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.
Robert Lopresti was the first author I hosted at the First Two Pages when I began curating the blog series; he wrote about his story “The Chair Thief” in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. And I’ve hosted Rob another time since then, reflecting on “Underpass” from Black Cat Mystery Magazine. But while I generally aim for variety in the authors who appear here, I couldn’t resist when Rob told me about his new anthology Crimes Against Nature: New Stories of Environmental Villainy, a collection spurred on by his continuing interest in ecological issues, as he explains in the essay below. And if you haven’t checked out Rob’s novel Greenfellas, you should!
Here’s more information on the anthology from Down & Out Books:
The way we treat the world is a crime—fifteen of them, in fact. Some of the best and most honored mystery writers today have written new stories for this book dealing with environmental issues including pollution, wildfire, invasive species, climate change, recycling, and many more.
Authors include Michael Bracken, Susan Breen, Sarah M. Chen, Barb Goffman, Karen Harrington, Janice Law, R.T. Lawton, Robert Lopresti, Jon McGoran, Josh Pachter, Gary Phillips, S.J. Rozan, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Mark Stevens, and David Heska Wanbli Weiden.
The stories cover a wide variety of styles including noir, comic, caper, psychological, police procedural, and even a tale inspired by comic books.
Putting their money where their mouths are, the authors have chosen ecologically-themed non-profits who will receive half the royalties.
And stay tuned for essays by more contributors over the next two weeks!
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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