Call for Papers (Extended) - New York State of Crime

Mean Streets

Call for Papers--Extended

Mean Streets: A Journal of American Crime and Detective Fiction

Issue 2

Topic: New York State of Crime

Proposals: November 30, 2020

Final essays: February 15, 2021

For the second issue of Mean Streets, the editors seek proposals focusing on crime literature of New York City or elsewhere in the Empire State. The “extended” CFP will give particular preference to crime literature set in New York outside of New York City. 

This “extended” CFP also invites proposals dealing with detective/crime fiction in urban environments in which the urban setting is given particular significance.

Raymond Chandler’s “mean streets” were the deceptively sun-dappled streets of Los Angeles, but the streets of New York City and its environs have a longer history of association with crime fiction. The vice-filled streets upon which Horatio Alger’s ragged newsboys trudged were the gritty New York City streets of the 1860s. Detective Nick Carter made his first appearance in the New York Weekly in September of 1866 in a serial focused on a crime in Madison Square, the original location of Madison Square Garden.

Decades later, Rex Stout, Chester Himes, Elizabeth Daly, Ed McBain, Ellery Queen, S.S. Van Dine, Amanda Cross, George Baxt, Julia Dahl and so many others found in New York the perfect setting for crimes, genteel or gruesome. The neighborhoods, bars, waterfronts, police precincts, theaters, subway tunnels and gleaming towers of New York have provided rich settings for sordid activities. Upstate New York—the Westchester and Long Island suburbs, Hudson Valley hamlets, the political cauldron of Albany, the once-thriving Catskill resorts, the Rust Belt, and the Snow Belt—has been featured in much crime writing, too.

Mean Streets is essentially a literary journal, so while discussion of film or other media is welcome, the balance of discussion will deal with literature.

Abstracts of 250 words with proposed title should be directed no later than November 30 to the editors: Rebecca Martin (doc.rmartin@gmail.com) and Walter Raubicheck (wraubicheck@pace.edu).

Final papers of 7000-8000 words will be due by February 15, 2021, with publication anticipated in spring 2021. Feel free to send questions to both editors.

About Mean Streets

This journal is published by the Pace University Press (New York City), which has been sponsoring scholarly journals since the 1980s.

Mean Streets is a refereed journal edited by two scholars in literature and film and guided by an Editorial Board comprised of distinguished scholars from several disciplines. Submissions will be reviewed by the editors and selected Board members.

The journal’s first issue appeared in spring 2020. Copies may be ordered at press.pace.edu/journals/mean-streets/.