Bethany Maines is plotting at the beach.

Plotting a Murder

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Plotting all the Plots

Recently, I came across a call for a short story anthology focused on murder mysteries that took place in the workplace. However, the stipulation was that the death be dependent on that working situation. As a graphic designer, unless I accidentally stab my business partner to death with my college-era bone folder because she kerned too tightly, I don’t foresee a lot of work-related deaths in my future. So I had to look further afield, or at least into other fields of work, for my murderous plotting.

But having eyed my business partner for death once, I decided that she could be a useful resource – not as a dead body (she was relieved to hear this), but as a contact point for her brother, who works for a railroad. After all, with so much big machinery, a railroad seems a viable location for dangerous deaths.  Now, who to kill and how?

As we took our lunch break on a nearby beach, we discussed the whys and wherefores of offing someone.  I believe we frightened an older couple with a Yorkie.  Saying, “yes, but who should we kill?” is probably not the conversation they were expecting to overhear.  Once we had come up with a viable reason to kill someone, we needed a how.

Don’t Put Plotting on Your Brother’s Work Phone

But we also needed to figure out how to ask her brother, because as it turns out, his work provides his phone.  Which means that, should there be a problem, his tech support can view his messages. Plotting a murder over text is probably not something he would appreciate having on record.  So my business partner accepted the mission to discover how to kill someone at the railroad.  She performed this clandestine operation with the simple application of… a phone call. Fortunately, her brother, once he understood the assignment, was more than happy to share a myriad of ways to off a co-worker.  And whew! did he have some doozies!

So… How does it happen?

I can’t tell you that! However, I must admit that I had not even realized that death in this manner was a thing that could happen.  I was expecting “run over by a train” not baked from… nope, nope, nope, not spilling the manner of death.  I’ll keep it close to the vest until I’ve got a story to go with it.

But if you want something funny and dangerous to read sooner than that, you can check out…

Emergency Exit 3D book mock upEmergency Exit

Release Date: 9/22

Tech investor Asher Valkyrie hired Harper Smoak to be his fake girlfriend for stress-free social events, but the faux-relationship quickly sends real sparks flying. What began as a simple arrangement soon turns into a high-stakes game of love and survival when Ash’s lies begin to unravel.

LEARN MORE: https://amzn.to/3XEL9id

**

Bethany Maines is the award-winning author of action-adventure and fantasy tales that focus on women who know when to apply lipstick and when to apply a foot to someone’s hind end. She participates in many activities, including swearing, karate, art, and yelling at the news. She can usually be found chasing after her daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel (or screenplay). You can also catch up with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BookBub.

And don’t forget to check out books from all the Stiletto Gang members:  Books

It’s Release Month for Midnight Schemers (and a giveaway)!

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At long last, Midnight Schemers & Daydream Believers, the fifth Superior Shores Anthology releases this month. The first anthology, The Best Laid Plans, was launched on June 18, 2019, and being the superstitious sort, every one since has been released on June 18th.

Advance reviews have been great:

“What you see in the title is what you get with this book…twenty-two distinctive tales. It took me a while to read the entire book. These stories are like mini novels, in their power. I needed breathing time between them to mull over what made the twists work and what the authors had done to cleverly enable me to hold my breath in belief suspension for the length of their tale. There’s not a clunker in the bunch.”—Joan Leotta, multi-nominated author and storyteller 

“Editor Judy Penz Sheluk has assembled a stellar group of crime fiction authors for this extraordinary collection. Storytelling at its best!”— David Bart, short-story specialist, contributor to the Anthony Award-winning Mystery Writers of America anthology “Crime Hits Home.”  

“From thieves in a seedy Detroit bar to a nasty murder in Santa Cruz, Midnight Schemers & Daydream Believers reflects the creative knack of editor Judy Penz Sheluk, who has arranged these extraordinary stories by a host of talented authors into one fascinating anthology”—Wil A. Emerson, multi-published Derringer nominee.

“The twenty-two stories in Midnight Schemers and Daydream Believers encompass desire, dreams, and revenge in such a varied way that I had to read it cover to cover in one sitting! —Debra H. Goldstein, award-winning author (and fellow Stiletto Gang member)

Here’s a bit about Midnight Schemers & Daydream Believers: 22 Stories of Mystery & Suspense:

Desire or desperation, revenge or retribution—how far would you go to realize a dream? The twenty-two authors in this collection explore the possibilities, with predictably unpredictable results.

Featuring stories by Pam Barnsley, Linda Bennett, Clark Boyd, C.W. Blackwell, Amanda Capper, Susan Daly, James Patrick Focarile, Rand Gaynor, Gina X. Grant, Julie Hastrup, Beth Irish, Charlie Kondek, Edward Lodi, Bethany Maines, Jim McDonald, donalee Moulton, Michael Penncavage, Judy Penz Sheluk, KM Rockwood, Peggy Rothschild, Debra Bliss Saenger, and Joseph S. Walker.

FIND IT AT WWW.BOOKS2READ.COM/MIDNIGHT-SCHEMERS

And now, I promised you a giveaway. Contact me at www.judypenzsheluk.com/contact and mention this post for a chance to win an EPUB or paperback copy (winner’s choice). Winner will be selected on June 17th  and contacted at that time.

A Conversation with Art Taylor and Tara Laskowski

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by Paula Gail Benson

Annually, the Short Mystery Fiction Society (SMFS) recognizes excellence by awarding the Derringers (four categories based on word count—flash, short short, long short, and novelette). This year, an award is being given for best anthology.

In addition, the SMFS presents awards for a body of work. Art Taylor, who is well known for both his award-winning fiction and his extraordinary teaching skills, has been named the recipient of the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Both Art and his wife Tara Laskowski are phenomenal authors. Today, as we celebrate Art and short fiction, they were kind enough to stop by to discuss their life and work.

Welcome Art Taylor and Tara Laskowski to The Stiletto Gang!

  1. What is it like to write in a two-author household? What kind of schedule do you maintain to balance work, writing, and family life?

Tara: Art and I are answering these questions in a shared Google doc, and I think it’s telling that even though this is the first question you ask, we both skipped over it and answered all the other ones first. This is because, I think, we both are having a very hard time lately finding any sort of balance between work and creativity and life. It can be very hard to tap into creative energy when you are being pulled in so many other directions.

That said, we are fortunate to have such rich lives, filled with people we love and stories we want to tell. So I can’t complain too much!

 

Art: Agreed! And so funny Tara pointed this out. Sometimes I feel like we’re struggling to get through the “must-do” lists most days, much less finding time for the leisure of creative work. But then I have to remind myself how much we have to be grateful for in so many directions—and somehow we do manage to be productive in our literary lives. (You just don’t want to see how the sausage is made.)

Tara, Art, and Dash

  1. Your son is named for a famous writer and is fabulously talented in design. What questions does he ask about your work and your author companions? (I know he contributed a title to one of Donna Andrews’ books.)

Tara: He did! He named Donna’s Christmas title, Owl Be Home for Christmas. He was so proud that he told all his friends in his elementary class, and one of his friends asked for it for Christmas that year. (She got it!)

Dash is now 13, and we continue to be proud of him every day. He’s really talented with architectural drawing. In fact, he helps me visualize the settings of my novels by drawing maps and floor plans for me.

 

Art: Dash is an amazing artist and a gifted musician too—throwing himself into both disciplines with energy and enthusiasm. I have to stress these are areas of creativity that neither Tara nor I have much skill in, so not sure where he got these interests and abilities. But I myself often hold him up as a model of how we should approach our creative work—with a sense of play and passion.

 

  1. Each of you has experience working as an editor. What qualities make a good editor for an anthology (like Murder Under the Oaks) or a periodical (like Smoke Long Quarterly)?

Art: Openness to different kinds of stories beyond your own preferences for subject or style. An ability to see what a story is trying to do and to help a writer achieve their vision for it rather than push your own visions or ambitions on it. Some skill in communicating with writers where a story needs work—and then helping them find their own path to fixing issues.

 

Tara: I agree with everything Art says here. I’d also add—and this might seem like basic 101 stuff—that an editor has to be timely and dedicated. I’ve seen a lot of cases where someone decides, “Hey! I think I want to start an online journal today!” and they don’t realize how much time it takes and sort of just give up after a few months or a year or two. Which is a shame for the people whose stories they publish, as once a publication goes away (or goes stagnant), that work kind of disappears, too.

  1. When organizing collections of your own work, what do you think about? How do you determine what stories work well together and in what order they should appear?

 

Art: I actually just taught a course on Short Story Collections at George Mason University, looking at the architecture of several collections—linked stories, the novel in stories, but also those books that don’t have direct connection between the stories but return to similar themes or concerns. I want to shout-out both Sidik Fofana’s Stories from the Tenants Downstairs and Ananda Lima’s Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil as excellent collections, and for folks interested in the variety of ways a collection might come together, do try to find David Jauss’s “Stacking Stones: Building a Unified Short Story Collection” from the March/April 2005 issue of The Writer’s Chronicle.

With my latest collection, The Adventure of the Castle Thief and Other Expeditions and Indiscretions, I started to subtitle it “Stories Light and Dark”—to emphasize up front the range of tones here—and I tried to structure it as a movement from lighter, more traditional mysteries like the title story into darker territory: heavier themes, noir stylings, even a little bit of edgy speculative fiction. So you guide a reader through a bit, step by step.

 

Tara: When I first started thinking about collecting stories, I thought it was just a matter of picking your best ones until you had enough pages to make a book. That, of course, was silly. I’ve read so many excellent collections of stories since then (extra shout-out to Craft–that book is amazing!) and understand that creating a resonant story collection is a true art. When you get a good one (I’ll also shout-out Jeannette Winterson’s Night Side of the River, which I reviewed for Washington Independent Review of Books), you feel like you’re reading a cohesive text, individual stories that bounce off one other and echo and spiral off in ways that are truly inspiring.

 

I wouldn’t go as far to say my short story collections are true works of art, but they do both center around a theme and variations on that theme. For Bystanders, I pulled together stories that looked at the ways that acts of violence have a ripple effect. How are we affected by something really terrible that happens to someone else? So that collection, for example, has a story about a woman whose coworker is murdered, and she becomes obsessed with the boyfriend who might’ve killed her friend. It also has a story about a woman who witnesses an old man hitting and killing a young boy with his car, and her reaction to that horrifying moment causes her to do some dramatic things in her own marriage.

 

My other collection, Modern Manners For Your Inner Demons, is a weird little book that was incredibly fun to write. In that book, I play around with the idea of etiquette. I call it my dark etiquette book. It all sparked when I asked myself the question, what would it look like if we wrote etiquette guides for our sins and shames? So each story is centered around a “forbidden” or “shameful” subject, like The Etiquette of Adultery, The Etiquette of Homicide, etc.

 

  1. Art, your novel in short stories, On the Road with Del & Louise, won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Have you considered writing other novels using this format?

 

Art: I have, actually! The short story seems to match how I think and work—a form I very dearly love—but I also feel the pull toward a book-length project for a variety of reasons: the larger canvas, room for bigger ambitions, and then the fact that novels have greater opportunities for reaching readers, a longer shelf life too generally. Going back to the Fofana and Lima books I mentioned, earlier I love how each of them capitalizes on the short story—a variety of characters, subjects, storytelling approaches, perspectives—while also building a larger narrative. The best of both words in so many ways. In my own work, I’ve had the idea for a while for a novel in three linked novellas, but it’s only partially written and outlined so far. We’ll see.

 

  1. Tara, you have won the Agatha both for a novel and a short story. What are the different considerations you make with each form?

Tara: I’m a short story writer at heart. Really a flash fiction writer. The shorter the better. Novels are incredibly painful for me to write. Just ask Art how many times I’ve burst into tears over them. I like small moments. I like tinkering with phrases and mood. It’s hard to do that with a novel and not take 700 years to write one.

That said, there’s delight and awe in writing both forms. You can really dig into characters and build a world in a novel in ways you can’t do in short form.

 

  1. You have written a short story together. What was that experience like? Might you collaborate again?

Art: We’ve actually written two short stories together now—which I’m emphasizing because I kept wondering if the first one was going to break us up! Our writing processes are very, very different—which became starkly clear with that first story, “Both Sides Now” for the anthology Beat of Black Wings, featuring crime fiction inspired by the music of Joni Mitchell. Our story was a series of letters between a husband and wife—each of us writing a letter and then the other responding, shuttling the draft back and forth between us that way. Tara wrote each of her sections very quickly, then sent it my way, and… well, that ellipsis doesn’t hardly suggest how very long it took me to write my next section. Our next story went better—since the structure didn’t mean that Tara was waiting on me at every turn.

 

Tara: The second story we wrote together, which was published in Black Cat Mystery Magazine last year, was inspired by the game Clue: “After Their Convictions, Six Murderers Reflect on How Killing Mr. Boddy Changed Their Lives.” We thought it would be fun to take each of the classic characters from the game—Mrs. White, Professor Plum, Miss Scarlet, Mr. Green, Miss Peacock, and Colonel Mustard—and explore what happens to them after they are revealed to have killed Mr. Boddy. What was their motive for killing him? And what happens to them after? We split up the characters among us and each wrote small vignettes from the point of view of the characters. It was a lot of fun.

 

  1. Do you have advice for writers who want to concentrate on short stories?

 

Art: Familiarizing yourself with the form is key; one year, I read all of the Edgar Award winners for Best Short Story—and I learned so much about the diversity of approaches that writers can take. Later, I was fortunate to be invited to lead a four-part webinar, “Short and Sweet,” on writing short stories for Sisters in Crime, where I tried to share some thoughts at more length. It’s in the Webinar Library at https://www.sistersincrime.org for SinC members’ access.

 

  1. What are your current projects and what new publications do you have available?

 

Tara: I am working on my fourth novel, The Cold Read, which will be out in November 2026 and involves a cult horror movie cast returning to the abandoned ski lodge where they filmed the flick that made them all famous.

 

Art: My latest collection is The Adventure of the Castle Thief and Other Expeditions and Indiscretions, nearly two years old now. My story “Dark Thread, Loose Strands” from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine last year has been selected by Steph Cha and Don Winslow for this year’s Best American Mystery and Suspense, forthcoming this fall. And I have a couple of other stories coming out ahead this year, including “Dalliances” in a new collection from Crippen & Landru, tentatively titled Double Crossing Van Dine, in which contributors systematically break 20 rules of mystery fiction set out by S.S. Van Dine—a companion to School of Hard Knox, which took the same approach to the rules established by Monsignor Ronald Knox!

Thank you, Art and Tara, for being with us today. To read all of Art and Tara’s work, check out their websites at: https://arttaylorwriter.com/ and https://taralaskowski.com/ 

Mystery Short Story Nominations

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by Paula Gail Benson

It’s that time of year when nominations are announced. Mystery short stories have categories in the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgars (for best short story and the Robert L. Fish award for best first short story), the Agathas given at Malice Domestic, and the Thrillers presented at Thrillerfest. Following are the nominees. The Agathas have links so you can read the stories–just click on the link. Notice how many nominations are for Amazon original stories. Congratulations to all those nominated!

Mystery Writers of America Edgar Nominations for:

BEST SHORT STORY

“CUT AND THIRST,” Amazon Original Stories by Margaret Atwood (Amazon Publishing)
“EVERYWHERE YOU LOOK,” Amazon Original Stories by Liv Constantine (Amazon Publishing)
“EAT MY MOOSE,” Conjunctions: 82, Works & Days by Erika Krouse (Bard College)
“BARRIERS TO ENTRY,” Amazon Original Stories by Ariel Lawhon (Amazon Publishing)
“THE ART OF CRUEL EMBROIDERY,” Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine – July-August 2024 by Steven Sheil (Dell Magazine)

ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD – Endowed by the family of Robert L. Fish.

“THE LEGEND OF PENNY AND THE LUCK OF THE DRAW CASINO,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, May-June 2024 by Pat Gaudet (Dell Magazines)
“HEAD START,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, September-October 2024 by Kai Lovelace (Dell Magazines)
“MURDER UNDER SEDATION,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, March-April 2024 by Lawrence Ong (Dell Magazines)
“THE JEWS ON ELM STREET,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, September-October 2024 by Anna Stolley Persky (Dell Magazines)
“SPARROW MAKER,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, November-December 2024 by Jake Stein (Dell Magazines)

 

Malice Domestic Agatha Nominations:

BEST SHORT STORY

“A MATTER OF TRUST” by Barb Goffman, Three Strikes–You’re Dead

“REYNISFJARA” by Kristopher Zgorski, Mystery Most International

“SATAN’S SPIT” by Gabriel Valjan, Tales of Music, Murder and Mayhem: Bouchercon 2024

“SINS OF THE FATHER” by Kerry Hammond, Mystery Most International

“THE POSTMAN ALWAYS FLIRTS TWICE” by Barb Goffman, Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy

 

Thrillerfest Thriller Nominations:

BEST SHORT STORY

NOT A DINNER PARTY PERSON by Stefanie Leder (Soho Crime)

DOUBLE PARKED by Twist Phelan (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)

JACKRABBIT SKIN by Ivy Pochoda (Amazon Original Stories)

THE DOLL’S HOUSE by Lisa Unger (Amazon Original Stories)

AND NOW, AN INSPIRING STORY OF TRAGEDY OVERCOME by Joseph S. Walker (Wildside Press)

Derringer Awards

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Awards Season is Here!

No, it’s not time for the Oscar’s or anything normal people care about.  I’m talking about the extremely niche category of mystery short story awards.  The Short Fiction Mystery Society, a volunteer-lead group of short fiction writers annually hosts the Derringer Awards.  Any member is welcome to submit a short story that has been published in the previous year in four categories.  The stories are judged by volunteers from the society membership and ranked on a standardized score card.

The Rage Cage

While novels are my primary format for writing, periodically I do try to stretch my skills and do some short story writing. The format is different and it makes it much easier to try out some different genres. This year I only submitted one of my short stories – The Rage Cage.  It’s a brisk little story about re-evaluating life, questioning self-narratives, Chuck Norris, and of course… revenge.  It’s also about the manager of a Rage Cage, a business that allows you to suit up and go smash whatever you want. Mostly it was a chance to try out the Rural Noir genre and write a story about telling yourself the right kind of personal narrative.  The year that I helped judge I was impressed by both the quality and the variety of stories and I know that the story I submitted is up against some tough competition. However, judging for the Derringer’s runs from February through March, so I know I’ve got until April to find out if my story picks up a nod.

Larceny & Last Chances is a Derringer Awards Finalist!

Anthology Awards

However, in a break from previous tradition, this year the SFMS is trying a new award for anthologies and Larceny & Last Chances, the anthology containing The Rage Cage has been listed as a finalist.  With 56 anthologies nominated, getting to the finalist stage is pretty impressive, and I’m extremely happy for all of the authors and our editor, Judy Penz Sheluk (a returning Stiletto Gang member). Final awards for the anthologies will also be in announced in April, so send some thoughts and prayers our way. In the meantime, if you’re interested in checking out some award-worthy short stories check out Larceny & Last Chances!

Larceny & Last Chances: https://amzn.to/3xUNg7Z

Sometimes it’s about doing the right thing. Sometimes it’s about getting even. Sometimes it’s about taking what you think you deserve. And sometimes, it’s your last, best, chance. 

**

Bethany Maines is the award-winning author of action-adventure and fantasy tales that focus on women who know when to apply lipstick and when to apply a foot to someone’s hind end. She participates in many activities including swearing, karate, art, and yelling at the news. She can usually be found chasing after her daughter, or glued to the computer working on her next novel (or screenplay). You can also catch up with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BookBub.

A New Year and a New Anthology

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by Paula Gail Benson

Happy new year to all! I hope your reading and writing is bringing you much joy.

I’ve written before about belonging to the Lowcountry Romance Writers (LRWA, a chapter of the Romance Writers of America). I’ve continued to be a member, even though it is based in Charleston, S.C. and I live in Columbia, because its membership is so delightful, and its programs and projects offer some great opportunities to learn and practice the craft of romance writing.

Even though I have a few romantic short stories to my publication credit, I don’t consider myself primarily a romance author. My concentration lies more with mystery stories.

I do have great admiration for romance authors in their ability to work out unique stories following a fairly-well defined and expected structure. I also really appreciate their tremendous expertise in marketing their work. Not to mention that reading a good romance about fascinating characters facing strong, realistic challenges is a wonderful fictional diversion because you can always count on a happy ending.

For the previous two anthologies, I’ve enjoyed working on time travel stories. In Love in the Lowcountry, Volume One, my characters journey to Charleston of the 1930’s. My story in Volume Two has modern characters interacting with those living during President George Washington’s visit to Charleston.

For the upcoming Volume Three, which must involve a South Carolina vacation, I followed up on the antagonists featured in my story from Volume One. How do two very disagreeable folks redeem themselves and find they might have their own love story?

Are you a fan of Bill Murray’s movie Groundhog Day? Well, picture the former antagonists having to relive fifteen-minute time loops, each period taking them further back in history. Combine that with a connection to Edgar Allan Poe’s military service on Sullivan’s Island and you have my new story, “Poe Substitute.”

Please watch for news of Volume Three, which will be released in early March 2025. I’ll be bringing you additional updates as the time for publication approaches.

If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll check out our previous Love in the Lowcountry (A Winter Holiday Collection Book 1) (now available on Amazon Kindle for only $1.99—14 great stories!) and Love in the Lowcountry Volume 2: A Winter Holiday Collection (also available on Amazon Kindle for only $1.99—11 great stories). And don’t forget to celebrate with our LRWA authors the release of Volume Three in March 2025!

Seasonal Mood Disorder

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Seasonal Mood Disorder Better Known (for me) as December

By: Donnell Ann Bell

Yesterday, I stared out my great room windows to be greeted with darkness—at five p.m. I was still standing upright, hadn’t made dinner yet, and was beginning to yawn.

 

Somehow, I created a nice chef salad dinner, finished my friend Author Barbara Nickless’s, The Drowning Game, which is excellent, by the way, and did my physical therapy exercises. After that, my husband and I played cards and watched a half hour of television.

I did all this because if I went to bed at seven p.m. I would be up at two a.m. So, I worked hard to make it till nine p.m. And despite my best efforts awoke at midnight.

According to Wikipedia, Seasonal Mood Disorder (paraphrasing) affects typically “normal” people with seasonal depression symptoms associated with the reduction and/or decrease in total daily sunlight.

The article also says the following symptoms accompany SAD.

  • A tendency to overeat
  • A tendency to sleep too much
  • A general feeling of malaise or sluggishness

I think it’s ironic that during the busiest time of year, e.g. holiday shopping, Christmas cards, newsletters, parties, travel, in addition to writing a book, my body is telling me to slow down.

I refuse to give in.  To combat SAD, I am:

  • Exercising during daylight hours
  • Stocking my pantry with limited snacking items
  • Standing while writing instead of sitting
  • And watching the clock.

Source: Pixabay Photo by Jonathan Stoklas

 

If I were smart, I’d give up caffeine, but, hey, I’m only human.

The winter solstice, e.g. the shortest day of the year, is December 21 or 22 and occurs when either of the Earth ‘s poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. (Again Source: Wikipedia).

It could be worse; I could be a bear.  Did you know bears hibernate from October, November until April—or when the snow melts?

 

I think there’s something to SAD. On December 26th, I feel better?  How about you? How’s your energy level during December?

 

 

 

 

Anthologies (and Ghost Stories) for the Holidays

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by Paula Gail Benson

For today’s short story post, I want to tell you about two new short story anthologies and an annual “Drabble” (100-word story) tradition that celebrates the “haunted” aspect of the holidays!

Two new short story anthologies have been recently released. The Capitol Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime featured fifteen authors in FARM TO FOUL PLAY. The Bethlehem Writers Group’s holiday-based SEASON’S READINGS has twenty-one stories from its members and from winners of its 2023 and 2024 short story contests.

Here’s the information about these anthologies from their Amazon descriptions. Please consider adding them to your “to-be-read” lists!

Farm to Foul Play: 2024 Capitol Crimes Anthology

 

Edited by Jennifer K. Morita. Forward by Tori Eldridge: “. . . if you want to understand a community, home cooking and agriculture is often the best place to begin.”

 

Sacramento, California, lies at the heart of the largest agricultural producer in the nation. Known as the Farm-to-Fork Capital of America, this beautiful region produces hundreds of crops each year and has become recognized as a great restaurant city thanks to the chefs who use locally-grown, locally-sourced ingredients.

 

Fifteen amazing authors — William Bishop, Sarah Bresniker, Chris Dreith, Susan Egan, Elaine Faber, Karen Harrington, Debra Henry, Virginia V. Kidd, Karen A. Phillips, Brian Shea, Linda Joy Singleton, Darrell Smith, Joanna Vander Vlugt, Nick Webster, and Dänna Wilberg — have captured the bounty of all Sacramento has to offer … with a little mayhem thrown in.

 

Expert judges selected fifteen stories by Capitol Crimes members, who captured the bounty of all Sacramento has to offer … with a little mayhem thrown in.

 

 

Season’s Readings: More Sweet, Funny, and Strange Holiday Tales (A Sweet, Funny, and Strange Anthology)

Edited by Marianne H. Donley and Carol L. Wright.

 

In this new addition to the “Sweet, Funny, and Strange”(R) series of anthologies, the multi-award-winning Bethlehem Writers Group, LLC, returns to its roots. As denizens in and around Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (also known as “Christmas City, USA”), we were happy to make our first anthology a collection of holiday tales. But one volume just wasn’t enough. Now, in our eighth anthology, we’re returning to the theme to bring you twenty-one new stories that span the holidays from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Eve.

 

Emwryn Murphy’s sweet tale tells about a chosen family’s “Friendsgiving,” crashed by a blood relative who might, or might not, be happy with what he sees in “As Simple as That.” Jerome W. McFadden once again reveals his humorous side in his story about a would-be Santa who gets into trouble in “Flue Shot.” A. E. Decker shares an intricate Christmas fantasy about “The Goblin King’s Music Box.” And Paula Gail Benson gives a new twist to a traditional symbol for the New Year in “Star of the Party.” Beyond these holidays, Diane Sismour writes about Krampusnacht, Debra H. Goldstein about Pearl Harbor Day, and Peter J Barbour about Hanukkah. Other favorite BWG authors, including Jeff Baird, Ralph Hieb, D.T. Krippene, Christopher D. Ochs, Dianna Sinovic, Kidd Wadsworth, and Carol L. Wright, also share their holiday musings.

 

In addition, this volume includes the 2023 and 2024 award-winning stories from the Bethlehem Writers Roundtable Short Story Awards. Sally Milliken, the 2023 first-place winner, presents “The First Thanksgiving.” From 2024, we have our top three winners with first-place winner Rhonda Zangwill’s “Oh! Christmas Tree,” second-place winner Bettie Nebergall’s “Just Ask Santa,” and third-place winner Mary Adler’s “Narragansett Nellie and the Transferware Platter.”

One more note: Loren Eaton is again hosting his Advent Ghosts 100-word stories beginning on Saturday, December 14 and connected through his blog I SAW LIGHTNING FALL. If you are interested in contributing, here are the rules:

  1. Email Loren at ISawLightningFall [at] proton [dot] me if you want to participate. (Please note that this is a different email address from previous years.)
  2. Pen a story that’s exactly 100-words long—no more, no less.
  3. Post the story to your blog anywhere from Saturday, December 14, to Friday, December 20. Hosting on ISLF is available for those without blogs or anyone who wants to write under a pseudonym. (Don’t worry, you’ll retain copyright!)
  4. Email the link of your story to me.
  5. While you should feel free to write whatever you want to, know that Loren reserves the right to put a content warning on any story he thinks needs it.

If you haven’t read the collected stories, here’s the link to check them out: https://isawlightningfall.blogspot.com/

An Interview with Raegan Teller

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I met Raegan Teller through our local Sisters in Crime Palmetto Chapter. In fact, Raegan and I were two of the founding members of the chapter. Since that time, she has independently published seven Enid Blackwell mysteries, marketing them herself through personal appearances at unique festivals and events, most of which are not focused on books. In addition, she has written numerous short stories and organized local Noir at the Bar programs.

Raegan, it’s a great pleasure to have you here at The Stiletto Gang to tell us about your writing journey.

If you have not already read Raegan Teller’s work, add it to your “to be read” list. You’ll truly enjoy it and find it’s an excellent holiday gift!

                                                                        Paula Gail Benson

Raegan Teller

Q: What was your earliest memory of wanting to be an author?

RT: I began reading mysteries as a young girl: Nancy Drew, Trixie Belton, and then later Agatha Christie, Daphne Du Maurier, Victoria Holt, and Phyllis Whitney. Those were the mystery authors the library carried. And like most avid readers, I dreamed of writing my own novels one day. But it was just a pipe dream for most of my life.

Q: Your work experiences have shaped your writing. Tell us about your background and how it helped or found its way into your stories.

RT: I worked for a Fortune 100 company for most of my working life. I held numerous positions and roles, but the ones I enjoyed most were those with a lot of writing involved. But working for a large insurance company, I also investigated auto and other accidents, took statements from accident witnesses, and much more. When I left that company after 20+ years, I started my own management consulting company and found myself doing a lot of writing for my clients. I particularly enjoyed writing white papers because they are just another form of storytelling. I also did some editing work for clients. While my dream of writing a mystery got buried somewhere along the way, little did I realize that all those experiences would help me write mysteries. And my main character, Enid Blackwell, mirrors a lot of my own frustrations with large corporations. All of my work and life experiences have contributed in some way to my stories.

Q: In developing your craft, you studied a number of places with wonderful instructors. Tell us about your journey to becoming a fiction writer.

RT: I’m laughing as I respond to this question because my journey was rocky. First of all, while I was an experienced business writer and editor, I had never written fiction. The goal of business writing is to make sure all questions are answered and that you keep yourself and your feelings out of your writing. I was good at that. But when I tried to write fiction, I was baffled when it came to diving into my emotions and letting them feed by stories, or how to hide information from readers. Worse yet was allowing myself to mislead the readers with red herrings—false clues. Writing fiction was the total opposite of what I knew how to do, and it was maddening! So I took a number of workshops from writing experts around the country. One was Jerry Cleaver, who wrote Immediate Fiction and taught classes at The Writers’ Loft in Chicago. I quickly became annoyed with him, even though he was right. I can still hear him repeatedly saying “add more conflict.” As acclaimed as he was, his teaching style just never clicked for me—but I did learn to add more conflict! I also took a few workshops with Donald Maas (Writing the Breakout Novel), where I learned that my first novel would not be a breakout by his definition. At some point in my journey, I saw an advertisement for Alan Watt’s LA Writers Lab. He believed you should quickly write a novel in 90 Days and clean it up later. And I actually did finish a draft of my first novel in 90 days. (I’ve kept it to remind me how awful my writing can be.) But Watt clicked with me for reasons other than writing quickly, and I ended up doing individual coaching and numerous workshops with him. I loved how he taught story structure and made it less intimidating. He is a screenwriter, so I learned to visualize my story as I wrote. Like Cleaver, Watt offered me a constant reminder, but his was “go deeper.” By far, Watt was the most influential instructor I worked with. With his coaching, I produced the final version of my first novel, Murder in Madden, after three years of trial and error. (I wrote the second novel in eight months.)

Q: You base your novels on cold cases and pending court matters. How did you decide the subject matter for each of your novels?

RT: My novels are inspired by, rather than based on, real-life crimes and events, that either happened near me or just resonated with me in some way. The genesis of my series was the murder of my husband’s seventeen-year-old cousin, who disappeared from a bus stop in Columbia, SC, in 1990. Several days later, they found her body but no has ever been charged with the murder. I wanted to write a non-fiction book about her with the message that we shouldn’t forget these victims. But I didn’t have enough material for a book. Instead, I decided to write a fictional story about a forgotten teenage victim, Rose Marie Garrett, in Murder in Madden. Following that pattern, I chose a real-life victim to be my muse for each subsequent novel.

Q: Is your protagonist, reporter Enid Blackwell, based on a real person? Does she share any of your characteristics?

RT: One of my earliest childhood heroes was Nellie Bly, one of the first female investigative journalists. From the time I read her biography, I wanted to be a journalist just like her. But like many young people, I was encouraged instead to pursue a more practical career. In many ways, Enid Blackwell is a contemporary version of Nellie Bly. As to whether Enid and I share characteristics, I get asked that question a lot. Many of my close friends and family see a lot of me in her. We both have red hair, and we’re both determined to accomplish what we set out to do—some would call that hardheaded. We both value friends and family. But she’s far braver than I, and unlike Enid, I like to cook.

Q: How did you decide to publish independently? What benefits does that offer? What difficulties does it present?

RT: I used to teach a class on self-publishing that was four hours long, but I’ll try to be brief here. When I began looking at publishing options for my first book around 2015, I interviewed both traditionally published and independently published authors—of which there were few at that time. Self-publishing was just emerging as a viable option and was still shaking off its vanity press reputation. The indie authors I talked with had all turned to SP when they were unable to get an agent and/or publisher. SP was not their choice but their fallback. After spending all my working life in large corporations and then owning my own consulting firm, managing my own publishing company was appealing. I knew how to set up and run a small business. And I made a vow to myself that if I made the decision to go indie, I would not try traditional publishing at all. I wanted to choose SP, not use it as a fallback. So I formed Pondhawk Press LLC. SP is a lot of work because you’re running a business. You make investments in cover design, editing, proofing, etc., with your own money, so you need to have cash to get started. DIY is not advised! I do a lot of in-person events, so my husband, who is also my business partner, manages our inventory, provides set-up assistance, helps scope out new venues, and much more. I couldn’t do it without the help of my team, which also includes my editor, proofreader, cover designer, and more. And of course, you have to promote your work constantly on social media and elsewhere. You have to have a marketing plan. It’s a lot of work, but very rewarding for me. I’ll conclude by saying that SP is definitely not for everyone, but for some of us it’s the only way to go.

Q: Which characters have you particularly enjoyed writing? Are they the characters readers identify with most?

RT: My protagonist, Enid Blackwell, has become a close friend. We talk all the time, and she helps me when I get stuck—usually in the dreaded “middle.” I sometimes ask her questions before I fall asleep at night, and she usually gives me an answer. Aside from Enid, there are many “favorite” characters in my books. In addition to Enid, my readers love Jack Johnson, the newspaper editor, and Josh Hart, Enid’s love interest. Some of my favorites include Sheriff Boogie Waters (Secrets Never Told) and Drake Harrow the police investigator and Cassandra the fortune teller, in my latest novel Murder Vision. Harrow, aka Big D, is part Jamaican and I enjoyed learning a bit of Patois, a form of Jamaican creole, for his character. My readers love the series’ characters and often comment on them. I’m fortunate to have both male and female loyal readers, and I’m always surprised and delighted when they tell me who their favorite characters are and what they like about them.

Q: Did you always know you would write a series?

RT: Heck no! I wrote Murder in Madden as a way to honor a real-life, forgotten victim. But I fell in love with my characters and knew they had more stories to tell. So I declared at my first book launch that I would have four books in the series—a number I just pulled out of the air. But after four books, I kept going. The seventh novel in the series, Murder Vision, was published in September 2024 and will be the last in that series—at least for a while. But I already miss talking with Enid.

Q: You also write short stories. What challenges do they present?

RT: I love the challenge of developing a character and telling a story in a few words. My sweet spot is around 2000 words, but I enjoy flash fiction also. Short stories are fun to write, and they keep me writing between novels. I love to write stories from image prompts. There’s a picture on the bulletin board in my office of a lone grave in the middle of a field in Lexington that I took not long ago. I can’t wait to write a story about it.

Q: How do you like organizing Noir at the Bar events? What do writers learn from reading their stories out loud?

RT: I absolutely love Noir at the Bar! I host these at a local bar several times a year and invite other authors to participate. Humans are storytellers by nature, and sharing stories with others is very primal for me. Writing for an audience, like at Noir events, is different than writing for print readers. For one thing, you have to use more dialogue tags because the audience can’t see where the characters change as they would on a page, so they can get confused if the writer isn’t clear on who’s speaking. I read all my novels and stories aloud during the editing process, and it’s a great way to spot areas that may be confusing. Also, writing for a live audience is not the place to be “literary.” Stories that might be appropriate for a literary magazine typically don’t play well to an audience because they are often abstract. Reading for a live audience works best when you stick to writing an entertaining story that has a clear beginning, middle, and end—like a story you’d tell around a campfire.

Q: What advice would you give to writers?

RT: Two things. The first is to keep writing. It’s easy to get distracted and lose focus. There are many reasons you can give yourself for not writing but only one reason to keep going: you must write because your heart compels it. The second piece of advice is to be clear to yourself about your writing goals. There’s nothing wrong with writing as a hobby with no inclination to get published. But if you do decide to publish, be clear about what you want from it—recognition or fame, money, self-satisfaction, or something else. And whatever your goal is, be certain you’re willing to invest your time, money, and other resources into achieving that goal. Self-publishing has made it somewhat easy to publish a book, but then many writers despair because their sales are low. And many traditionally published authors are having to do most of the promoting themselves because of budget cuts. Many writers I’ve talked with have admitted they have no marketing plan, run no ads, and have no goals other than to “sell more books.” Then I have to ask, “Why are you writing? What do you hope to achieve? And if that goal is important, what are you willing to do to make it happen?”

Q: How has your family influenced your writing?

RT: My own family has been very supportive, and my husband in particular is my rock. Without him, I couldn’t do what I do. My sister is always talking about and selling my books. While I’m fortunate to have a wonderful, loving family, I know that not everyone is as blessed. Relationships in general are complex. My books often explore the complexities within both blood and chosen families, which often include betrayal, heartache, and worse.

Q: What are you writing now?

RT: I recently started writing a new series set in Raven’s Rest, NC, a small, fictitious town in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I prefer to read and write about small towns rather than large cities because I love the interplay of everybody-knows-everybody and everybody-has-a-secret. I’m also working on what I think will be a stand-alone novella titled Burning Memories. I can write short and I can write long, so I want to challenge myself to write a mid-length 30K to 40K story. It will be a departure from murder mysteries—more in the style of Nicholas Sparks. Recently, I’ve been reading Stephen King’s novellas because he’s a master of the novella, as is Jo Nesbo.

For more information, visit Raegan Teller.com or the Enid Blackwell Mystery Series on Amazon.