Art Taylor's Blog

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.

Curtis Ippolito has been steadily building a killer reputation as a short story writer, including being named a Derringer Award finalist, a Macavity Award finalist, and an Anthony Award finalist too—that latter one, two, three years in a row before bringing home this year’s Anthony for his story “Something to Hold On To” from Dark Yonder 6. (You can read more about Curtis’s short fiction here.) But in addition to giant steps as a writer, he also took a big leap this fall as an editor, with an anthology that’s been making news ever since it’s release in late September. Here’s the description from Rock and Hard Place about On Fire and Under Water: A Climate Change Crime Fiction Anthology:

Our world is changing dramatically before our eyes.

Increased average global temperatures have wreaked havoc on ecosystems, economies, and people’s lives. Fires rage. Flood waters rise. Storms and heat waves are occurring out-of-season and are becoming increasingly more dangerous and more frequent.

Neighborhoods are being destroyed. People are losing their lives and livelihoods. Still, some politicians, some pundits, and some corporate oligarchs continue to deny reality and refuse to take responsibility and necessary action to mitigate this existential crisis.

Those who did the least to cause this crisis will suffer the most from its consequences.

In On Fire and Under Water, the new crime fiction anthology from Rock and a Hard Place Press, we explore the intersection of climate change and crime, through the lens of fifteen short stories from some of today’s best crime fiction writers. Edited by Anthony Award-winning author Curtis Ippolito and the editorial team at RHP Press, the stories contained within this anthology peel back the curtain on the ways in which climate change impacts real people in their most desperate hour.

Some say the world will end in fire. Some say flood. In On Fire and Under Water, you get both.

This week, we begin welcoming several contributors to On Fire and Under Water to discuss their contributions to the collection—both the stories themselves and what prompted their interest in the subject.

First up is Kendall Brunson, who’s been making her own mark both in the world of short fiction and in film circles too. A graduate of the MFA Program at UC Riverside, Kendall has been published in Kelp Literary Review, 100 Word Story, Fearsome Critters, and more, and her short films—as both writer and director— have played at the Final Girls Berlin Film Fest, The Loft Cinema, and Wasteland Film Festival. Kendall and I first met—all too briefly!—at the Nashville Bouchercon, and such a joy to see her star continuing to rise since then. You can follow her on Instagram.

And in addition to reading Kendall’s essay below, stay tuned for more ahead from Michael Downing and Richie Narvaez.

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.

The post The First Two Pages: “Bad Egg” by Kendall Brunson appeared first on Art Taylor.

On Wednesday, October 15, Mystery Writers of America hosts the MWA University panel “Achieve Success Writing Short Crime Fiction”—and I’m thrilled to be part of it, alongside moderator Michael Bracken and fellow panelists Ashley-Ruth Bernier and Erika Krouse.

Here’s the official description:

Create and sustain a successful career writing short crime fiction. Our panelists provide tips, tricks, and techniques for crafting publishable short stories and discuss finding and submitting to current crime fiction anthologies and magazines. Whether you’re a short story specialist or a novelist who dabbles in short fiction, you should come away with valuable information that will elevate your short story career.

The panel begins on Zoom at 8 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time—free for MWA members and $20 for non-members.

For more information or to register, visit the website here: https://mysterywriters.org/2025-mwa-university/

The post MWA University Short Story Panel • Wednesday, Oct. 15 appeared first on Art Taylor.

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.

In this week’s essay, M.E. Proctor starts out with her excitement about the call for submissions for the anthology Celluloid Crimes—and I have to admit that I shared that same enthusiasm when I first saw the call for stories. It seemed like such a great idea! Good intentions don’t always lead to successful follow-through (at least for me), but I’m glad to see the collection is out, and with such a terrific list of contributors in addition to Proctor: Gabriel Valjan, Robert Lopresti, Peter W.J. Hayes, P.A. De Voe, J.J. White, Deborah Lacy, Jeff Tanner, Nina Wachsman, Nicky Nielsen, C. C. Guthrie, Greg Herren, Wendy Harrison, Devon Ellington, Kerry Hammond, Matt Cost, and Colin Campbell (in order of appearance in the book).

Here’s the description of the anthology:

Lights. Camera. Murder.

In Celluloid Crimes, the silver screen casts long, dangerous shadows. This gripping anthology of short stories pays homage to the spirit of the razor-sharp wit and smoky intrigue of classic noir-think The Thin Man with a fresh twist of lemon and blood.

Tales include sharp-talking investigators, private eyes, weary cops, rookie reporters, and even the occasional actors, on the way up, or on the way down. One thing is for sure: Everyone is hiding something. Smart, stylish, and steeped in grit and glamour, Celluloid Crimes delivers mystery with a knowing smile and a loaded .38.

Cue the dramatic music. The reel is rolling. Time to solve a murder.

From there, I’ll let M.E. Proctor step into the spotlight! She’s the author of the Declan Shaw detective mysteries Love You Till Tuesday and Catch Me on a Blue Day and of a short story collection, Family and Other Ailments. She’s also the co-author of a retro-noir novella, Bop City Swing. You can find out more at www.shawmystery.com.

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.

The post The First Two Pages: “Garbo’s Ghost” by M.E Proctor appeared first on Art Taylor.

It’s been a nice week for bookmail—including two anthologies featuring stories of mine. As always I took the opportunity to toast the occasion and the books themselves!

Double Crossing Van Dine is paired with a Perfect Manhattan, made with Green River Rye. I helped organize this anthology with Donna Andrews, Greg Herren, and an uncredited-but-so-much-appreciated Jeffrey Marks, publisher of Crippen & Landru, who published both this book and its predecessor, School of Hard Knox. My story for the anthology is “Dalliances”—and it’s a long one, which was necessary for breaking my assigned rule. (For more information on those rules and my fellow rule-breakers, follow each of those embedded links.)

This year’s Best American Mystery and Suspense, edited by Don Winslow and Steph Cha, is due out on Tuesday, October 21, and features my story “Dark Thread, Loose Strands,” originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Here’s more information on both the BAMS appearance and the EQMM publication. This one is paired with a Bénédictine and Brandy.

Cheers!

The post Books & Beverages appeared first on Art Taylor.

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 marks the third and final essay in a series focused on The Most Dangerous Games, edited by Deborah Lacy and published last month by Level Best Books. So far, we’ve hosted L.L. Kaplan on “The Hack Job” and LaToya Jovena on “Six Questions,” and this week, we’re welcoming K.C. Selby, reflecting on the thoughts and decisions behind the opening of “Murder & Mystery: Live in Five,” a story that’s mystery with a side of speculative fiction. As she explains in the essay below, she “didn’t want the overall feel of the story to be sci-fi,” but the setting is 2044 and the game here is a virtual one, and I was interested to hear about this balancing of genres, this weighting in one direction or another. And in that regard, it’s worth mentioning that her website includes a range of short fiction publications, mystery here, more literary there, and a forthcoming story, “Earth to Echo,” in Flash Point Science Fiction in October. Great breadth here.

Joining Jovena, Kaplan, and Selby in The Most Dangerous Games are an equally broad range of contributors, including Heather Graham, Alan Orloff, Shannon Taft, P.M. Raymond, Kerry Hammond, Rebecca Lugones, BV Lawson, Stephen M. Pierce, Maya Corrigan, Bruce Kubec, JD Allen, Jane Limprecht, donalee Moulton, Kirlagh James, Robert Lopresti, Sharyn Kolberg, Shawn Reilly Simmons, Chris Chan, and Daphne Silver.

Pick up The Most Dangerous Games at Amazon here, and thanks to these three contributors for the terrific essays—on equally fine stories!

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.

The post The First Two Pages: “Murder & Mystery: Live in Five” by K.C. Selby appeared first on Art Taylor.

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 marks the third and final essay in a series focused on The Most Dangerous Games, edited by Deborah Lacy and published last month by Level Best Books. So far, we’ve hosted L.L. Kaplan on “The Hack Job” and LaToya Jovena on “Six Questions,” and this week, we’re welcoming K.C. Shelby, reflecting on the thoughts and decisions behind the opening of “Murder & Mystery: Live in Five,” a story that’s mystery with a side of speculative fiction. As she explains in the essay below, she “didn’t want the overall feel of the story to be sci-fi,” but the setting is 2044 and the game here is a virtual one, and I was interested to hear about this balancing of genres, this weighting in one direction or another. And in that regard, it’s worth mentioning that her website includes a range of short fiction publications, mystery here, more literary there, and a forthcoming story, “Earth to Echo,” in Flash Point Science Fiction in October. Great breadth here.

Joining Jovena, Kaplan, and Shelby in The Most Dangerous Games are an equally broad range of contributors, including Heather Graham, Alan Orloff, Shannon Taft, P.M. Raymond, Kerry Hammond, Rebecca Lugones, BV Lawson, Stephen M. Pierce, Maya Corrigan, Bruce Kubec, JD Allen, Jane Limprecht, donalee Moulton, Kirlagh James, Robert Lopresti, Sharyn Kolberg, Shawn Reilly Simmons, Chris Chan, and Daphne Silver.

Pick up The Most Dangerous Games at Amazon here, and thanks to these three contributors for the terrific essays—on equally fine stories!

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.

The post The First Two Pages: “Murder & Mystery: Live in Five” by K.C. Shelby appeared first on Art Taylor.

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.

We’re continuing a series of essays on the anthology The Most Dangerous Games, edited by Deborah Lacy and published last month by Level Best Books. Last week, we hosted L.L. Kaplan, talking about her first-ever publication (see her essay on “The Hack Job” here), and this week we’re moving from emerging author to established one: LaToya Jovena, whose short stories have been published in both Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock too, in addition to being selected for the Best American Mystery & Suspense anthology—woo hoo! Emerging, established… what caught my eye at the start of LaToya’s essay is her line “I hate to admit this, but it wasn’t until this blog post that I realized I start most stories with the setting.” I love this line, because of the sense that whatever stage we’re at, we’re all (me included, I need to stress) still learning something about craft, still seeing fresh things about our own approach—and having to analyze and then articulate our own craft choices can bring that kind of recognition.

As with the best storytellers, LaToya moves from a catchy opening to a cliffhanger of an ending, urging readers to pick up the anthology to find out more—and I’ll echo that call to action here. The Most Dangerous Games offers a great theme: “What happens when a game gets out of hand? The most dangerous games are the ones that lead to murder. Chess simulates war, the high stakes of professional sports, mind games, trapped in a board game . . .” And the contributors list is terrific, including both Jovena and Kaplan and also Heather Graham, K.C. Selby, Alan Orloff, Shannon Taft, P.M. Raymond, Kerry Hammond, Rebecca Lugones, BV Lawson, Stephen M. Pierce, Maya Corrigan, Bruce Kubec, JD Allen, Jane Limprecht, donalee Moulton, Kirlagh James, Robert Lopresti, Sharyn Kolberg, Shawn Reilly Simmons, Chris Chan, and Daphne Silver.

Pick up The Most Dangerous Games at Amazon here—and stay tuned next week for another essay 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.

The post The First Two Pages: “Six Questions” by LaToya Jovena appeared first on Art Taylor.

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.

Level Best Books released The Most Dangerous Games at the end of August, so we’re a little behind here timing-wise, but I’m very excited about celebrating this latest project from Deborah Lacy, whose work I’ve followed in many forms: as a short story writer herself, as a force behind the scenes for mystery conventions, and as the powerhouse behind the long-time blog Mystery Playground. This new project has a brilliant theme. As the call for submissions stated: “What happens when a game gets out of hand? The most dangerous games are the ones that lead to murder. Chess simulates war, the high stakes of professional sports, mind games, trapped in a board game . . .” And what a group of contributors answering that call! The anthology features stories by Heather Graham, K.C. Selby, Alan Orloff, Shannon Taft, P.M. Raymond, Kerry Hammond, Rebecca Lugones, L.L. Kaplan, BV Lawson, Stephen M. Pierce, Maya Corrigan, Bruce Kubec, JD Allen, Jane Limprecht, donalee Moulton, Kirlagh James, Robert Lopresti, LaToya Jovena, Sharyn Kolberg, Shawn Reilly Simmons, Chris Chan, and Daphne Silver.

The First Two Pages is hosting essays by three of these contributors, beginning this week with L.L. Kaplan—talking about her first published story, “The Hack Job.” To her credit, though, she writes with such authority about craft choices in the essay that I didn’t know it was her first fiction until I read her bio—and the momentum is building, with another story, “Chocolate Karma,” already in the pipeline for publication next year. You can find out more about her work on  Instagram and on Facebook  as well as at her website: LLKaplanAuthor.com. 

Pick up The Most Dangerous Games at Amazon here—and stay tuned next week for another essay 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.

The post The First Two Pages: “The Hack Job” by L.L. Kaplan appeared first on Art Taylor.

I was so sorry to miss this year’s Bouchercon in New Orleans—especially because the Thursday night opening ceremonies included the presentation of this year’s Derringer Awards, and I wish I’d been there to accept the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer Award for Lifetime Achievement, such a tremendous honor!

Robert Lopresti hosted the awards presentation for the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and I’m grateful to Alan Orloff (my sometime dopplegänger!) for stepping up to accept the prize on my behalf. Here are the remarks I sent his way.

I’ll admit to being of two minds about receiving this year’s Golden Derringer Award. Thrilled by the honor, of course, but also stumbling over that phrase lifetime achievement—scrambling suddenly to take stock of where I’m at, what I’ve accomplished, what more I might have accomplished, and what possibilities still await (hopefully!) in the further lifetime ahead. To be honest, a lifetime achievement suggests I at least know what I’m doing, but—another admission—each blank page still leaves me scratching my head a-fresh: What now? What next? 

Whatever my struggles or status, however, I hope my work as a writer, an editor, and especially as a teacher have helped inspire and encourage other writers, at all stages, who have endeavored  to find their own way past that blank page and into a short story—both throughout our mystery community and especially in the Short Mystery Fiction Society, to whom I’m so overwhelmingly grateful for this award.

Thanks to Martha Reed for sending the photo at the top of the post. For more information on the award, here was the official announcement at the SMFS Blog. Appreciative as always of the Short Mystery Fiction Society and all its members!

The post Golden Derringer Award for Lifetime Achievement appeared first on Art Taylor.

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 continues the celebration for Crime Ink: Iconic: An Anthology of Crime Fiction Inspired by Queer Icons, co-edited by John Copenhaver and Salem West, publisher of Bywater Books. The anthology’s stories draw “inspiration from queer icons—James Baldwin, Oscar Wilde, Candy Darling, Radclyffe Hall, Babadook, Megan Rapinoe, Laverne Cox, Dolly Parton, Vita Sackville-West, and many more.” And the contributors list spans from emerging writers to some of the leading names in crime fiction today, including “New York Times Best Crime Novels of 2024 honorees Margot Douaihy, Robyn Gigl, John Copenhaver, and Katrina Carrasco; Lambda Literary winners Ann Aptaker, Greg Herren, Ann McMan, and J.M. Redmann; and other celebrated writers like Cheryl Head, Penny Mickelbury, Christa Faust, Jeffrey Marks, and Kelly J. Ford.”

Last week, we welcomed Anne Laughlin to discuss her story, “Swan Club” (essay here), and this week, Margot Douaihy joins us for some insights into her contribution, “High Hit Area.”

Douaihy is an assistant professor with the Popular Fiction MFA at Emerson College in Boston and is the is the author of the award-winning, bestselling Sister Holiday Mystery series, including Scorched Grace and Blessed Water—both named New York Times Best Crime Novels of the Year—and Divine Ruin, forthcoming in January 2026. Douaihy is also a poet, whose collections include Bandit/Queen: The Runaway Story of Belle Starr, Scranton Lace, and Girls Like You.  Find out more at Douaihy’s author website.

For more information on Crime Ink: Iconic, visit Bywater Books.

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.

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