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.
I’m so pleased to welcome another of my Henery Press buddies to the blog today: Nancy Cole Silverman talking about the first two pages her of new novel Reason to Doubt—just released today!—the fifth book in her Carol Childs mystery series.
As Nancy explains on her website, “Invariably, the stories I choose to tell are inspired by personal experience… even when the story turns out to be about a modern-day centaur or a horse that breaks loose from its rider and ends up on a Los Angeles freeway.” In the case of Carol Childs, the personal experience Nancy draws on is a little more down-to-earth. Carol is a veteran reporter for a talk radio station in Los Angeles, and Nancy had a long career in the radio industry herself—twenty-five years, in fact, first as on-air talent and then behind-the-scenes, ultimately working her way up to general manager in one of the nation’s largest markets.
To find out more about both the author and her character, check out Nancy’s website here—and I hope that the essay below whets your appetite not just for the new book but for the full series as well.
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.
Silverman Reason to Doubt