Black Cat Weekly #204

Alan Orloff has published thirteen novels and more than sixty short stories. His work has won an Anthony, an Agatha, a Derringer, and two ITW Thriller Awards. He's also been a finalist for the Shamus Award and has had a story selected for The Best American Mystery Stories anthology. He loves cake and arugula, but not together. Never together. He lives and writes in South Florida, where the examples of hijinks are endless. www.alanorloff.com

Tom Milani’s short fiction has appeared online in Black Cat Weekly, Urban Pigs Press, and Mr. Bull, as well as in several anthologies, including Janie’s Got a Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Aerosmith, In Too Deep: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Genesis, and Sleuths Just Wanna Have Fun: Private Eyes in the Materialistic Eighties. His novella Barracuda Backfire, a Derringer Award finalist, was published as part of Micharl Bracken’s Chop Shop series. “Barstow,” originally published in Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir,Volume 5, was given an honorable mention in The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2025. “Mill Mountain” was selected for The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2026. Milani is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Authors Guild. He lives in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, with his wife, glass sculptor Alison Sigethy.

David McGillveray has recently retired from the asset management industry after nearly thirty years. In that time, he has worked as an equity fund manager, a marketeer, managed an equity research team and headed the investment risk departments of two major listed UK investment businesses. He has managed money, worked closely with sales and marketing teams, been involved with oversight and governance at company level, sat on fund boards and industry bodies and helped design fund propositions. He has dealt with regulators, out of control fund managers and survived multiple market crises.

Leigh Brackett (1915-1978)
Leigh Brackett was an accomplished and prolific writer of fantasy and SF, as well as a Hollywood screen writer. She worked on scripts for films such as The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye and Rio Bravo, and received a posthumous Hugo Award for the script for The Empire Strikes Back. Brackett was married to fellow SF writer Edmond Hamilton from 1946 until his death in 1977.