Art Taylor's Blog, page 34

The First Two Pages: “Incommunicado” by Bruce Robert Coffin

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.

As many readers of short stories have surely recognized, the last few years have delivered a proliferation of anthologies inspired by the crime fiction of this musician or that band—sometimes even with musicians whose music and lyrics might not immediately scream “crime fiction.” (Last year, my wife, Tara Laskowski, and I co-wrote a story for an anthology inspired by the songs of Joni Mitchell, for example.) Among the first these anthologies to gain prominence were two inspired by Bruce Springsteen and Johnny Cash, whose songs are often like small short stories in themselves, and as Bruce Robert Coffin write in his essay below, Jimmy Buffett’s songs may be “the ultimate flash fiction.”

The new anthology The Great Filling Station Holdup: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Jimmy Buffett, edited by Josh Pachter, features stories by Leigh Lundin, Pachter himself, Rick Ollerman, Michael Bracken, Don Bruns, Alison McMahan, Bruce Robert Coffin, Lissa Marie Redmond, Elaine Viets, Robert J. Randisi, Laura Oles, Isabella Maldonado, Jeffery Hess, Neil Plakcy, John M. Floyd, and M.E. Browning (in order of their stories’ appearance in the Buffett discography).

I’m pleased that Bruce Robert Coffin is joining us today for the start of a series featuring several of these contributors. Bruce’s story is “Incommunicado,” inspired by the song of the same title from Buffett’s 1981 album Coconut Telegraph.

Bruce is a good friend whom I first met at Malice Domestic several years ago, and he entered the short story world with a striking debut: his very first published story, “Fool Proof, ended up being selected for the Best American Mystery Stories series! He’s also the author of the author of the Detective Byron Mysteries, including Beyond the Truth, winner of the Silver Falchion for Best Procedural, and his work has also been nominated for the Agatha and Maine Literary Award. For more about Bruce’s work, visit his website here.

And stay tuned for more essays ahead by contributors to The Great Filling Station Holdup, including Alison McMahan, Laura Oles, and Neil Plakcy.

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.

Coffin-Incommunicado-1

Saturday, March 6: Suffolk Mystery Authors Festival

I’m looking forward to the Suffolk Mystery Authors Festival this Saturday, March 6. The festival weekend, usually in later summer, has been a highlight of our year for several years, and even with the rescheduling and the move online, it promises to be great fun.

I recorded a conversation with Alan Orloff that will be available at any point through the weekend, and my wife Tara Laskowski and I are both part of a 2 p.m. panel Ministry of Suspense: Finding the Right Balance in Fiction along with Betsy Ashton and Diane Fanning.

You can find the full schedule here—and be sure to register to be part of the fun!

The 14:55 Interview

Thanks to Sean Murphy at 1455 for inviting me to take part in his terrific interview series—a conversation which shuttled from The Three Investigators to Dostoyevsky, from Flannery O’Conner to Stanley Ellin, and from John Coltrane to Vertigo, with a detour to Boccalone in San Francisco (which, I learned, sadly closed back in 2017).

Here’s the full interview.

And do check out the interview with my wife Tara Laskowski. We did our chats back to back on the same day!

The First Two Pages: “Etta at the End of the World” by Joseph S. Walker

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 I’m thrilled to welcome another of the four finalists for this year’s Edgar Award for short story: Joseph S. Walker, writing about his story “Etta at the End of the World” from Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Earlier this year, even before the awards were announced, James W. Ziskin reflected on his story “The Twenty-Five-Year Engagement” from In League with Sherlock Holmes, and last week, Leslie Elman discussed her story “The Summer Uncle Cat Came to Stay” from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. It’s truly an honor to have these finalists share some thoughts on craft as part of the blog series! (The full list of finalists in all categories is here.)

I’ve followed Joseph Walker’s career for a long time—and I’ll admit I feel a kinship of sorts with him, since we’re both college professors—and I’m thrilled about the attention now coming his way. Joseph’s previous stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and Mystery Weekly, with more recent stories in Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir and the anthology Peace, Love, and Crime: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of the 60s. You can find out more about his work at his website here, and do make sure to connect with him on Twitter as well.

It’s maybe worth mentioning that Joseph and I “saw” one another this past weekend at a short story presentation I was making for the Coastal Cruisers Chapter of Sisters in Crime. As soon as I caught sight of him and a few other great short story writers on the Zoom call, I thought, “What can I possibly tell them that they don’t already know?” But later, he made my day by commenting on Facebook how my talk had helped him with a new draft he was struggling with. And in a tip of the hat his way, I’ll add now that I gained some fresh insights as well—about process, about first drafts, about serendipity—from his essay below. I hope you’ll enjoy as much as I did.

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.

Walker-Etta

Edgar Short Stories in Mystery Scene

When I set out to tackle my new year’s resolution January 2020, I never expected that it would become an essay for Mystery Scene in early 2021—but here we are.

In the latest issue of Mystery Scene, I reflect on the discoveries I made—and surprises I encountered!—in reading/rereading all of the Edgar Award winners for Best Short Story, start to finish. It was quite a journey! And I hope the magazine’s readers enjoy joining me as I reflect on the trip.

The First Two Pages: “The Summer Uncle Cat Came To Stay” by Leslie Elman

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.

The first First Two Pages of 2021 was contributed by James W. Ziskin on his story “The Twenty-Five-Year Engagement”—part of a series of essays featuring contributors to the anthology In League with Sherlock Holmes. Then a few weeks later, Ziskin’s story was named as one of the finalists for this year’s Edgar Award for Best Short Story—hooray!—which prompted me to consider a new series of essays, featuring the other finalists for this year’s Edgar Award in this category: Leslie Elman, “The Summer Uncle Cat Came to Stay,” from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine; Maaza Mengiste, “Dust, Ash, Flight,” from Addis Ababa Noir; and Joseph S. Walker, “Etta at the End of the World,” Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. (The full list of finalists in all categories is here.) I emailed the other three finalists; two responded that they’d love to participate; and that brings us to today.

In the essay below, Leslie Elman calls her story “The Summer Uncle Cat Came To Stay” the most ambitious story she’s ever written—and then lays out the ways in which she embeds the narrative in one point of view while encouraging the reader to contribute another layer of perception and understanding. It’s a level of crafting that speaks to why the story has been honored as one of this year’s finalists.

Elman’s short mystery fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Mystery Weekly, and Vautrin magazine. She is the author of several trivia and quiz books, including Weird But True: 200 Astounding, Outrageous, and Totally Off the Wall Facts. She also writes the syndicated newspaper column “Trivia Bits.” You can find out more about her work at her website here.

And stay tuned next week for Joseph S. Walker on “Etta at the End of the World”!

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.

Elman-Summer

SinC Coastal Cruisers, Saturday, Feb. 20

I appreciate the double meaning in the title of my presentation for the Coastal Cruisers Chapter of Sisters in Crime: “The Art of the Short Story” (my italics there).

The event takes place on Saturday, February 20, 10:30 a.m.-Noon PST (1:30-3 p.m. EST—so I don’t get it wrong), and folks can find out more at the Facebook Event Page here.

I’m planning to share some thoughts on the short mystery story and on crafting short stories in general, give attendees a chance to write a little something of their own along the way, and then field any questions that people have about their own work.

More events ahead beyond, too, including the Suffolk Mystery Authors Festival the first Saturday in March. Check out my Events page for updated information.

The First Two Pages: “The Interpreter and the Killer” by Jeff Soloway

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.

Jeff Soloway‘s short fiction career started out at a highpoint: His story “The Wentworth Letter” from the anthology Criminal Element’s Malfeasance Occasional: Girl Trouble won the 2014 Robert L. Fish Award, honoring the best first short story by an American author. Since then, he’s published short fiction in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, in two Mystery Writers of America anthologies, and elsewhere, and his latest story, “The Interpreter and the Killer,” appears in the Black Mask section of the latest issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine—and in the essay below, he discusses both his strategies for crafting the story and the background that inspired it, including family, friends, and news stories. (Find out more below.)

Jeff is also the author of the Travel Writer Mystery Series, the most recent of which is The Ex-President. Find out more at his Random House author page here.

On a side note, I want to add that part of what drew me to inviting Jeff to contribute to the First Two Pages was the heroine of his new story—a court interpreter. As many of you may know, B.K. Stevens, who founded the First Two Pages, also wrote about a courtroom interpreter, in her case someone translating sign language; her story “Interpretation of Murder” originally appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine in 2010 and won a Derringer Award in 2011, and Bonnie expanded the idea into a full novel by the same name, published in 2015.

Read more about Jeff Soloway’s court interpreter—in very different circumstances—below.

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.

Soloway-First-Two-Pages

Mason Homecoming: Fiction on the Fly

On Tuesday, February 9, I’ll be hosting an alumni event as part of George Mason University’s Homecoming programs. “Fiction on the Fly” features Mason MFA alum Matt Norman and current MFA student Kyra Kondis talking about their work and their writing process and helping to encourage participants to write a short story during the event itself!

Matt, Kyra, and the attendees will all be given the first line of a story and the last line of a story and will write between the two in a 20-minute rush—then share what they come up with. (I’ll admit, I’m glad to be hosting and not writing myself!)

As mentioned, this is an alumni event, so not open to the public generally. But what fun to part of it all!

Conversations & Connections and Beyond

I’ve been far behind on updating my events calendar—and on keeping track of the events I need to prep for. This Saturday, February 6, for example, I’ll be leading a session on “Crafting Suspense” for the Conversations & Connections Virtual Conference, and I still need to get ready for it!

I’ve updated the events page on my website with the Suffolk Mystery Writers Festival on March 6, a couple of programs for Sisters in Crime chapters on each coast, and then Malice Domestic—still looking forward to how they’re planning to handle this year’s conference, always one of the highlights of the year.

Here’s a rundown:

Saturday, February 6, 2021Presentation: “Crafting Suspense,” Conversations and Connections Virtual Conference • 3:30-4:30 p.m. ESTSaturday, February 20, 2021Presentation: “Art of the Short Story,” Sisters in Crime, Coastal Cruisers Chapter • 10:30 a.m.-Noon PST (1:30 p.m. EST)Saturday, March 6, 2021Suffolk Mystery Authors Festival, VirtualConversation with Alan Orloff • Pre-recordedPanel: “Ministry of Suspense: Finding the Right Balance in Fiction,” with Betsy Ashton (moderator), Diane Fanning, and Tara Laskowski • 2-3 p.m. ESTFriday-Sunday, April 30-May 2Malice Domestic, Bethesda, MarylandSaturday, April 17, 2021Presentation: “Short Stories,” Murder We Write: North Carolina Triad Chapter of Sisters in Crime • 10 a.m. EST

Stay tuned for more events and info ahead!