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.
My wife, son, and I have long been fans of Fleur Bradley’s novels for younger readers—especially her latest two books: Midnight at the Barclay Hotel and Daybreak on Raven Island. (Our son Dash loves hotels and he loves San Francisco and he visited Alcatraz and . . . and basically everything Fleur writes is right up Dash’s alley.) So I jumped at the chance to welcome Fleur to the First Two Pages to talk about her new story, “Sunday in the Park with George,” for the anthology Every Day A Little Death: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Stephen Sondheim, edited by Josh Pachter and published by Level Best Books. But fair warning from Fleur in the essay below, this story is for adults and takes readers to darker places than she’d dare for her younger audiences.
In addition to the two novels mentioned above, Fleur is also the author of the Double Vision trilogy, and she’s a frequent short story writer as well—and just earned a new honor, having a story of hers from Dark Yonder chosen for the anthology Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024. For more information on Fleur’s work for readers of all ages, visit her website at ftbradley.com.
And in addition to reading her essay below, do look back at last week’s essay by Brian Cox, on his story “Being Alive” in the Sondheim anthology—and stay tuned for more essays in the weeks ahead!
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.
Fleur-Bradley
