The First Two Pages: “Fake News” by Larry Light

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.

Last week at the First Two Pages, I hosted Meredith Anthony‘s reflections on “Reader, I Killed Him,” her latest story for Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. This week, Anthony’s husband, Larry Light, steps up to discuss his story in the same issue, “Fake News”—and such a rare delight to have both husband and wife celebrating stories in AHMM at the same time. Such a delight too for me to host both of them here.

In her essay last week, Anthony spent some time talking about how much work a title can do—in her case deliberately echoing a well-known line from Jane Eyre—and Light’s title “Fake News” clearly carries some cultural weight of its own. Does that make the story? polemical? How about personal, given Light’s own background as a journalist? He’ll address all those questions and more in the essay below.

Speaking of Light’s journalistic background: He’s currently the markets editor for Chief Investment Officer magazine, building on a career that includes stints as investing editor of the Wall Street Journal, finance editor of Forbes and Money, economics reporter at CBS MoneyWatch, and the corporate finance reporter for Business Week. And on the fiction side, his latest novel is Crash, a thriller co-written with David Hagberg. You can find out more about that book and all Light’s fiction at his website here.

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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