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.
Today is publication day for Hot Shots: Celebrating Thirty Years of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, edited by Josh Pachter and reprinting 28 Derringer Award-winning stories. The Society was founded in 1996 and began awarding the Derringers two years later, and the anthology features one story from each year sampling in the process the range of Derringers as well, from flash fiction to novelette. From Kris Neri’s “L.A. Justice,” which won in the Short Story category the first year, to Josh Pachter’s own “The Wind Phone,” which won in the same category last year, the anthology offers an overview of three decades of dynamic short fiction.
The First Two Pages is pleased to host a few of the authors selected for Hot Shots, beginning this week with BV Lawson, whose story “The Touch of Death” won the Derringer for Best Short Story in 2012. You can find out more about Lawson at her website: bvlawson.com.
And here’s the full list of stories included in the collection—which you can pick up here. Plenty to enjoy in these pages, whatever kind of crime fiction you like best, and glad to have a story of my own included too.
1998: “L.A. Justice,” by Kris Neri (Best Short Story)
1999: “Pretty Kitty,” by Joyce Holland (Best Flash Story)
2000: “Just a Man on the Sidewalk,” by Carol Kilgore (Best Flash Story)
2001: “The Cabin Killer,” by Henry Slesar (Best Puzzle Story)
2002: “All the Fine Actors,” by Earl Staggs (Best Short Story)
2003: “Closure,” by Dave White (Best Short Story)
2004: “Notions of the Real World,” by Dorothy Rellas (Best Mid-Length Short Story)
2005: “Viscery,” by Sandy Balzo (Best Mid-Length Short Story)
2006: “Secondhand Shoe,” by Patricia Harrington (Best Flash Story)
2007: “Cranked,” by Bill Crider (Best Mid-Length Story)
2008: “The Gospel According to Gordon Black,” by Richard Helms (Best Long Story)
2009: “No Flowers for Stacey,” by Ruth McCarty (Best Flash Story)
2010: “Famous Last Words,” by Doug Allyn (Best Long Story)
2011: “Pewter Badge,” by Michael J. Solender (Best Short Story)
2012: “The Touch of Death,” by BV Lawson (Best Short Story)
2013: “When Duty Calls,” by Art Taylor (Best Long Story)
2014: “Luck Is What You Make,” by Stephen D. Rogers (Best Flash Story)
2015: “The Kaluki Kings of Queens,” by Cathi Stoler (Best Short Story)
2016: “Twilight Ladies,” by Meg Opperman (Best Short Story)
2017: “The Phone Call,” by Herschel Cozine (Best Flash Story)
2018: “The Cop Who Liked Gilbert and Sullivan,” by Robert Lopresti (Best Short Story)
2019: “Dying in Dokesville,” by Alan Orloff (Best Short Story)
2020: “On the Road with Mary Jo,” by John M. Floyd (Best Short Story)
2021: “The Great Bedbug Incident and the Invitation of Doom,” by Eleanor Cawood Jones (Best Short Story)
2022: “The Downeaster ‘Alexa,’” by Michael Bracken (Best Long Story)
2023: “My Two-Legs,” by Melissa Yi (Best Short Story)
2024: “The Referee,” by C.W. Blackwell (Best Flash Story)
2025: “The Wind Phone,” by Josh Pachter (Best Short Story)
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.
The-First-Two-Pages-BV-Lawson
