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.
Neil Plakcy reached out in October with a great bit of news: His story “The Missing Delegate” from the anthology Private Dicks and Disco Balls had been included in the honorable mention section of this year’s Best American Mystery and Suspense anthology. I’m always eager to see which stories have been selected for inclusion in the annual collection (and grateful that one of my own stories is reprinted in this year’s), but I also race eagerly to the list of stories that were also considered, and I’m thrilled to regularly see so many writers I know getting shout-outs there. What a nice opportunity Neil offered to spotlight this list of writers in addition to sharing some reflections on his own story!
Private Dicks and Disco Balls was published by Down & Out Books… which, as many readers may know, has closed down its publishing house—news which sent shock waves through the mystery community. Michael Bracken, editor of the anthology, wrote a post about the news at SleuthSayers. And while you can still find copies of the collection for sale, Neil has generously made the story available here for free for readers who register for his newsletter.
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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