Posted 5:00 AM by Gerald So
A fan of mystery and crime fiction, I'm wary of the genre trivializing murder and gun violence, the inciting incidents of many stories. Later in my time with the Short Mystery Fiction Society, I proposed changing the group logo, a derringer pocket pistol illustrated by a past president's relative after the Society's Derringer Awards.
Well before my time, the group had chosen the derringer as a metaphor for the short mystery. I grew concerned the public would primarily see the gun and assume it represented a gun rights group. Members spoke up dismissing my concern. I left the Society in 2021 and the awards and logo remain, but I still hope they change one day.
To what, you ask. How about clocks, nonviolent imagery of short mystery's tradition, brevity, and urgency?
What, then, would the awards be called? The Stoppers, as in stopping to recognize winners; as in stopping crime, not capitalizing on it.
The current physical Derringer awards are medals with the illustrated logo in the center. The physical Stopper awards could be wall clocks matching the logo, showing category and year.
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