"John Floyd is one of the top voices not just in Mississippi mystery fiction, but in American mystery fiction.--Tom Franklin, author of Poachers and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
​

BIOGRAPHY

_______________________________________________________________________

John Madison Floyd was raised in Sallis, Mississippi, and attended Kosciusko High School and Mississippi State University. After graduating in Electrical Engineering, he joined IBM Corporation, spent four years in the U.S. Air Force on a military leave-of-absence, and then returned to IBM, where he worked as a systems engineer, marketing representative, and finance industry specialist. He and his wife Carolyn live in Mississippi. 

John began writing for publication in 1994. Since then, he has published more than a thousand short stories and six hundred poems in a variety of magazines, anthologies, and collections. Four of his stories have been chosen for inclusion in Otto Penzler's annual best-of-the-year mystery anthologies: "Molly's Plan" from Strand Magazine in Best American Mystery Stories 2015 (here's the Kirkus Review and the Publishers Weekly review), "Gun Work" from Coast to Coast: Private Eyes in the 2018 edition, "Rhonda and Clyde" from Black Cat Mystery Magazine in the 2020 edition, and "Biloxi Bound" from Strand Magazine in Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2021. Also, six more of his stories have been named in that anthology's "Other Distinguished Mysteries/Honorable Mentions" list. John has five Derringer Award wins, one Shamus Award win, one Edgar Award nomination, and three Pushcart Prize nominations. One of his stories appeared in Best Crime Stories 2021; one appeared in the anthology After Death, which won the 2013 Bram Stoker Award; and another was a finalist in The World's Best Mystery and Crime Stories 2. In 2018 John was the recipient of the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer Award for lifetime achievement, becoming one of only 24 authors to receive that honor. 

John taught fiction-writing courses at night in the Continuing Education Department at Millsaps College for seventeen years, and was a regular (weekly) columnist for four years at the Criminal Brief mystery blog. After CB completed its run in 2011 he and several fellow CBers formed SleuthSayers, where he now writes a column every first, third, and fifth Saturday.  

In addition to his hundreds of standalone short stories, John has written and published seven different "series" of mystery shorts. One features bossy retired schoolteacher Angela Potts and her former fifth-grade student Charles "Chunky" Jones, who is now the sheriff of their small southern town. Another series stars amateur crimefighter Frances Valentine and her single daughter Lucy, also a local sheriff. More than 100 Angela/Chunky mysteries have appeared in Woman's World magazine over the past twenty years, and more than 80 Fran and Lucy stories (better known as the "Law and Daughter" series) have been featured in Mystery Magazine, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine, Kings River Life, Mysterical-E, ​Flash Bang Mysteries, Texas Gardener, and other publications.

The first six stories in a mystery series about Pine County sheriff Ray Douglas ("Trail's End," "Scavenger Hunt,"  "Quarterback Sneak," "Friends and Neighbors," "The Dollhouse," and "Going the Distance") have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and one ("The Daisy Nelson Case") in Down & Out: The Magazine. Another of the Sheriff Douglas adventures has been accepted and is upcoming at AHMM. Also, the second story in a series starring Old West private investigator Will Parker was featured in the 2017 anthology Coast to Coast: Private Eyes, and that story was selected for inclusion in the 2018 edition of Best American Mystery Stories. John's fifth mystery series features former accountant Katie Rogers and her younger sister Anna, who's a police chief. Their adventures have been published in several issues of Woman's World. His sixth series stars private investigator Tom Langford and his seventh features New Orleans shopowner Madame Zoufou (Queen of Voodoo). The first of the Tom Langford mysteries appeared in Black Cat Mystery Magazine and won the 2021 Shamus Award; the second was published in Strand Magazine. 

In 2006 John signed on with Dogwood Press, which has now published seven collections of his short stories: Rainbow's End (2006), Midnight (2008), Clockwork (2010), Deception (2013), Fifty Mysteries (2014), Dreamland (2016), and The Barrens (2018). His eighth book, a collection of humorous verse called Lighten Up a Little, was released by Dogwood Press in spring 2020 and his ninth, Selected Stories, is scheduled for release by VKN Publishing in Moscow in 2023.

In summary, John's work has been published on five continents, printed in Braille, taught in high schools and colleges, optioned for film production, and translated into Russian. His books and stories have been praised by James Patterson, Jan Burke, Douglas Preston, Marcus Sakey, Bill Fitzhugh, Nevada Barr, Steve Hamilton, Carolyn Haines, Bill Crider, Tom Franklin, Jon Breen, O'Neil De Noux, Hank Phillippi Ryan, C. J. Box, Doug Allyn, and many others.