Bios

Long version

Barb Goffman is a short story author and editor. She’s won the Agatha Award four times, the Macavity Award twice, and the Anthony and Silver Falchion awards once for her writing, as well as the Derringer Award once for her editing. Additionally, in 2020 she won the Readers Award given out by Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (EQMM). And in 2024 she received the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Short Mystery Fiction Society.

Her award-winning stories in chronological order are "The Lord is My Shamus" (Macavity Award), "A Year Without Santa Claus" (Agatha Award), "Dear Emily Etiquette" (Agatha Award and EQMM Readers Award), "Beauty and the Beyotch" (Agatha Award, Anthony Award, and Macavity Award), and "The Postman Always Flirts Twice" (Agatha Award).

Her sole published collection, Don't Get Mad, Get Even, won the Silver Falchion Award for Best Collection of 2013. Two of her stories, "A Tale of Two Sisters" and "The Gift," have been included on the Other Distinguished Mystery and Suspense list in volumes of The Best American Mystery and Suspense.

Drilling down into her nominations, Barb has been a finalist for major crime-writing short story awards forty-six times: twenty Agatha Award nominations (a Malice Domestic record), eleven Macavity Award nominations, nine Anthony Award nominations, four Derringer Award nominations, one Thriller Award nomination, and one Silver Falchion Award nomination. In her editorial capacity, she was a finalist twice for the Anthony Award and once for the Derringer Award.

Former EQMM Editor Janet Hutchings called one of Barb’s stories, "Bug Appétit," "one of the best holiday stories I ever read." In addition to EQMM, Barb's stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, Von Stray’s Crimestalker Casebook, and many anthologies. In 2023, she was the toastmaster at the Malice Domestic mystery convention.

When not writing, Barb makes her living as an independent (freelance) editor, offering developmental, line, and copy editing services. She edits across the crime genre but especially enjoys working on traditional and cozy mysteries. One of the books she edited took home the Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Barb also gave editorial assistance to a book that won the Agatha Award for Best Non-Fiction. Other novels she edited were nominated for the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel and the Lefty and Macavity Awards for Best Historical Novel.

Barb’s short story clients also have had success. One story won the Ellery Queen Readers Award and one won the Derringer Award. Four stories she edited have been reprinted in The Best American Mystery and Suspense, and one was reprinted in The Best Mystery Stories of the Year. Barb has edited or co-edited fifteen published anthologies with one additional anthology in the works. Starting in 2009 until its conclusion in 2022, Barb co-edited the Chesapeake Crimes anthology series with Donna Andrews and Marcia Talley. Every book in the series had at least one story that won or was nominated for a major award or was republished in the annual Best American Mystery and Suspense anthology. Barb handled the developmental and line editing of the 2016 Malice Domestic anthology, Murder Most Conventional, which had one Agatha Award-nominated story. In 2020, the anthology Crime Travel, which she edited, was nominated for the Anthony Award, and stories in the book were nominated for the Agatha, Anthony, Derringer, Macavity, and Shamus Awards. In 2025, an anthology she edited with Michael Bracken, Murder, Neat, won the inaugural Derringer Award for Best Anthology. Barb also is an associate editor of Black Cat Weekly magazine, collecting and editing a line of stories called Barb Goffman Presents.

She blogs every third Tuesday at www.SleuthSayers.org, often about writing. She lives in Winchester, Virginia. Learn more at www.barbgoffman.com.