Art Taylor's Blog, page 4

The First Two Pages: “Not A Day Goes By” by J.A. Hennrikus

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.

I first got to know Julie Hennrikus well back in 2016 when her first novel, Just Killing Time, written under the name Julianne Holmes, was a finalist for the Agatha Award for Best First Novel. I was impressed with her from the start both as a writer and as a person, and that impressiveness has only continued to grow over the years since. She’s continued to excel as a novelist, with 10 books now, over three different series—the most recent of them being The Garden Squad series—and she’s executive director of Sisters in Crime as well, juggling creativity and arts administration and more with grace and ease. All that is on top of her long-time career in theater and the performing arts—more than three decades in that businessA And while she says in the essay below that “Short stories are not my forte,” she seemed the perfect person to step in as a contributor to the new anthology Every Day A Little Death: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Stephen Sondheim, edited by Josh Pachter and published by Level Best Books.

Julie’s essay below joins two others in the series so far: Brian Cox’s essay on “Being Alive” and Fleur Bradley’s on “Sunday in the Park with George.” And we’ll have one more essay ahead next week too!

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.

March-2025-First-Two-Pages-Sondheim-Hennrikus

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“Better Days” at The Mystery Hour

Thanks to Rabia Chaudry for choosing my story “Better Days” for this week’s episode of The Mystery Hour with Alfred Hitchcock’s & Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazines—such an honor!

“Better Days” appeared in the May/June 2019 issue of EQMM, and it went on the to win the Macavity award, as well as being named a finalist for the Agatha and Anthony Awards too.

The father and son in “Better Days” also appeared in an earlier EQMM story, “A Drowning at Snow’s Cut,” and the characters were very loosely inspired by my own dad and my relationship with him. The first story was actually directly sparked by a boat trip my dad and I took along the intracoastal waterway in North Carolina, from the Atlantic Beach to Southport—though while the fictional father and son in that story followed our same route, our trip was much less eventful.

It was great to return to these characters in “Better Days,” a story which I see now as suffused with a bit of grief—evident in the story but also intensified by looking at it in retrospect and through a very personal lens. In late June 2019, just after “Better Days” was published, my dad died—so I can’t think of the story without thinking of him in several ways: inspiration, loss, more.

You can find the podcast on Apple and Spotify and Podbean and likely more.

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Crime Writers for Trans Rights

The Crimes Writers for Trans Rights 2025 Auction is underway already—continuing through April 1—and I’m pleased to have offered a short story manuscript critique to the efforts.

You can find the auction here, with a terrific range of goodies: signed books, other critiques, character naming options, and more.

And here’s my own manuscript critique—already with some strong bidding, I’m grateful to say!

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The First Two Pages: “Sunday in the Park with George” by Fleur Bradley

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.

My wife, son, and I have long been fans of Fleur Bradley’s novels for younger readers—especially her latest two books: Midnight at the Barclay Hotel and Daybreak on Raven Island. (Our son Dash loves hotels and he loves San Francisco and he visited Alcatraz and . . . and basically everything Fleur writes is right up Dash’s alley.) So I jumped at the chance to welcome Fleur to the First Two Pages to talk about her new story, “Sunday in the Park with George,” for the anthology Every Day A Little Death: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Stephen Sondheim, edited by Josh Pachter and published by Level Best Books. But fair warning from Fleur in the essay below, this story is for adults and takes readers to darker places than she’d dare for her younger audiences.

In addition to the two novels mentioned above, Fleur is also the author of the Double Vision trilogy, and she’s a frequent short story writer as well—and just earned a new honor, having a story of hers from Dark Yonder chosen for the anthology Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024. For more information on Fleur’s work for readers of all ages, visit her website at ftbradley.com.

And in addition to reading her essay below, do look back at last week’s essay by Brian Cox, on his story “Being Alive” in the Sondheim anthology—and stay tuned for more essays in the weeks ahead!

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.

Fleur-Bradley

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The First Two Pages: “Being Alive” by Brian Cox

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.

“Every day a little death / In the parlor, in the bed, / In the curtains, in the silver, / In the buttons, in the bread.” So go the opening lyrics of Stephen Sondheim’s “Every Day a Little Death” from A Little Night Music—and while the phrase there may have been metaphorical, twenty authors from the worlds of mystery fiction and theater alike, have taken it much more literally, contributed a wider range of “malfeasance, misdemeanor and . . . murder” in a collection bearing the same name. Every Day A Little Death: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Stephen Sondheim, edited by Josh Pachter and published by Level Best Books, will be making its debut on March 22—and the First Two Pages is pleased to be celebrating the book by hosting several contributors reflecting on the stories.

First up is Brian Cox, who nimbly straddles the intersection of both subsets of contributors. On the mystery side, Brian is the former managing editor of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, working under Cathleen Jordan, and more recently, his story “The Surrogate Initiative” was selected for the 2020 edition of Best American Mystery Stories. And in the theater world, he’s the artistic director of Pencilpoint Theatreworks in Ypsilanti, Michigan and a playwright as well: Clutter, produced at Theatre Nova in 2017, won the Wilde Award for Best New Script, and his children’s plays Stone Dragon Stew and Welcome to Candy Kingdom have been produced across the United States and around the world.

Brian’s essay on his story “Being Alive” (inspired by the song from the musical Company) is the first essay in a series of four—so stay tuned for more essays ahead by Fleur Bradley, J.A. Hennrikus, and Jeffrey Sweet.

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.

Being-Alive-Brian-Cox

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Malice Domestic Schedule

The Malice Domestic conference schedule has been published here—and I’m pleased to be part of three events, including stepping up as one of the auctioneers for the live auction for the first time, thankfully with good co-auctioneers to keep me from screwing things up too badly!

Here are my events for the conference, Friday-Sunday, April 25-27, at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

Live Charity Auction, serving as auctioneer with Leslie Karst and Kelly Oliver and Toastmaster Gigi Pandian, Ballroom A/B/C/D • Friday, April 25, 7 p.m.Panel: “Knives Out: High-Concept Plots,” with Michelle Chouinard, Tara Laskoski, Mindy Quigley, and moderator Jeff Marks, Ballroom A • Saturday, April 26, 9 a.m.Panel: “Marple & Poirot: Agatha Christie’s Impact on Today’s Writers,” as moderator, with Connie Berry, Barbara Barrett, Sharon Lynn, and G.M. Malliet.

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The First Two Pages: Where The Bones Lie by Nick Kolakowski

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 I’m breaking two of the loose “rules” of The First Two Pages blog—or maybe it’s better to say intentions? Whatever the right word, here they are: First, in order to try to host a wide range of authors, I generally try to welcome new writers each week rather than having someone make a repeat appearance; and second, increasingly, I’m trying to return to the roots of the blog as B.K. Stevens first intended it, by spotlighting short story writers and the craft of the short story rather than novelists and longer-form fiction. That said, this is Nick Kolakowski‘s third time at the blog (he wrote previously on his story “A Nice Pair of Guns” in ThugLit and his novel Rattlesnake Rodeo), and his essay below is about his latest novel, Where the Bones Lie, published just today by Datura Books. So why the exception? Just read all three of these essays—the two linked above and the one below—and you’ll see for yourself: Nick is supremely thoughtful and articulate about his craft choices, and it’s in service to the readers of the blog to give him space to share his insights and perspectives.

In addition to the new book, Nick is the author of several crime novels, including Payback is Forever and Love & Bullets. His work has been nominated for the Anthony and Derringer awards, and his short story “Scorpions” appeared in The Best Mystery and Suspense 2024. His short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines, including Mystery Weekly, Shotgun Honey, Rock and a Hard Place Press, and more. You can find more about him at his website: https://nickkolakowski.com/.

In the meantime, do enjoy his latest essay for The First Two Pages—and be sure and pick up your copy of Where the Bones Lie too!

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.

First-Two-Pages-Where-the-Bones-Lie-NK

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Del & Louise… in space?

No, Del and Louise aren’t in space, but they have returned to a new space—with the story “Rearview Mirror” getting a reprint in the new issue (Issue 184) of Black Cat Weekly. Thanks to Barb Goffman for selecting the story for this issue and for some sharp edits on the original manuscript, so this is actually the third version of the story in print.

For some background, “Rearview Mirror” originally appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine‘s March/April 2010 issue—introduce small-time crook Del and his girlfriend Louise to the world, as they embark on one last robbery before going straight. (Good luck with that, right?)

The characters returned in a second story in EQMM, and that was the beginning of a series of linked stories which ultimately became On the Road with Del & Louise: A Novel in Stories, published in 2015 and winning the Agatha Award for Best First Novel the following year. I revised the story a bit from the original publication in order to build on more of the linkages between stories—and to de-“just”-ify it, since Louise’s narration seemed to indulge that word a bit too much. And this version of the story was selected for the Best American Mystery Stories that year too.

That book is out of print now, unfortunately, but it’s good to see the story get another bit of life in Black Cat—and another take on de-“just”-ification and tightening, since Barb worked from the earlier manuscript.

Here’s more info on the issue too, courtesy Wildside Press:

Cover Art: Steve Hickman

NOVELS

The Crow’s Inn Tragedy, by Annie Haynes

   When a solicitor is found strangled in his office, secrets and scandal unfold. A golden age mystery.

The Devil’s Agent, by Edmund Glasby

   A Hollywood producer is dead, a bizarre cult lurks in the shadows, and an ex-FBI agent must face the unthinkable…

SOLVE-IT-YOURSELF MYSTERY

“The Birthday Riddle,” by Hal Charles

   Can you solve the mystery before the detective? All the clues are there!

SHORT STORIES

“Deadly Dismissal,” by Gregory Meece [Michael Bracken Presents short story]

   A principal’s rigid routine hides a deadly secret. Who had the motive—and the chance—to kill him?

“Rearview Mirror,” by Art Taylor [Barb Goffman Presents short story]

   A road trip, a heist, and a love tested—how far will trust stretch before it snaps?

“The Research Project,” Marian McMahon Stanley

   What did Edna Fuller uncover before she vanished?

“The Talking Dead,” by Tom Easton

   Murder victims speak from beyond the grave—but can they name their killer?

“First Effort,” by E.C. Tubb

   Lost in space, three men face the unthinkable—how long can they survive?

“Terror Out of the Past,” by Raymond Z. Gallun

   Beneath ancient hills, a hidden structure emerges. What secrets does it hold—and who will claim them?

“G.I.G.O,” by Gregg Chamberlin

   An old computer, a digital genie, and a wish gone wrong—fortune favors the careful!

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Manuscript to Marketplace • March 21-22

As I write this, we’re less than two weeks from the Manuscript to Marketplace Conference at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, WV—with panels, sessions, and keynote talks on Friday and Saturday, March 21-22.

I’m pleased to be part of two sessions at the conference—both on Saturday, March 22:

First I’ll be part of a “Panel of Experts” (feel the need to put that in quotes!) with Shawn Reilly Simmons and Keri Barnum at 2 p.m.

Then, I’ll also deliver the closing keynote talk at 4:30 p.m.—focusing on the First Two Pages and drawing in large part on my work with the blog of the same name, of course.

Both events will take place in the Marinoff Theater, 62 Campus Drive, Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, WV.

For more information—and to register!—visit https://www.writersconferencesu.com/.

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Shedunnit Turns to Short Fiction

Thanks to Caroline Crampton and production assistant Leandra for including my essay “The Short Mystery” from How to Write a Mystery: A Handbook from Mystery Writers of America as part of the new episode of the podcast Shedunnit. The episode focuses on short mystery fiction, and in particular, it explores two stories: “Traitors Hands” by Agatha Christie (first published in 1925; the original inspiration for the Witness for the Prosecution play and films) and “A Jury of Her Peers” (1917) by Susan Glaspell.

You can find Crampton’s full write-up on the episode here—with links to listen to the podcast itself!

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