Art Taylor's Blog, page 73

The First Two Pages: Eve Fisher’s “Darkness Visible”

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 September 2017, and the full archive of those essays can be found at Bonnie’s website here.

This month (November 2017) the blog series relocated here at the request of Bonnie’s husband and daughter, and I’ve invited three authors to kick off these first first few installments: Robert Lopresti, Eve Fisher, and R.T. Lawton, each of whom has blogged with Bonnie at the group blog SleuthSayers and each of whom has a story in the November/December issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine  alongside Bonnie’s own story “Death Under Construction” from her Leah Abrams series.

Here Eve Fisher talks about her story “Darkness Visible.” Please use the arrows and controls at the bottom of the embedded PDF to navigate through the essay.

Fisher Darkness Visible

Crime Cafe Interview

Thanks to Debbi Mack for including me as a guest at the Crime Cafe!

The interview is here in a couple of formats, including both the podcast itself and a transcript of our chat. Here’s a sample of the latter.

Debbi: I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed reading Del and Louise’s adventures on the road. But the first thing I wanted to ask you before I got to that was, you’ve seemed to have made a career out of writing short stories. Now was that intentional, or are you just drawn to the short story format?

Art: Well, two things. Number one I think it’s tough to make a career from short stories. There’s a lot of great markets out there, both anthologies and mystery magazines and, of course, online. But, you know, in terms of actually making a career of it, I don’t think you reach as wide a readership as you might with a novel. Which is one of the reasons why I was very pleased to have On The Road with Del & Louise come out—to have a book out there as well. But the short story form is one that I particularly appreciate. You know, I started reading Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine way back when I was in late elementary school and middle school. In fact it was one of these fundraising drives that the school did where you go door to door to sell magazine subscriptions to raise money for the school. I ended up, don’t remember if I sold any magazine subscriptions, but I bought one myself to Ellery Queen’s and that’s where I first started reading, you know, short stories, mystery short stories at an adult level; building off of having read Nancy Drew and The Three Investigators and that sort of thing. So, the short story, I was always a big fan from the very beginning. And, of course, having been in writing classes both in high school and in college and then went on to graduate school, the short story is sort of the focus for a number of reasons of a workshop setting. Something that people can bring in, can be discussed in full, as opposed to like a novel portion, which I think is harder to workshop. And so, for a couple of reasons, both as a reader and as a writer, I have kind of both fallen in love with the form and then fallen into the form as a writer.

Additionally, Debbi asked me to write a blog post in advance of the interview, and I talked here about “Going Dark” with my writing—though there’s a question mark on the post title, worth noting.

Thanks for checking out either the post or the podcast—and thanks again to Debbi for featuring me!

SleuthSayers: True Crime

At SleuthSayers, I preview the syllabus for my Spring 2018 “True Crime” course at George Mason University—or rather, preview some of the titles I’m still considering for the course, including a couple of brand-new books (one not even out yet) and a podcast series too, first time I’ve taught that.

Here’s an excerpt from the post:

Much of the reading that was new that first time I taught “True Crime” came from the Library of America’s True Crime: An American Anthology—some well-known essays that covered a wider history and also a wider breadth of approaches, from the more strictly journalistic (Meyer Berger’s Pulitzer Prize-winning article “Veteran Kills 12 in Mad Rampage on Camden Street”) to works that bordered very close to fiction (Jim Thompson’s “Ditch of Doom”).

The course requires students both to craft analytical essays and try their hand at their own  creative writing—or at least the opportunity to do the latter. The first assignment asks students to choose a crime that’s been covered in the class and to research other documents related to it—additional newspaper coverage from the same era as well as (potentially) more recent essays looking back on the crime—and to compare the approach in each, to evaluate which approaches might help reveal more about the “truth” of the crime. The creative writing assignment allows students to craft their own true crime essays, whether as memoir (amazing how many of us have been at least adjacent to crimes if not involved more intricately in them) or as investigative journalism at least at some rudimentary level.

Read the full post here—and suggestions welcome!

The First Two Pages: Robert Lopresti’s “The Chair Thief”

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. How do authors try to capture a reader’s attention at the start of a story or a novel? How are characters introduced, and how quickly is the plot set into motion? How do those first pages set the foundation for everything ahead?

The series quickly became one of my own favorites—instructive, enlightening, and just plain entertaining—and I was honored that Bonnie invited me to write about a couple of my own stories as well.

At the time of Bonnie’s death in September, more than 130 essays had been submitted, and her daughter Rachel continued to post the balance of those submissions through the end of October. The full archive of those essays can be found at Bonnie’s website, and I’d encourage you to explore them.

Rachel and her father Dennis invited me to continue “The First Two Pages” at my own site here—an invitation I was honored to accept—and as this second stage of the series kicks off, I’ve invited several contributors to the November/December issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine to write essays. The issue features Bonnie’s story “Death Under Construction” from her Leah Abrams series, and—coincidentally—stories by three members of the group blog SleuthSayers, which Bonnie was part of. That confluence of events seemed a great opportunity to celebrate Bonnie’s work—her fiction, her blog—in a number of ways.

First up is Robert Lopresti, writing about his story “The Chair Thief.” Please use the arrows and controls at the bottom of the embedded PDF to navigate through Rob’s essay. And stay tuned in the weeks ahead for contributions by Eve Fisher and R.T. Lawton as well.

Lopresti Chair Thief

Washington Independent Review of Books: Library Book Sales

For my latest column at the Washington Independent Review of Books, I explore my love of library book sales—a great place both to find good deals on treasured titles and to do good work, given the benefits for the library system. And on that latter point, thanks to Joy Whittington, book sale chair at my own local branch, the Burke Centre Library, for offering some behind-the-scenes on the work they do.

Here’s an excerpt from the column:

What sorts of treasures have we found? I came across the original two-volume Annotated Sherlock Holmes in hardcover for about $5, and for a dollar a book, I rounded out my collection of the Best American Mystery Stories series with a few elusive volumes, thanks to a donor who’d apparently divested their full set. And then there was the first edition of Thomas Pynchon’s Crying of Lot 49…

The picture above here shows some more recent finds as well, these from the fall book sale. William Trevor is one of my favorite short story writers, and this second volume of his collected stories completes my set. Meanwhile my wife Tara had been looking for that David Mitchell for a while, with no luck. And we’ve already been reading the Hammett anthology together—perfect for the days leading up to Halloween!

Want to find out more about book sales? Read the full post here.

Chesapeake Chapter Author Extravaganza, Part I

November and December bring two Mystery Author Extravaganzas (!) hosted by the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime. At each meeting—one in Maryland, one in Virginia—authors from SinC’s Chessie Chapter will talk about their publications in 2017, and Mystery Loves Company Booksellers will have copies of these titles on hand—perfect timing for early holiday shopping!

The first of these events takes place Saturday, November 4, beginning at 12:30 p.m. with a meet-and-greet at the Howard County Public Library’s Miller Branch, 9421 Frederick Road, Ellicott City, Maryland. At 1 p.m., the official program begins, with participating authors including Donna Andrews, Maya Corrigan, Barb Goffman, Sherry Harris, Mary Ellen Hughes, Tara Laskowski, Alan Orloff, Kathryn O’Sullivan, Josh Pachter, Penny Clover Petersen, Susan Reiss, KM Rockwood, Verena Rose, Laura Ellen Scott, Harriette Sackler, Shawn Reilly Simmons, and me!

(And if you’re worried about the long list of authors, each of them speaking—don’t be. We’ll limited to just over 3 minutes a person, and some folks won’t even use the full amount of time.)

For additional information this meeting and the next, check out the Chesapeake Chapter’s website here.

And see you on the Saturday the 4th!

SleuthSayers: B.K. Stevens Wins An Anthony

One last Bouchercon recap—this one in my SleuthSayers column and focused on B.K. Stevens’ Anthony Award win for Best Novella.

Here’s an excerpt from the post:

Last week’s Bouchercon in Toronto was terrific and memorable in so many ways, with one of the great highpoints coming on the final day, when our fellow SleuthSayers B.K. Stevens won the Anthony Award for Best Novella for her outstanding story “The Last Blue Glass.”

As most folks in our community know, Bonnie passed away suddenly back in August, but her husband Dennis and their daughter Rachel were in Toronto for much of Bouchercon to represent her as an Anthony finalist—attending several short story panels and being part of the weekend generally.

Read the full post here.

Fairfax County Public Library Jubilee, October 21

This Saturday, October 21, my wife Tara Laskowski and I will be among the featured authors at the Fairfax County Public Library’s annual Library Jubillee. This year’s theme is “The Library Goes Hollywood!” and the event takes place at the recently (and beautifully!) renovated Pohick Regional Library in Burke, VA, from 5:30 to 8 p.m.

Other featured authors include Keith Fentonmiller, Steve James Hantzsis, Marianne Kirby, Courtney Sloan, and J.P. Sloan.

The Jubilee is a huge fundraising event for the library, with 100% of the proceed from admission and auction benefiting the public library system. The last time we attended, Tara even won one of the auctions she bid on! This year’s event promises to be as sumptuous as the last one, with food by Shirley’s Catering and Peterson’s Ice Cream and music by a jazz trio from Mason Music Productions. And did we hear that Marilyn Monroe will be attending as well? (Actually, we did.)

I think there’s still time to attend if you haven’t signed up yet. Click here to purchase tickets!

Bouchercon 2017 Highlights! (And Funny Lowpoints Too…)

Having “Parallel Play” win the Macavity Award for Best Short Story would certainly stand as a major highpoint of this year’s Bouchercon, but there are many other events and encounters and moments that also stuck—including one that might well be even more meaningful in a number of ways.

Here’s a list of Bouchercon highlights (and funny lowpoints, is that the best description?), in some vaguely chronological order:

Author Speed-Dating with Michael Bracken—and really just spending time with Michael at several points throughout the weekend. Michael is a tremendously prolific and talented short story writer, and his output is matched by his extraordinary enthusiasm. Michael’s wife Temple and I were talking about the toy collection in his office at one point while he’d stepped away, and I remarked that there was something joyfully boyish about Michael: a sense of wonder and excitement, a whole-heartedness about him. When he came back to the table and I asked about the toy collection, he showed those same qualities again, talking about Hot Wheels cars and Matchbox cars and squishy toys and…. And as much as I’ve always admired Michael as a writer, I enjoy him just as much now as a person too. Just a joy to be around.
Honoring Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine was my first home in the mystery writing community (still is), and I loved that the Bouchercon organizers chose to honor the magazine for its distinguished contributions to the genre—and appreciated so much their decision to include me as host for the event. I enjoyed interviewing Janet Hutchings (see the photo above)—she’s always fascinating and insightful and so much my strongest supporter in the crime writing community—and I was blown away by the range of experiences and memories shared by the fifteen EQMM contributors who took part in the program. Highlights there included Josh Pachter’s story about getting a phone call from EQMM’s first editor, Frederick Dannay himself; Laura Benedict talking about how EQMM changed her life three times; Rick Helms’ story about his mother finally celebrating his work as a writer (hardly a dry eye in the house after that one); Marilyn Todd’s joke about vignette/vinaigrette (on sale in the back); and… well, I could list all of them here, a mix of funny stories and touching stories and everything in between.
Toronto Star! In between the speed dating and the EQMM event, Janet Hutchings suggested that I look at that day’s edition of the Toronto Star—and what a surprise and honor to see my author photo and the cover of On the Road with Del & Louise there as one of seven recommended authors/books connected to Bouchercon! (Did I mention already that Janet is my strongest supporter in the crime fiction community?)
Short Mystery Fiction Society Lunch. Thanks to M.H. Callway for organizing such a fun lunch for members of the Short Mystery Fiction Society. It was great to see many old friends there, but even more fun to meet new ones, including several Canadian crime writers who let me join them at one end of our long table, including Cindy Carroll, Terri McMillan, and Lynne Murphy—such a great lunch!
Panel Highlights. I probably attended more panels at this Bouchercon than any conference I can remember, and after it was all over, I got into a couple of conversations with people comparing which ones they’d found most informative or entertaining. Two stood out for mine. First, the “History of the Genre” panel that Sarah Weinman so deftly moderated, letting panelists Margaret Cannon, Martin Edwards, Alex Gray, David A. Poulsen, and Peter Rozovsky browse through many eras of crime fiction’s history with a discussion of foundational titles, personal favorites, rereads and whether they held up, and works that surprised in some way. Second, the “Reading the Rainbow” panel, with Krisopher Zgorski leading Jessie Chandler, John Copenhaver, Stephanie Gayle, Greg Herren, and Owen Laukkanen into discussions of the history of LGBTQ crime fiction, shifts in the ways publishers have treated these novels and stories, and then—most importantly—books that touched the panelists as readers alongside how they’ve tried to enter into the tradition as writers themselves. Fascinating stuff, powerful stuff.
A Humbling Moment. After my own panel with the other Anthony Award finalists for Best Short Story—Megan Abbott, Johnny Shaw, and Holly West, a great group all around!—I ended up talking with a woman who’d asked a particularly interesting question. I thought our follow-up chat was going well until she placed her hand on my arm mid-conversation and nudged me out of the way to make a beeline for Megan! I had to laugh, of course, and when I told Megan about it later, she said that the same thing has happened to her in the past—with her the one being nudged aside! (Megan is ever gracious, as I’ve said before; more on her work below.)
The 4:30 A.M. Fight in the Hallway. OK, this one too isn’t so much a good memory as much as it is a story that stuck. Just past 4:30 a.m. Saturday morning, I hear from the hallway what sounds like drunk people coming home after too many hours out on the town—loud voices, shouts, some kind of questions and confusion… someone looking for their room? Soon, it’s clear that these people aren’t on their way anywhere but just staying in the hallway, and those questions are more in the way of confrontation. A man’s voice: “I haven’t cheated on you. I would never cheat on you.” And a woman’s in return: “Then who is JoJo? Tell me that. Who is JoJo?” And then back and forth, eventually with one of them (the man) banging against the wall to punctuate points in his favor. That was the tipping point. I called the front desk, was told that security was already on the way. Within a few minutes, whatever was happening had ended. But I couldn’t sleep—not just because of the timing but because I kept wondering myself: Who were these people? What had been going on? Why was argument unfolded in the hallway? And—yes—who was JoJo?
Who was JoJo? I’m not sure if S.W. Lauden actually had the answer to that question a few hours later, but I appreciated his story of running into what he swore was a prostitute in the elevator early one morning—asking him, “Do you know how to the get to the lobby?” (He generously pointed out the “L” button on the panel, of course.) The riffs on these two stories from Steve, Angel Colon, Nik Korpon, and Baron Birtcher kept building and building—and hey, Joe Clifford, if anyone ever starts calling you JoJo, you’ll know at least loosely where the nickname came from.
Who is S.W. Lauden? I’ve actually known Steve for a while, brief encounters both at conferences and then online too, but I felt like I got to know him a little better this Boucercon—in conversations like that one above, in his contributions to the novella panel (both about his own work and about novellas in general), in a quick interview he did with me for his podcast, and then, later, in a small act of graciousness that will underscore for me, forever, what a fine guy he is—top-notch in every way.
B.K. Stevens’ Anthony Award for Best Novella. It was a small disappointment not to win the Anthony Award myself for Best Short Story, but it was hardly a surprise that Megan Abbott did, an honor richly deserved; her story “Oxford Girl” stood out as one of my own favorites from last year—masterfully conceived, lyrically written, and with that beautifully haunting ending. But whatever disappointment I might have felt was immediately eclipsed when B.K. Stevens’ “The Last Blue Glass” won the Anthony for Best Novella. (I admired all of the other finalists in this category, I should stress—friends with each of them.) The honor was bittersweet, of course, a word that keeps coming up, and also poignant, her husband Dennis’s own word about what he was feeling being there to accept the award—one that Bonnie had always dreamed of winning before her sudden death two months ago. The story was a fabulous one; many have claimed it was her best ever, though I could argue for several others over the years, so many wonderful tales. But in any case, the award helped not only to celebrate this single story but also to serve as a fitting capstone to a magnificent career. Bittersweet, yes, but celebratory too—and when we talk about highpoints, which could be better than celebrating other writers, the ones whose work, whose friendship, has meant the most over so many years?

Thanks again to everyone who helped make this year’s Bouchercon such a great success—especially Janet Costello and Helen Nelson. Hooray!

“Parallel Play” Wins Macavity Award!

Opening ceremonies at this year’s Bouchercon brought a very nice surprise when my story “Parallel Play” won the Macavity Award for Best Short Story amongst a very distinguished slate featuring short fiction by Lawrence Block, Craig Faustus Buck, Greg Herren, Paul D. Marks, and Joyce Carol Oates. I was stunned when the story’s title was called out, and forgot to mention all the other finalists as part of my thanks, but it was a joy to have my work listed alongside theirs in the first place—fine writers all, and many of them good friends as well.

Bouchercon generally has been going well, with many other highlights, including a great program celebrating Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine with 15 contributors to the magazine sharing stories that were alternately funny and emotional and revealing, several other panels on writing short fiction, editing anthologies, and browsing through the history of mystery, and then a very nice surprise when I was one of the authors spotlighted by the Toronto Star in their coverage of Bouchercon—yowsa!

Still more ahead, of course, with panels, programs, conversations, and—the big finale!—the Anthony Awards brunch. Whew!