Art Taylor's Blog, page 11

The First Two Pages: “Hey Bulldog” by Anjili Babbar

In April 2015, B.K. Stevens debuted the blog series “The First Two Pages,” hosting craft essays by short story writers and novelists analyzing the openings of their own work. The series continued until just after her death in August 2017, and the full archive of those essays can be found at Bonnie’s website. In November 2017, the blog series relocated to my website, and the archive of this second stage of the series can be found here.

This week concludes a series of essays by contributors to the new anthology Happiness Is a Warm Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of the Beatles, and in a nice twist, today’s post is also the second this month by a debut fiction writer! Earlier this month, we hosted collaborators Dru Ann Love and Kristopher Zgorski on their debut short story, “Ticket to Ride,” and now Anjili Babbar discusses “Hey Bulldog,” her own first published short story. Hey Bulldog” unfolds against the backdrop of—make that: is intertwined with—American academia, diversity initiatives, systemic racism, bureaucracy, and more. Babbar’s own background is in academia—she talks about her students in the essay below—with a focus on Irish and British literature and on crime fiction and criminality. And hey! In addition to her debut story, Anjili is also celebrating her new book, Finders: Justice, Faith, and Identity in Irish Crime Fiction, out now from Syracuse University Press, in which she explores how Irish crime writers “subvert literary traditions and genre conventions.”

Edited by Josh Pachter, Happiness Is a Warm Gun features stories by Michael Bracken, Paul Charles, John Copenhaver, David Dean, Martin Edwards, John M. Floyd, Robert Lopresti, Tom Mead, Christine Poulson, Marilyn Todd, and Joseph S. Walker in addition to Anjili, Dru Ann, and Kristopher, mentioned above, and the two other contributors who’ve appeared this month at the First Two Pages: Kate Ellis writing about the collection’s title story and Vaseem Khan on “Can’t Buy Me Love.”

Congratulations to all the contributors—and special shout-out today to Anjili for all her success!

Please use the arrows and controls at the bottom of the embedded PDF to navigate through the essay. You can also download the essay to read off-line.

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The First Two Pages: “Can’t Buy Me Love” by Vaseem Khan

In April 2015, B.K. Stevens debuted the blog series “The First Two Pages,” hosting craft essays by short story writers and novelists analyzing the openings of their own work. The series continued until just after her death in August 2017, and the full archive of those essays can be found at Bonnie’s website. In November 2017, the blog series relocated to my website, and the archive of this second stage of the series can be found here.

This week continues the First Two Pages series with contributors to the new anthology Happiness Is a Warm Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of the Beatles, edited by Josh Pachter and released earlier this month by Down & Out Books. So far, we’ve had essays by Kate Ellis on the title story in the collection and by collaborators Dru Ann Love and Kristopher Zgorski on their debut short story, “Ticket to Ride.” This week brings another author, Vaseem Khan, writing about his story “Can’t Buy Me Love,” and it’s a great honor to host him here. Vaseem is the author of two crime series set India: the Baby Ganesh Agency series set in modern Mumbai, and the Malabar House historical crime novels set in 1950s Bombay. Among his many honors, Vaseem won the Crime Writers Association Historical Dagger for his novel, and just this year, he was named chair of the CWA—the first non-white Chair in the organization’s 70-year history. As he explains in his essay below, Vaseem has also worked for the past seventeen years at University College London’s Department of Security and Crime Science—and in his free time (what free time??), he and Abir Mukherjee also host the Red Hot Chilli Writers podcast series. I actually first met Vaseem in person earlier this year at Malice Domestic, where he and Abir were International Guests of Honor, and I was thrilled to be one of the guests on a podcast they recorded there, along with Catriona Macpherson and Jeff Cohen ; you can find that specific episode on Spotify here. And do check out Vaseem’s website generally for more information about him and his work.

In addition to Kate, Dru Ann, Kristopher, and Vaseem, Happiness Is a Warm Gun features stories by Michael Bracken, Paul Charles, John Copenhaver, David Dean, Martin Edwards, John M. Floyd, Robert Lopresti, Tom Mead, Christine Poulson, Marilyn Todd, and Joseph S. Walker—and by the First Two Pages essayist we’ll host next week too: Anjili Babbar. Stay tuned!

Please use the arrows and controls at the bottom of the embedded PDF to navigate through the essay. You can also download the essay to read off-line.

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The First Two Pages: “Ticket to Ride” by Dru Ann Love and Kristopher Zgorski

In April 2015, B.K. Stevens debuted the blog series “The First Two Pages,” hosting craft essays by short story writers and novelists analyzing the openings of their own work. The series continued until just after her death in August 2017, and the full archive of those essays can be found at Bonnie’s website. In November 2017, the blog series relocated to my website, and the archive of this second stage of the series can be found here.

Last week, the First Two Pages hosted Kate Ellis, the author of twenty-seven novels and of short stories which have been named finalists for the CWA Short Story Dagger. This week, we’re hosting Dru Ann Love and Kristopher Zgorski, two authors whose combined published fiction so far is one short story—the one, in fact, that they’re discussing today: “Ticket to Ride” from the anthology Happiness Is a Warm Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of the Beatles. At one point in the essay below, Kristopher writes, “The fact that we have been asked to give some insight into our process is an honor, but we also realize we have no business giving advice at this stage in our creative writing ‘careers.'” While I understand the reason for the disclaimer, Dru Ann and Kris have such distinguished backgrounds in reading and reviewing and blogging and more that they’ve definitely had a leg up (um, two legs? four legs? the saying falls apart) in working toward this first published foray into fiction—enhanced perspectives which reveal themselves both in the essay they’ve co-written below and in the story itself.

Both Dru Ann and Kris have been recipients of the Raven Award from Mystery Writers of America—Dru Ann in 2017 for her blog Dru’s Book Musings and Kris in 2018 for his work at BOLO Books, two blogs I’ve followed, treasured, and learned from over many years now. On a personal note, I’ve been grateful to call each of them friends for those many years too, and I’ve been grateful to Kris for visiting with my Reviewing classes at George Mason University—sharing insights about his work with my students. It’s a real joy to see them venturing into the world of fiction-writing, and I hope “Ticket to Ride” is just the first of many stories ahead for them—whether collaborating in the future or working each on their own.

Happiness Is a Warm Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of the Beatles has officially been released this week by Down & Out Books (the link to the publisher’s website also takes you to buy links in various spots). The anthology is edited by Josh Pachter—the latest in his series of collections inspired by Jimmy Buffett, Billy Joel, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, and more.

In addition to “Ticket to Ride” and Kate Ellis’ title story (find her essay from last week here), Happiness Is a Warm Gun features a star-studded line-up of contributors including Michael Bracken, Paul Charles, John Copenhaver, David Dean, Martin Edwards, John M. Floyd, Robert Lopresti, Tom Mead, Christine Poulson, Marilyn Todd, and Joseph S. Walker—as well as two more writers we’ll be hosting at the First Two Pages ahead: Anjili Babbar and Vaseem Khan.

Stay tuned for those essays ahead, and in the meantime, enjoy Dru Ann and Kris’s glimpse below into their shared writing process for their “Ticket to Ride.”

Please use the arrows and controls at the bottom of the embedded PDF to navigate through the essay. You can also download the essay to read off-line.

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The First Two Pages: “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” by Kate Ellis

In April 2015, B.K. Stevens debuted the blog series “The First Two Pages,” hosting craft essays by short story writers and novelists analyzing the openings of their own work. The series continued until just after her death in August 2017, and the full archive of those essays can be found at Bonnie’s website. In November 2017, the blog series relocated to my website, and the archive of this second stage of the series can be found here.

Today and over the next few weeks, we’ll be celebrating the latest music-themed anthology from editor Josh Pachter—and this one is a big one: Happiness Is a Warm Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of the Beatles, coming October 16 from Down & Out Books. The book features a (dare I say it?) “rock-star” line-up of writer; as the promotional copy explains: “Many of the contributors, like the Beatles themselves, come from England—including award winners Martin Edwards, Paul Charles, Vaseem Khan, Christine Poulson, Marilyn Todd, Kate Ellis, and Tom Mead—while the American authors include such popular crime writers as John Copenhaver, Michael Bracken, John M. Floyd, David Dean, Joseph S. Walker, and Robert Lopresti.”

We’re kicking off our series of First Two Pages essays with Kate Ellis’s story—for a couple of key reasons. First, Kate contributed the title story to the collection: “Happiness Is a Warm Gun,” inspired in part by an event from her own youth, as she explains in the essay below. Second, as she also explains, Kate is a Liverpool native herself, brought up in the same neighborhood as Lennon and McCartney. What better person to get things going here, right?

Kate is the author of twenty-seven novels featuring DI Wesley Peterson, five supernatural crime novels featuring DI Joe Plantagenet, and a trilogy set just after the First World War featuring Scotland Yard detective DI Albert Lincoln. Her latest Wesley Peterson mystery is The Killing Place, published in August. In addition to having two short stories shortlisted for the CWA Short Story Dagger, she was awarded the CWA Dagger in the Library in 2019. Find out more about Kate and her work at her website.

In addition to Kate’s essay below, we’ll also be hosting Anjili Babbar, Dru Ann Love and Kristopher Zgorski (co-writing their story!), and Vaseem Khan in the weeks ahead. Stay tuned!

Please use the arrows and controls at the bottom of the embedded PDF to navigate through the essay. You can also download the essay to read off-line.

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The First Two Pages: The Goddess of Shipwrecked Sailors by Skye Alexander

In April 2015, B.K. Stevens debuted the blog series “The First Two Pages,” hosting craft essays by short story writers and novelists analyzing the openings of their own work. The series continued until just after her death in August 2017, and the full archive of those essays can be found at Bonnie’s website. In November 2017, the blog series relocated to my website, and the archive of this second stage of the series can be found here.

This week, Skye Alexander joins us to celebrate the just recently released third novel in her Lizzie Crane Mystery Series: The Goddess of Shipwrecked Sailors. In December 1925, Crane—a New York-based jazz singer—and her band The Troubadours are invited offer some Christmas entertainment in Salem, Massachusetts. But a dead body disrupts the festivities—as do some unexpected revelations that strike close to home for Crane.

Alexander is the author of nearly 50 books—both fiction and nonfiction—including the first two novels in the Lizzie Crane series: Never Try to Catch a Falling Knife and What the Walls Know. Her first novel, Hidden Agenda, won the Kiss of Death Award. Along with Kate Flora and Susan Oleksiw, Alexander is one of the founders of Level Best Books.

Find out more about the author and her works at her website—and enjoy the introduction below Lizzie Crane and her latest adventure, available now.

Please use the arrows and controls at the bottom of the embedded PDF to navigate through the essay. You can also download the essay to read off-line.

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Fall for the Book Events

This year is the 25th anniversary Fall for the Book Festival, held each year at George Mason University and at partner locations throughout the region. I was honored to work with Fall for the Book for many years, overseeing the marketing and assisting with programming, and I’m thrilled to be coming back this year for two events—both as a participant and as a moderator.

Here are the official event descriptions from the festival website!

MASON ALUMNI PROSE READING

Wednesday, October 11, 4:30 p.m.

Location: Fenwick Reading Room, 2nd Floor, Fenwick Library

Celebrate Mason Creative Writing alumni with three compelling prose writers: Dan Kois, author of the novel Vintage Contemporaries, and Art Taylor, author of the story collection The Adventure of the Castle Thief, and Other Expeditions and Indiscretions, and Benjamin Inks, author of Soft Targets. Kois’ novel is a joyful novel of writing, parenthood, loyalty, and New York City. Taylor’s collection provides twists and turns in a series of mysterious tales involving ghosts, detectives, and quests. Inks’ collection examines camaraderie, vulnerability, and the stories we tell about war. Sponsored by Mason Creative Writing. 

KILLER SECRETS

Thursday, October 12, Noon

Location: Wilkins Plaza Tent, between the Johnson Center and Horizon Hall, George Mason University.

E.A. Aymar and Lindsay Cameron shock and thrill readers with uncovered secrets, murder, and sharp social commentary. Aymar’s No Home for Killers follows two troubled sisters trying to solve their brother’s death and confront their own demons. The New York Times calls it “an affecting tale of what we do for the ones we love.” Cameron’s No One Needs to Know is a fast-paced novel about the darkest secrets of New York’s wealthiest residents coming to light, and someone ending up dead. Author Robyn Harding says “this sly, witty thriller…is a juicy page-turner that will leave readers gasping—and guessing—until the end.” Aymar and Cameron will be in conversation with author Art Taylor. 

For the full schedule, visit the website here!

Teaching Forum in Clues

My essay “It’s No Mystery: What Genre Fiction Can Teach All Writers” has been included in a teaching forum section of the latest issue of Clues: A Journal of Detection—alongside a great group of fellow writers and teachers. And thanks to J.C. Bernthal for organizing the forum and editing all our essays—so thrilled to have been selected for this!

Here’s the list of essays in the special teaching forum section:

Teaching Crime Fiction as Creative Writing: Introduction—J.C. BERNTHAL (Univ of Suffolk, UK)The Adrenalin Knowledge Gap—ALISON TAFT (Leeds Beckett Univ, UK)It’s No Mystery: What Genre Fiction Can Teach All Writers—ART TAYLOR (George Mason Univ)Needing to Nail Down “Noir” for Creative Writing Students—RICHIE NARVAEZ (Fashion Inst of Technology–SUNY)How We Know What We Know: Crime Fiction in Creative Composition Writing—MIRANDA STEEGE (Univ of Pittsburgh)Creative Crime Writing and “Enacted Criticism”—ANDREW GREEN (Brunel Univ, UK)Reading Crime Fiction, Writing Crime Fiction, and Overcoming the Tyranny of the Calendar—MARY ANNA EVANS (Univ of Oklahoma)Build-A-Mutant, Save the World: Metrics, Murder, and Mayhem in Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past — TOM UE (Dalhousie Univ, Canada)Using Creative Writing in English Literature Assessment: Diversity and Inclusion on an Undergraduate Crime Fiction Module — CHARLOTTE BEYER (Univ of Gloucestershire, UK)

And you can find the full contents at editor Elizabeth Foxwell’s blog, along with abstracts for each essay.

The First Two Pages: “The Forlorn Penguin” by Daniel Stashower

In April 2015, B.K. Stevens debuted the blog series “The First Two Pages,” hosting craft essays by short story writers and novelists analyzing the openings of their own work. The series continued until just after her death in August 2017, and the full archive of those essays can be found at Bonnie’s website. In November 2017, the blog series relocated to my website, and the archive of this second stage of the series can be found here.

This week continues to celebrate the new anthology School of Hard Knox from Crippen & Landru, with stories which systematically break Father Ronald Knox’s ten rules for writing detective stories, originally published in Best Detective Stories in 1939. I was honored to assist on the planning for this project, alongside Donna Andrews, Greg Herren, and Crippen & Landru publisher Jeffrey Marks Crippen & Landru, and thrilled with the list of contributors we managed to recruit for the book, including Frankie Y. Bailey, Nikki Dolson, Martin Edwards, Naomi Hirahara, Toni LP Kelner, Richie Narvaez, Gigi Pandian, S.J. Rozan, Daniel Stashower, Marcia Talley, and—with poem?!?!—the legendary Peter Lovesey.

Last week in this space, we hosted S.J. Rozan, chatting about her story “Chin Yong-Yun Goes to Church” (and with a longer introduction to Father Knox’s rules from me as well; find that post here). And what a pleasure to welcome Daniel Stashower this week, with “The Forlorn Penguin,” a Holmes and Watson tale that takes some surprising twists even in those First Two Pages. See Dan’s essay explaining how and why below.

Dan has long been one of the writers I most admire in the mystery world—such a great writer of both fiction and nonfiction and such a fine friend too, generous and gracious always. Dan began his career writing Sherlock Holmes pastiches, similar to today’s story (OK, not similar at all, as it turns out!), then distinguished himself as a Sherlock Holmes scholar, with books including the Edgar Award-winning biography Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle. More recently, Dan has written a number of terrific historical books, including The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder, The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War, and—most recently—American Demon: Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America’s Jack the Ripper.

Find out more about American Demon and Dan at his publisher’s website here, and enjoy the essay below on his new short story in School of Hard Knox.

Please use the arrows and controls at the bottom of the embedded PDF to navigate through the essay. You can also download the essay to read off-line.

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The First Two Pages: “Chin Yong-Yun Goes to Church” by S.J. Rozan

In April 2015, B.K. Stevens debuted the blog series “The First Two Pages,” hosting craft essays by short story writers and novelists analyzing the openings of their own work. The series continued until just after her death in August 2017, and the full archive of those essays can be found at Bonnie’s website. In November 2017, the blog series relocated to my website, and the archive of this second stage of the series can be found here.

At least once each year at George Mason University, I teach a gen ed literature class surveying some aspect of mystery and suspense fiction: “Women of Mystery,” “Sherlock,” “Spy Novels,” or—including this semester—”Five Killer Crime Novels,” which samples several of the subgenres of the larger world of crime fiction. In many of these courses, I often end up quoting Father Ronald Knox’s ten rules for writing detective stories, a list originally published in Best Detective Stories in 1939. This Decalogue (as Father Knox himself called it, capital “D” and all) is a list I’ve leaned heavily on in class discussions—not only as a teaching tool but also as something for students to wrangle with or argue against—so when Donna Andrews reached out to me about the possibility of helping to organize an anthology of stories that systematically break each of the rules… well, that was an immediate yes, especially with Greg Herren also working on the project and Jeffrey Marks at Crippen & Landru planning to publish.

This isn’t the first time that such a project has been attempted, but the original was a single-author collection: Sins for Father Knox by Josef Skvorecky in 1973. But the anthology Donna, Greg, Jeff, and I helped to assemble would include a range of authors—ultimately, a nicely distinguished group, including Donna and Greg themselves, as well as Frankie Y. Bailey, Nikki Dolson, Martin Edwards, Naomi Hirahara, Toni LP Kelner, Richie Narvaez, Gigi Pandian, S.J. Rozan, Daniel Stashower, Marcia Talley, and—with an extraordinarily special contribution (just wait til you read it!)—the legendary Peter Lovesey.

We ended up calling the book School of Hard Knox—and it’s now out in the world! (Find it at the Crippen & Landru website, at Bookshop.org, at Barnes & Noble, and at Amazon, among other retailers.

For anyone who doesn’t know them already here are the rules:

The criminal must be mentioned early on in the story.Supernatural solutions are ruled out.Only one secret room or passage is allowed per story.No undiscovered poisons or device needing a long scientific explanation are permitted.No Chinaman must figure in the storyThe detective must never be helped by lucky accidents, intuitions or coincidences.The detective must not himself commit the crime.The detective must state every clue discovered.The thoughts of the “Watson” must not be concealed from the reader, and he must be slightly less intelligent than the reader.Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.

Number 5 has always required a bit of context, as you might imagine, and I was pleased that S.J. Rozan took it on. Generally, we’re keeping mum on which author broke which rule, but given the essay below, the secret’s out for this story! And S.J. does a nice job of articulating both Father Knox’s reasons for the rule and also the troubles with those reasons—and hey, she brings the good Reverend Monsignor into the story himself too!

I hope you enjoy her essay below on her story—and stay tuned for an essay by another contributor ahead, Dan Stashower, whose story breaks… Oh, but let’s wait to see whether Dan lets that rabbit out of his hat or tries to preserve some sleight of hand.

Please use the arrows and controls at the bottom of the embedded PDF to navigate through the essay. You can also download the essay to read off-line.

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The First Two Pages: “Green and California Bound” by Curtis Ippolito

In April 2015, B.K. Stevens debuted the blog series “The First Two Pages,” hosting craft essays by short story writers and novelists analyzing the openings of their own work. The series continued until just after her death in August 2017, and the full archive of those essays can be found at Bonnie’s website. In November 2017, the blog series relocated to my website, and the archive of this second stage of the series can be found here.

Bouchercon in San Diego was overwhelming in many ways—both star-studded and action-packed—and in the midst of all the goings-on, it was too easy not to see everyone we might’ve wanted to, but I’m glad I got to chat even a bit with Curtis Ippolito, a novelist and short story writer whose career is continuing to climb in thrilling ways, including earning this year both his first Anthony Award nomination (for the short story “The Estate Sale” in Vautrin) and his first Derringer Award nomination (for “Where Palms Sway and the Surf Pounds” in Shotgun Honey) —and I emphasize that word first because Curtis is a writer to keep your eye on, for sure.

Curtis and I have actually crossed paths before Bouchercon. We both had stories in the anthology Trouble No More, edited by Mark Westmoreland—a collection which also earned an Anthony Award nomination—and we’ve liked and shared and chatted on social media too. And I wish we’d had more time for chatting and sharing and liking in person in San Diego.

Today, we’re celebrating a next step on Curtis’s rise—his debut in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine with the story “Green and California Bound” in the September/October 2023 issue. Congratulations to him—and a such a bonus for us to be able to sample the opening to the story here and some behind-the-scenes about how it came together. And please do check out Curtis’s debut novel, Burying the Newspaper Man, and his other short fiction on his website here.

Hope everyone enjoyed their time in San Diego!

Please use the arrows and controls at the bottom of the embedded PDF to navigate through the essay. You can also download the essay to read off-line.

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