{"id":11285,"date":"2025-02-10T08:00:22","date_gmt":"2025-02-10T13:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11285"},"modified":"2025-02-16T13:28:13","modified_gmt":"2025-02-16T18:28:13","slug":"us-short-story-authors-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11285","title":{"rendered":"US Short Story Authors Star!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Now in its 2024 edition, The Best American Mystery and Suspense, <\/em>an annual compilation of notable mystery and suspense stories, has evolved quite a bit since Steph Cha took over from long-time series editor Otto Penzler. He now publishes a rival anthology, The Best Mystery Stories of the Year<\/em>. The publisher (and readers like me, too) believed Penzler\u2019s long-running series needed a refresher, to involve more diverse perspectives and sources, and to include stories addressing more contemporary themes. Truthfully, the number of magazines and anthologies devoted to crime fiction as well as the literary magazines and special collections that publish occasional stories in this genre, means that no matter what selection criteria editors adopt, they’ll likely have a wealth of excellent stories to choose from. Cosby, as guest editor, and Cha made some excellent picks for this volume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my not-disinterested opinion, the pre-Cha era sadly neglected the stories of female writers. Since her tenure, that issue has been well addressed, along with the work of more diverse authors and themes. In the 2024 edition, two-thirds of the stories are by women authors, compared to one-third in Penzler\u2019s most recent collection (much better than he used to do, at least). Contemporary problems\u2014toxic phone apps, violent street protests, incriminating blog posts\u2014are here and have a \u201cstory behind the headlines\u201d feel to them. Several have adopted innovative or atypical presentation styles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I particularly liked \u201cFor I Hungered, and Ye Gave Me\u201d by Barrett Bowlin, which consists of verbatim answers to unstated (but easily guessed\u2014correctly?) questions about a possible crime, and Alyssa Cole\u2019s \u201cJust a Girl,\u201d which shows, via TikTok and podcast excerpts, YouTube transcripts, and the like, the mushrooming of a vicious online attack on an essentially blameless co-ed. Stanton McCaffery\u2019s moving \u201cWill I See the Birds When I\u2019m Gone\u201d simply comprises an incarcerated man\u2019s letters to his neglectful mother, written over a 23-year period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women writers may be more likely to talk about the extremes and entanglements of mother love and the long-term consequences of rape, as in the stories by Mary Thorson, Latoya Watkins, or Tananarive Due. They show that, regardless of circumstances, children still have that pull on their mothers, whether for good or ill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The traditional \u201cperfect murder\u201d theme also appears, as in Abby Geni\u2019s clever \u201cThe Body Farm,\u201d which involves some grisly research, and Nils Gilbertson\u2019s \u201cLovely and Useless Things,\u201d which takes place in a speakeasy during Prohibition. Some perfect murders are successful, and others are not. Shannon Taft\u2019s \u201cMonster\u201d is a satisfying example. I\u2019m not sure whether Diana Gould intended \u201cPossessory Credit,\u201d her story about a scheming screenwriter and would-be perfect-murderer to be humorous, but I laughed out loud at the predicament he created. \u201cBaby Trap\u201d by Toni LP Kelner is delightfully clever and begins with a Reddit post. More 2024 vibes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve enjoyed Jordan Harper\u2019s novels, so was poised to like his story, \u201cMy Savage Year,\u201d and did. It was one of several involving adolescent confusions, secrets, and bad judgment, including Rebecca Turkewitz\u2019s boarding school nightmare, \u201cSarah Lane\u2019s School for Girls.\u201d Early mistakes can have a long tail, as the protagonists in these stories learn, especially the suicide hotline counselor in Lisa Unger\u2019s \u201cUnknown Caller.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amongst all these tales are several solid traditional mysteries, such as \u201cScarlet Ribbons\u201d by Megan Abbott about a haunting (or is it?), Frankie Y. Bailey\u2019s \u201cMatter of Trust,\u201d along with Gar Anthony Haywood\u2019s \u201cWith the Right Bait\u201d (marital relationships, loosely), Nick Kolakowski\u2019s \u201cScorpions\u201d (lure of the dark side), Karen Harrington\u2019s \u201cThe Mysterious Disappearance of Jason Whetstone\u201d (sibling rivalry\u2014again involving a disgruntled author, humph!), and Bobby Mathews\u2019s \u201cThe Funeral Suit\u201d (Western gunslingers).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a lot more to each of these stories, of course, than a capsule summary can convey. As SA Cosby says in his introduction, it\u2019s \u201cmagic that happens for a brief moment, like a shooting star streaking across the sky, when you read a story that grabs you by the hand and says, \u2018Come with me, see what I have to show you.\u2019\u201d A word about the story sources. Seventeen different publications are represented by these 20 stories, none of them the traditional short mystery story magazines. In the list of 30 additional distinguished stories from 2023 are 21 more publications, including the well-known Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, <\/em>and Mystery Tribune<\/em>. Along with new outlets are new writers\u2014a crime and mystery lover\u2019s dream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now in its 2024 edition, The Best American Mystery and Suspense, an annual compilation of notable mystery and suspense stories, has evolved quite a bit since Steph Cha took over from long-time series editor Otto Penzler. He now publishes a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[126,359,120,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading-2","category-review","category-short-story","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2W1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11287,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11285\/revisions\/11287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}