Matchlight Mystery Now Open to Submissions

Matchlight Mystery

10 April 2026 — Matchlight Mystery has launched! Matchlight is an annual mystery anthology dedicated to showcasing the best in classic and contemporary detective fiction. The magazine is now accepting submissions for its inaugural issue, scheduled for publication in late 2026.

Matchlight is a sharp and stylish twenty-first century pulp magazine. Each issue will showcase impossible crimes, ingenious solutions, and detectives as brilliant as they are unforgettable. “If you love the Dick Byrne mysteries, you’re going to love Matchlight,” says founding editor Brian A. Dixon.

The magazine is seeking original detective stories from new and established writers, with a focus on fair play mysteries featuring puzzling crimes, brilliant investigators, and solutions earned through logic and deduction. From locked-room mysteries to hardboiled noir, police procedurals to cozy comedies, Matchlight welcomes detectives of all sorts. If you're a writer who has been inspired by the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Jane Marple, Sam Spade, Easy Rawlins, V. I. Warshawski, Kosuke Kindaichi, or Harry Dresden, the editors invite you to consider the call for submissions.

Matchlight Mystery is committed to championing diverse voices, as the best detective fiction reflects the full complexity of the human experience. The magazine publishes original work, reprints, and translations.

Full submission guidelines are available here at dickbyrne.com. Interested writers can submit their stories through Duosuma at duotrope.com.

Matchlight Mystery will be published in electronic and limited print editions by Fourth Horseman Press.