The First Two Pages: “Hell Week” by Greg Dahlager

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.

Week Two of our series featuring contributors to the new anthology Minnesota Not-So-Nice welcomes Greg Dahlager, with a story that not only speaks to the collection’s theme but also proves timely with for this Back to School season. “Hell Week” refers to college fraternity and sorority hazing rituals, and as you’ll see in Dahlager’s essay below, such activities can prove dangerous—both accidentally and otherwise.

In addition to anthologies like this one, Dahlager’s short fiction has appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, and he has also won an award from Writer’s Digest. (Photo above by Niedorf Visuals.)

Dahlager’s essay here joins last week’s from Marcia Adair, and Minnesota Not-So-Nice: Eighteen Tales of Bad Behavior also features stories by Karen Engstrom Anderson, C.N. Buchholz, Barbara DaCosta, Barbara Merritt Deese, Pat Dennis, Douglas Dorow, Thekla Fagerlie-Madsen, Steven G. Hoffmeyer, Carol Huss, Karl W. Jorgenson, Brian Lutterman, Michael Allan Mallory, Colin T. Nelson, T.S. Owen, Sherry Roberts, and C.M. Surrisi. Edited by Barbara Merritt Deese, Pat Dennis, Michael Allan Mallory, and Timya Owen, the collection was published by the Twin Cities Chapter of Sisters in Crime.

And stay tuned for next week’s essay by Barbara DaCosta 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.