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.
This year’s ShortCon has come up frequently in my introductions to the last few essays here at the First Two Pages; the series on Wish Upon a Crime: Crime Fiction Inspired by Fairy Tales featured a couple of ShortCon attendees and the book itself was edited by conference hosts Michael Bracken and Stacy Woodson. But while we’re moving on from that anthology, I want to keep celebrating ShortCon and specifically the sense of community at the conference—a chance to connect with fellow fans of short mystery and suspense fiction, both old friends and new ones too.
In upcoming weeks, the First Two Pages will spotlight several of those new connections, writers I first met during the conference and whose work I’ll be sure to follow more closely ahead—and I encourage you to do the same, of course.
First up is an essay by Jessica Slee, who attended the conference with her twin sister, Jennifer—and Jennifer is on deck with an entry of her own appearing here next week.
The Slee sisters share a website—the cleverly named sleesquared.com—and both of them have achieved great success with their short fiction. Jessica, for example, has been published in some terrific venues, including Punk Noir, Shotgun Honey, Cold Caller Magazine, and Flash Fiction Magazine, among others, and the story she’s writing about today—”Woodpeckers” from Shotgun Honey Presents: Thicker Than Water , edited by Ron Earl Phillips—was listed among other distinguished mysteries of the year in The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024. As Jessica explains in the essay below, she revisited “Woodpeckers” after hearing Michele Slung speak at ShortCon—a good reason to have her reflections kick off this new series of essays.
Do stay tuned for Jennifer’s essay next week—and more further ahead. And don’t forget that registration is now open for ShortCon 2027, with featured presenters including Reed Farrel Coleman, Linda Landrigan, Libby Cudmore, and Tom Milani—a stellar line-up!
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.
