Art Taylor's Blog, page 13

Noir at the Bar DC • Thursday, June 29

This Thursday, I’ll be sharing a piece of flash fiction on stage alongside a killer line-up of crime writers—part of the return of DC’s Noir at the Bar, hosted by Ed Aymar.

The readers include S.A. Cosby, Cheryl Head, Angie Kim, and Eryk Pruitt as well as music by Sara Jones between sets of stories.

The readings begin at 7 p.m. at the Looking Glass Lounge, 3634 Georgia Avenue NW, Washington, DC.

The First Two Pages: “The Case of the Bogus Cinderellas” by Jacqueline Freimor

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.

Each year, the Wolfe Pack and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine host the Black Orchid Novella Award contest, commemorating Rex Stout’s commitment to the novella as a form and encouraging writers to keep that tradition alive with new novellas written in the traditional style of Nero Wolfe (without using the original characters themselves!), emphasizing deductive skills, and featuring no explicit sex or violence. The First Two Pages has hosted several Black Orchid Novella Award winners in the past, and it’s such a pleasure to welcome the most recent winner, Jacqueline Freimor, on the official publication day of “The Case of the Bogus Cinderellas”—the cover tale of the July/August issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine! And as a preview of her essay below, it’s super interesting to see how what began as a potential novel and then shifted into a short story finally found its best form as a novella—one specifically informed and shaped by the Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin partnership. (Read ahead to see.)

Jacqueline is an increasingly distinguished short story writer, with stories over the last three years in The Best Mystery Stories of the Year (in 2021) and The Best American Mystery and Suspense (in 2022 and 2023)—a nice track record building there! In 1995, she won first place in the Unpublished Writers category of the Mystery Writers of America’s Fiftieth Anniversary Short Story Competition, and since then her stories have appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Rock and a Hard Place Magazine, Vautrin, Black Cat Weekly, and Mystery Magazine, in additional to several anthologies. Find out more about Jacqueline’s work at www.jacquelinefreimor.com.

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.

Freimor-Cinderellas

We Are What We Read

Thanks to Kristopher Zgorski and Shawn Reilly Simmons for inviting me to join episode two of We Are What We Read, a new video series in which crime writers discuss books that have influenced them or inspired them or are favorites for other reasons. The series was sparked by Kris’s being named the recipient of next year’s Amelia Award from Malice Domestic—a great honor!—and we’re all winners in the meantime, thanks to Kris’s decision to serve our community of readers (and writers!) in a fresh way.

Guests on episode two also included Ellen Bryon, Alexia Gordon, Dru Ann Love, Rob Osler, Leigh Perry/Toni L.P. Kelner, Lori Rader-Day, and Raquel V. Reyes.

You can find the full episode on YouTube here — and check out all the book recommendations from each episode (a growing list!) at Bookshop.org.

(Shhh! And spoiler alert: My pick was The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon.)

Noir at the Bar DC • Thursday, June 29

Noir at the Bar returns to DC in-person on Thursday, June 29, hosted by E.A. Aymar and featuring a rogue’s gallery of great writers: S.A. Cosby, Cheryl Head, Angie Kim, Eryk Pruitt, and Alex Segura—oh, and I’m on the line-up too! The event also features music by Sara Jones, who’s been terrific in recent years on the virtual events too.

The readings begin at 7 p.m. at the Looking Glass Lounge, 3634 Georgia Avenue NW, Washington, DC.

See you there!

Gaithersburg Book Festival • Saturday, May 20

This Saturday, May 20, is the Gaithersburg Book Festival—with authors from across the region and the nation and more!

I’m pleased to be moderating a discussion with novelists E.A. Aymar, author most recently of No Home for Killers, and Brendan Slocum, author of The Violin Conspiracy and Symphony of Secrets. That event is at 2:15 p.m. in the Dashiell Hammett Pavilion.

You can find the full schedule here. Events run all day at Gaithersburg’s Bohrer Park, 506 S. Frederick Avenue, Gaithersburg, Maryland.

SinC Innocence Project

Sisters in Crime is hosting an auction, “Crime Writers for Justice,” for the Innocence Project, which “works to free the innocent, prevent wrongful convictions, and create fair, compassionate, and equitable systems of justice for everyone.”

I’m pleased to have donated an “item” to the cause: reading and providing feedback on a short story!

You can find the full list of items, events, and more here. Bidding runs from Thursday, May 18, at 9 a.m. EDT through Sunday, May 21, at 9 p.m. EDT.

Sisters in Crime hopes to raise $35,000 through the auction—bid early and often!

WIROB: Bond, James Bond—and Beyond!

Thanks to the Washington Independent Review of Books for letting me indulge my James Bond fandom and review the first book in a new spin-off series by Kim Sherwood.

Double or Nothing was terrific fun—both paying tribute to the Bond canon but also building forward in exciting ways.

Check out my review here!

Lawyers, Guns, and Money Earns an Anthony Award Nom!

Bouchercon has announced the finalists for this year’s Anthony Awards—and such a thrill to see Lawyers, Guns, and Money: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Warren Zevon on the list of finalists for Best Anthology! Libby Cudmore and I co-edited the anthology, which features stories by Gray Basnight, William Boyle, Dana Cameron, Hilary Davidson, Steve Liskow, Nick Mamatas, Paul D. Marks, Matthew Quinn Martin, Josh Pachter, Charles Salzberg, Laura Ellen Scott, Alex Segura, Kevin Burton Smith, Brian Thornton, and Libby herself. Shout-outs particularly to all the contributors—it’s their work that’s being honored here!

A shout-out to the other finalists in this category too: Low Down Dirty Vote Volume 3: The Color of My Vote, edited by Mysti Berry; Land of 10,000 Thrills: Bouchercon Anthology 2022, edited by Greg Herren; Paranoia Blues: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Paul Simon, edited by Josh Pachter; and Crime Hits Home: A Collection of Stories from Crime Fiction’s Top Authors, edited by S.J. Rozan. And a big thanks to Down & Out Books, who published our anthology—and two more of the finalists too!

Such a fine group of finalists in this category and up and down the slate—so many friends and great writers! Looking forward to seeing everyone and celebrating in San Diego!

Malice Recap!

I started to headline this one “Malicious Memories” but that sounds like some ill thoughts brewing, doesn’t it?

This year’s Malice Domestic was much fun in so many ways—and I was especially pleased to help celebrate my buddy Barb Goffman’s big weekend, both as Toastmaster and as the recipient of this year’s Agatha Award for Best Short Story for “Beauty and the Beyotch,” her third teapot, hooray!

Among the highlights of the weekend were two events with Barb, both our Friday short story panel, along with Cynthia Kuhn, Lisa Q. Mathews, and Richie Narvaez, and then the Toastmaster chat on Sunday afternoon, delving a bit more into the person behind all those great short stories.

And what a joy to welcome our son Dash Taylor to his first Agatha Awards Banquet—ultra spiffy and sharing some time with Malice Guest of Honor Hank Phillippi Ryan (he’s a tremendous fan of hers). We had a great time hosting the kids table (along with LynDee Walker’s daughters), and Dash got a photo with Korina Moss too, celebrating her Best First Novel teapot!

A couple of other highlights for me:

The short story editors panel, with Deb Lacy moderating Michael Bracken, Carla Coupe, Linda Landrigan, and Josh Pachter—great insights into editing and anthology-making and moreThe Red Hot Chilli Writers podcast recording with Vaseem Khan, Abir Mukherjee, Jeff Cohen, and Catriona McPherson—everyone said it was great fun and very funny, though I felt like fumbled too many times myself!And getting together with so many folks in-between times, lunches, dinners, drinks, and more—far too many to list here!

Speaking of lists though, shout-outs to so many people who helped make this year’s Malice such a success: Verena Rose, Shawn Reilly Simmons, Angel Trapp, Krista Linthicum, Jack and Judy Cater, Anne Murphy, ​Cindy Silberblatt, Jim Huang, Leone Ciporin, Robin Agnew, Deb Lacy, Harriette Sackler, and so many more!

Looking forward to next year already!

Malice Domestic!

It’s Malice Domestic week! And while I still have a few classes and meetings at Mason between now and leaving for Bethesda, I’m excited about everything ahead—not only the organized activities (see below!) but also the fun times with friends, fellow writers, and fellow fans. And hey, hey, such a thrill to have my story “The Innocent Band” from Edgar and Shamus Go Golden as a finalist for this year’s Agatha Award for Best Short Story—free to read at the Agatha Awards page, linked there along with the other finalists’ stories too!

Here’s where you’ll find me:

Panel: “Make It Snappy: Our Agatha Best Short Story Nominees,” with Barb Goffman, Cynthia Kuhn, Lisa Q. Mathews, and Richie Narvaez, with moderator Shawn Reilly Simmons • Friday, April 28, 3 p.m.Opening Ceremonies • Friday, April 28, 5 p.m.Agatha Awards Banquet • Saturday, April 29, 7 p.m.A Toast to Barb Goffman: A Conversation with Barb Goffman and Art Taylor • Sunday, April 30, 1 p.m.Agatha Tea • Sunday, April 30, 2 p.m.

And I just learned I’ll be a guest on the Red Hot Chilli Writers podcast with Vaseem Khan and Abir Mukherjee too! (Hoping I can pull my weight alongside the other guests, Catriona McPherson and Jeff Cohen, a powerhouse pair.)

See everyone soon!