michael Scott Moore, Rob Roberge, Samantha Tkac, Alex Webb Wilson, Antoine Wilson, Steve Wynn, and David M. Olsen.
