Richard Helms

Profile Information:

Hometown:: Weddington, NC
About Me:: Three-Time PWA Shamus Award Nominee. Author of the Pat Gallegher series set in New Orleans, and the Eamon Gold series set in San Francisco. Editor and publisher of The Back Alley, a webzine featuring hardboiled and noir fiction for a new century.
On May 2, 2008, I became the only author ever to win TWO Short Mystery Fiction Society Derringer Awards in the same year, for THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO GORDON BLACK, which was published under my own name in Kevin Burton Smith's Thrilling Detective Website (Thanks Bunches, Kevin and Gerald!!!), and for PAPER WALLS/GLASS HOUSES, which was published under my pseudonym Eric Shane in my own Back Alley Webzine. It's been a big year!
I Am A:: Writer, Publisher, Editor
Website:: http://www.richardhelms.net
Books And Authors I Like:: Robert B. Parker, Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, James Lee Burke, Dale Brown, Clive Cussler (guilty pleasure), Reed Coleman, S.J. Rozan, P.J. Parrish, Richard Brautigan, Cormac McCarthy, the list goes on.
Movies And TV Shows I Like:: Mythbusters, Dirty Jobs, 24, Monday Night Football, The Shield, Nip/Tuck (kind of eclectic)...

Comment Wall:

JackBludis

Gotcha--
Welcome to crimespace. If you start to view members back-to-front, I think you'll see a lot of pals here.

Anyone else who checks here. Rick is one of the budding stars of Hardboiled fiction.

Jack Bludis

Jan 2, 2008
Lee Lofland

Hey Rick. Good to see you!

Jan 4, 2008
joe miller

Rick,

Welcome

Joe

Jan 13, 2008
JackBludis

I've read your stuff (No kidding, Jack) You do good characters, great plots ... (Jack, you shill)
"Yeah," Jack responds, "but it's easy to shill a winner."

Jan 24, 2008
Richard Helms

Sorry I've been a little absent from my own page lately. Working on a new novel set in the last days of the Batista regime in Cuba. Yeah, it's a PI tale, but the real star of the story is Havana itself, and the desperation of its people facing an uncertain future. Appearances by all sorts of famous people who lived there in late 1958. It's fun to roll them into the story.

Nice to see how many people have asked to be added as friends on this page. I worked with Lee at the South Carolina Writers' Workshop in Myrtle Beach this past October. Jack I've known for years, and thanks for the kind words (the check is in the mail - oh, wait, you already told me you received it! )

Those of you I haven't met in person, I look forward to seeing at future conferences. At this point, the only certain appearance this year for me will be Bouchercon at Baltimore. I may also do Killer Nashville in August. I'm skipping LCC for a number of reasons, most of them revolving around their panel policies, and Deadly Ink (one of my favorite venues) falls right in the middle of my summer beach trip again this year. I had hoped to do Sleuthfest in February/March, but with two kids in college I decided it would cost too much for the payoff, since I don't have any new books coming out.

For those of you who don't know, I have a hardboiled/noir webzine up and running. Entitled THE BACK ALLEY, you can read it gratis at www.backalleywebzine.com. I'm in the process of choosing stories from the first two issues to submit for the Derringer Awards, and every story involving a PI will be submitted for the Shamus Awards this year.

It is our hope that The Back Alley will become the first completely electronic zine to be accepted as a qualified publisher by the Mystery Writers of America. They turned us down last year, but invited me to reapply in June. Keep your fingers crossed!

Jan 24, 2008
Mary Saums

Hey, Rick - the Havana book sounds great. I'm also excited about Back Alley. Good to see you here.

Feb 4, 2008