Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine launched a new blog last week dedicated to “suspense, short stories, and the mystery-fiction scene.” It’s called Something Is Going to Happen, a title which editor Janet Hutchings explains in her introductory column. I was very flattered — and a little intimidated — to be asked to write the first guest post for the blog, and somewhere in between those responses, I managed to get something written. My contribution, “‘The Moment of Decision’ — Perched on the Edge of What Happens Next,” begins with a discussion of Stanley Ellin’s stories, takes a quick look at a short story criteria sketched out by John Updike, and then considers the idea of the open-ended story (in several of its permutations and levels of open-endedness).
Also this week, First Person Plural, the blog for The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland, featured a preview that I wrote for an upcoming BookTalk on Double Indemnity, both the original novel by James M. Cain and the upcoming stage adaptation at Bethesda’s Round House Theatre. That event takes place on Sunday, June 10, at 12:30 p.m., and the feature includes some comments from Blake Robison, producing artistic director for Round House, as well as several of the panelists: novelists Megan Abbott and Con Lehane, and National Public Radio and Washington Post critic Maureen Corrigan. Also participating on the panel will be Eleanor Holdridge, director of the new production. I’m serving as the moderator. — Art Taylor