In 1928 two cousins, Frederick Dannay (“Danny) and Manfred B. Lee (“Manny”), created Ellery Queen for a contest sponsored by McClure’s magazine and Stokes publishing house. The prize for creating the best new detective novel was $7500. The cousins won the contest, but McClure’s went bankrupt shortly afterwards, so they never collected their prize. Between 1929 and 1971 they published 46 mystery novels using the name of the protagonist as their pseudonym. The cousins also created Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine which is still influential in the mystery genre, publishing more new writers each year than any other magazine. The Mystery Writers of America honored Dannay and Lee by creating the Ellery Queen award for “an editor or publisher for distinguished support of the genre.” (post by Cathy Akers-Jordan)