Art Taylor's Blog, page 51

First Day of School!

My son Dash and I are starting school on the same day this year. This morning—Monday, August 26—he’ll begin second grade, and I’ll be heading to George Mason University to teach two classes: a literature course, “Women of Mystery,” and a creative writing seminar, “Writing Suspense.”

I’m not sure what Dash’s teacher has on her syllabus for the semester ahead (we’ll find out at Back to School Night in a couple of weeks!) but I’ve been busily preparing my own—updating “Women of Mystery,” which I’ve taught before, and starting from scratch on “Writing Suspense,” first time I’ve taught this special-topics course.

People regularly ask what I’m teaching on my syllabus, so I thought I’d sample some of the readings here:

“Women of Mystery” begins with stories by 19th- and early 20th-century writers including Harriet Prescott Spofford, WW (Mary Fortune), C.L. Pirkis, Baroness Orczy, Anna Katherine Green, and Pauline Hopkins before exploring iconic authors and books, including the Nancy Drew story The Mystery at Lilac Inn, Agatha Christie’s A Murder is Announced, a batch of mid-century domestic suspense tales from Sarah Weinman’s anthology Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives, and Sue Grafton’s A Is for Alibi. The newest title on the reading list was just released this summer: Laura Lippman’s Lady in the Lake, and I’m thrilled that Laura plans to visit with the class to discuss the novel. “Writing Suspense” is more of a short story workshop, but the first half of the course is devoted to exercises, guided by reading from both craft books and from distinguished authors providing models of suspense. The main text is Benjamin Percy’s Thrill Me, but students will also get short excerpts from Jane Cleland’s Mastering Suspense, Structure & Plot, Hallie Ephron’s Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel, and Patricia Highsmith’s Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction. As for the models they’ll be following, I hope I’m drawing on a wide range of authors, both literary and genre and across genres too: Lee Child, David Dean, Jeffery Deaver, Ralph Ellison, William Gibson, Patricia Highsmith, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, Laura Lippman, Cormac McCarthy, Margaret Millar, Zoe Sharp, and Gabrielle Sierra.

Thinking about the semester ahead, I’m thrilled myself to see where it all goes—and hope the students will be as well.

The First Two Pages: “The Dunes of Saulkrasti” by William Burton McCormick

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.

Debuting today, the September/October issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine features another Who’s Who of fine crime writers, including David Dean, O’Neil De Noux, Josh Pachter, Bill Pronzini, James Sallis, Marilyn Todd, Peter Turnbull, Stacy Bella Woodson, Dave Zeltserman, and many more. One of my own favorite writers, William Burton McCormick, has a new story as well, “The Dunes of Saulkrasti,” and I’m pleased to welcome him to the First Two Pages to talk about it—especially since these first two pages may be among the most gripping I’ve hosted so far, most strategically plotted too!

Bill seems to be a super-prolific writer with stories regularly both in EQMM and in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine as well. (I’m envious to the core both of the speed of his output and the quality.) His work has also appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, The CWA Anthology of Short Stories: Mystery Tour, Black Mask, and Malice Domestic 13: Mystery Most Geographical, among other magazines and anthologies. His novel Lenin’s Harem, published in both English and Latvian, became the first work of fiction ever added to the Latvian War Museum’s permanent library in Rīga. For more information about his work, check out his Amazon page or connect with him on Goodreads, Twitter, or Facebook.

As you’ll see in the essay below, “The Dunes of Saulkrasti” is set in Latvia, where Bill himself lived for four years—four of fifteen total living in Eastern Europe. I’ve often wished he was closer so we can meet in person. But consider this intro a toast across the Atlantic to a fine writer—with wishes we’ll cross paths in person one of these days.

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.

McCormick-Dunes

Hosting at House of Clues

On Monday, August 19, I’ll be hosting the discussions at the Facebook group House of Clues—chatting about topics including beautiful books and back-to-school crime fiction.

Check out the discussions beginning here at 9 a.m.! (And if you don’t read this til later, feel free to chime in after my hosting day too!)

Fall Events Schedule

The release of the Fall for the Book schedule prompted me to update the Events page at my website for the fall. Glad to be in conversation with the great Sarah Weinman at this year’s FftB festival and looking forward to more events beyond!

Here’s the event listing for our Fall for the Book event “Uncovering the Real Lolita” on Saturday, October 12, at 10:30 a.m. in Merten Hall on George Mason University’s Fairfax Campus:

Edgar Award-winning writer Art Taylor interviews Sarah Weinman, author of the true-crime book The Real Lolita: A Lost Girl, An Unthinkable Crime, and a Scandalous Masterpiece. With a mix of narrative and history, Weinman captures the story of the real-life crime—the kidnapping of an eleven-year-old girl named Sally—that inspired Vladimir Nabokov to write the famous novel, Lolita. In a book described as “Riveting… dark and compulsively readable” by the Los Angeles Times, and named a Best Book of 2018 by the Washington Post, NPR, Vulture, and more, Weinman seeks to restore the voice of a voiceless girl.

And here’s my updated events listings, with more to be updated soon, including the possibility of a Noir at the Bar reading and a more complete schedule for Bouchercon too. Check my Events page for these updates and for more events into 2020 as well.

Saturday, October 12, 2019



Discussion: “Uncovering the Real Lolita” with Sarah Weinman, author of The Real Lolita: A Lost Girl, An Unthinkable Crime, and a Scandalous Masterpiece, Fall for the Book, Merten Hall, Room 1201, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA • 10:30 a.m.



Saturday, October 26, 2019



Author Showcase, Sisters in Crime Chesapeake Chapter, Miller Branch, Howard County Library, Miller, 9421 Frederick Road, Ellicott City, MD • 1 p.m.



Thursday-Sunday, October 31-November 3, 2019: Bouchercon, Hyatt Regency, Dallas, Texas



Opening Ceremonies • Thursday, October 31, 5 p.m.Anthony Awards Presentation • Saturday, November 2, 6 p.m.



Saturday, December 7, 2019



Author Showcase, Sisters in Crime Chesapeake Chapter, Reston Regional Library, 11925 Bowman Towne Drive, Reston, VA • 1 p.m.

The First Two Pages: “Marley’s Mistress” by John C. Boland

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 July/August issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine includes John C. Boland‘s story “Marley’s Mistress”—the eighth of the Marley stories published by the magazine. An earlier story in the series, “Marley’s Revolution,” was a finalist for the 2012 Edgar Award for Best Short Story—a category which I helped to judge that year, and I’ve been a fan of John and his work ever since.

Reading John’s essay on the new story, I’m struck by a couple of things—some of them personally related. As you’ll see, John talks here about having written the opening of the story well before he figured out where it was going to go—putting it aside for a long (long!) stretch before coming back to the story, something I’ve done myself. And it’s perhaps because of the long period of composition that he revisits the opening with such fresh eyes—seeing things he could’ve, maybe should’ve, done differently (something I’m all too familiar with myself).

I’m hopeful that John’s slightly self-deprecating tone at the end of the essay is at least partially tongue-in-cheek. Whatever the process, he’s a master storyteller—maneuvering complex, multi-layered plots with grace and subtlety. Read the essay here, read the whole story, and you’ll see what I mean. And do check out John’s website for more information about him and his work.

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.

Boland-MARLEYS-MISTRESS

A Dark Thread from Mack Books

I just received several copies of the anthology A Dark Thread, which includes a French translation of my story “Loose Strands”—and what a gorgeously produced book it is!

As I mentioned in a previous post, this collection by Mack Books includes three stories—by Ivy Pochoda, Alexander MacLeod, and me—published in conjunction with an an exhibition of works by photographer Henry Wessel at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris; the exhibition, also titled A Dark Thread, opened earlier this summer and continues through August 25. Our stories will appear later in the original English in a full collection by the same name.

This advance collection is a beauty, as I said—dark blue cloth with a silkscreen image of the photograph which was the inspiration for my own story: “Incidents 006,” now part of the collection of London’s Tate Gallery. As you can see in my own photograph of the book above, portions of the Wessel’s original image provide a faint background to my story, here titled “Des Fils Un Peu Trop Distendus.” An additional extra, pictured below: Postcards of each of the images chosen by Pochoda, MacLeod, and me are tucked into a small folder inside the rear panel of the book.

I’m grateful to Mark McCain of Artworkers Retirement Society, a great friend of Henry Wessel’s, for inviting me to be a part of this project and to to Michael Mack at Mack Books for producing such a handsome volume. And looking forward to the full collection in English later on down the road!

Interview at Live by the Shelf

Thanks to George Mason University alum Amanda Bender—both BA and MFA!—for interviewing me at her blog Live by the Shelf.

We had a great chat about writing and reading and secret agent camps and smuggling a child onto a desert island and….

Well, read the full post here for what all that means. And thanks again, Amanda, for hosting me!

The First Two Pages: Skin Game by J.D. Allen

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 Kristin Kisska, one of three writers who made their mystery fiction debuts—or fiction debuts period!—in Murder Under the Oaks, the anthology I edited for the Raleigh Bouchercon. Kristin Kisska and Karen E. Salyer had their first-ever publication credits in the collection, and J.D. Allen published her first mystery short story there, with the multi-part, multi-layered story “Grasshoppers.”

As with the other two authors above, J.D. and I became fast friends, and she has gone on to a fine writing career in crime fiction—two novels so far in her Sin City Investigations series: 19 Souls and Skin Game, the latter of which she introduces us to today. And she’s also been active in the mystery community more widely—both with the Bouchercon National Board, which she’s also chaired, and with Sisters in Crime, where she’s president of the Triangle, North Carolina chapter.

You can find our more about her work at her website here—and be sure to connect with her on both Facebook and Twitter. And in the meantime, enjoy this preview below of Skin Game and an introduction to her P.I. Jim Bean.

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.

Allen-Skin-Game

The First Two Pages: “Unbridled” by Kristin Kisska

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 met Kristin Kisska in person at the Raleigh Bouchercon—though we’d already been working together closely for several months in advance of that meeting. Kristin had submitted her story “The Sevens” for that year’s Bouchercon anthology, Murder Under the Oaks—an anthology I was editing. The story stood out when I read it in the pile of blind submissions—its atmosphere, its historical detail, its tension—so I was thrilled to accept it for the collection, and Kristin was such a pleasure to work with as the editorial process continued from acceptance through publication.

By the time we met in Raleigh, I felt like we’d known each other for a long time—but there was one thing I didn’t know until then: “The Sevens” was Kristin’s first fiction publication ever!

While I so much enjoyed working with some of the star authors in the collection—Margaret Maron and Tom Franklin among them—helping to introduce a new talent to the mystery world gave me a whole nother level of pride. And as it turned out, Kristin was one of three authors making their crime fiction debuts in Murder Under the Oaks—Karen E. Salyer and J.D. Allen were the other two—and I’ve been glad to stay in touch with them since then, to keep up with them both as writers and as friends.

And Kristin has certainly done well in the last few years, with stories appearing in several others anthologies, including two volumes of the Malice Domestic anthology: Mystery Most Geographical and Mystery Most Edible. And she’s hard at work on longer-form fiction too—just as I loved celebrating her short story debut, I can’t wait for her first novel too!

You can check out more about Kristin and her work at her website— KristinKisska.com—and be sure to connect with her on Facebook and Twitter too.

In the meantime, enjoy the glimpse below at her latest story, “Unbridled,” from the anthology Deadly Southern Charm. You can also read the full story for free, linked from the “Books” pages of Kristin’s website. And be sure to check out essays from the three other contributors to the anthology whom I’ve hosted recently at the First Two Pages: Heather Weidner, Bradley Harper, and Mollie Cox Bryan.

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.

Kisska-Unbridled-First-Two-Pages

Macavity Award Nomination!

I’m so thrilled that my story “English 398: Fiction Workshop” has been named a finalist for this year’s Macavity Award—such an honor, especially to be on the same slate as so many fine writers and fine friends. The other finalists in the short story category include Craig Faustus Buck, Leslie Budewitz, Barb Goffman, Barry Lancet, and Gigi Pandian.

“English 398: Fiction Workshop” also won the Edgar this year, and it has already been named a finalist for both the Agatha Award and the Anthony Award. You can read the story here.

The full list of Macavity finalists below—and check out the official announcement at Mystery Fanfare. Thanks to Janet Rudolph, Mystery Readers International, and subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal for all the support here. See you all at Bouchercon!

Best Novel 
November Road by Lou Berney (William Morrow)
If I Die Tonight by Alison Gaylin (William Morrow)
The Lost Man by Jane Harper (Flat Iron Books)
Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier (Minotaur Books)
Hiroshima Boy by Naomi Hirahara (Prospect Park Books)
Under My Skin by Lisa Unger (Harlequin – Park Row Books)

Best First Novel 
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (Doubleday)
Dodging and Burning by John Copenhaver (Pegasus Books)
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman (Ballantine)
The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor (Crown)

Best Nonfiction 
The Metaphysical Mysteries of G.K. Chesterton: A Critical Study of the Father Brown Stories and Other Detective Fiction by Laird R. Blackwell (McFarland)
Conan Doyle for the Defense: The True Story of a Sensational
British Murder, a Quest for Justice, and the World’s Most Famous
Detective Writer by Margalit Fox (Random House)
Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s by Leslie S. Klinger (Pegasus Books)
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara (HarperCollins)
Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life by Laura Thompson (Pegasus Books)
The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World by Sarah Weinman (HarperCollins)

Best Short Story 
“Race to Judgment” by Craig Faustus Buck (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Nov/Dec 2018)
“All God’s Sparrows” by Leslie Budewitz (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, May/Jun 2018)
“Bug Appétit” by Barb Goffman (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Nov/Dec 2018)
“Three-Star Sushi” by Barry Lancet (Down & Out: The Magazine, Vol.1, No. 3)
“The Cambodian Curse” by Gigi Pandian (The Cambodian Curse and Other Stories)
“English 398: Fiction Workshop” by Art Taylor (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Jul/Aug 2018)

Sue Feder Memorial Award for Best Historical Mystery 
A Lady’s Guide to Etiquette and Murder by Dianne Freeman (Kensington)
City of Ink by Elsa Hart (Minotaur)
Island of the Mad by Laurie R. King (Bantam)
The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime)
A Dying Note by Ann Parker (Poisoned Pen)
A Forgotten Place by Charles Todd (William Morrow)