The First Two Pages: “Flamingo Bingo” by Terrie Farley Moran

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.

Terrie Farley Moran and I first met at a party hosted by Dell Magazines the afternoon before the Edgar Awards many years ago, and we became fast friends. When I accepted this year’s Edgar a few weeks back, Terrie was at the banquet as well. In between those times, she and I have cheered along one another’s publications and successes and more—both writerly news but also personal news: children, grandchildren, what’s going on in our lives. Terrie’s not just a fine writer, but a fine friend too.

Terrie won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel for Well Read, Then Dead, the first book in the Read ‘Em and Eat mystery series, and she won the Derringer Award for Best Novelette for “Inquiry and Assistance,” originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. (And Terrie: Still waiting for more in that series!) She’s also the co-author of Laura Childs’ New Orleans scrapbooking mystery series, and other stories have appeared in both Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine as well as numerous anthologies. You can find out more about Terrie at her website or connect with her on Facebook here.

Today at the First Two Pages, Terrie talks about her story “Flamingo Bingo” from Alfred Hitchcock’s May/June issue—the cover story, and what a cover it is!

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.

Moran-Flamingo