In these pages, I have written about the numerous emails I have received from scammers purporting to be editors at various publishers large and small. These are usually relatively easy to pick out; if you’re asking, “Hey, why is a higher-up at Penguin Random House sending me email from a gmail address?” or “Why is this editor’s name misspelled in their own email address?” the answer is usually simple, and involves the circa-now version of the Scooby Gang unmasking Mr. Bumberson from the amusement park.

It seems that the scammers may be learning, though. I recently got an email from an editor that looked a little bit more legitimate than earlier attempted scams: the email address was not on Gmail, nor was it on a domain that resembled, but was not, that of a publisher or literary agency. And yet there were two massive red flags that made it eminently clear what was going on.

Like so many of the emails I get in this vein, this was about my collection Transitory. (Plug alert: Transitory turned 10 this year! It’s out in a fancy reissued edition from 7.13 Books!) Here’s how it opened:

“I spent several hours going through Transitory and wanted to share a few thoughts from my review.

The way familiar locations turn strange and characters chase singular obsessions builds a striking and uncanny atmosphere. My personal favorite part is watching unearthly figures appear on city streets while students become fixated on a mysterious film.”

Pro tip for those seeking to harvest my manuscripts and/or kidneys: if your description of my short story collection conflates two different stories into your “personal favorite part,” I’m going to be clued in that something’s up.

The other red flag here was due to who the message was purportedly from: an editor at Two Lines Press. Now, I quite like and respect the work done by Two Lines; I’ve read and reviewed plenty of books that they’ve published. But unlike many presses in this camp, I have never dreamt of being published by them. Why? To answer that question, let’s turn to the publisher’s own “About” page, which begins with the following sentence:

“Two Lines Press is an award-winning press committed to publishing daring and original literature in translation in striking editions.”

Am I writing books in a language other than English? I am not. And thus, a scam email that was more convincing than most ended up being less convincing than most. It’s a strange time for writers, but there’s always room for unintentional comedy.