Becky Clark

“C’mon … It’ll Be Fun,” She Said

When it was announced that Left Coast Crime 2025 would be held in Denver, I knew my Colorado chapter of Sisters in Crime would be involved. I also knew it would be fantastic timing to finally pull the trigger on producing a short story anthology for our chapter.

Only problem was we’d never done one before.

So I contacted other SinC chapters and the national organization to figure out what was involved. Spoiler alert: quite a bit! But doable … certainly by March 2025, almost a year away!

We needed a theme, though, some kind of hook, something to brand our anthology for this first one and each subsequent book, assuming this one didn’t kill us. (Jury’s still out, btw.)

I had been involved in an anthology that had an overarching mystery element to it that was a cool idea, but I wanted a little more oomph to ours. I proposed to the membership of our Colorado SinC chapter that we do an anthology with these elements:

• I’d write a short mystery (the overarching “mega-mystery”) involving the murder of a local celebrity

• anyone who wanted to be a part of this crazy endeavor could write a 3,500-word story in any genre they wanted (but I asked them to keep everything PG-rated—no sex, no cursing, no blood or gore)

• every submission had to be a standalone short story

• every story had to be set in Colorado during the same week

• I’d give every author a clue from the mega-mystery—hence the “Mystery Merge”—which they were to plop into their story wherever they wanted, but it had to come from a news source of some kind—radio, TV, newspaper, online gossip blog, water cooler conversation … whatever struck their fancy

• readers could collect these clues and, theoretically, solve the mega-mystery

• I’d bookend the anthology with the denouement of the mega-mystery so they could see if they were right

Easy peasy, eh?

Let’s just say it took a bit before everyone picked up what I was putting down! But when they did, man-o-man, they really did! These genius authors worked the clues I gave them into their stories in spectacularly unique ways … all perfect for their stories and their characters.

Some of the authors in our Colorado Mystery Merge hadn’t been published before, so I’m thrilled that they’ll get to do a big group signing at Left Coast Crime! That’s such a fun way to kick off a writing career. And some of the authors told me this project was exactly what they needed to get back their writing mojo, so that makes me happy too.

I’m also very proud to tell you that the reviews are starting to trickle in and they’re excellent! The ebook is available in a bunch of places, and the paperback will be available soon.

Click over to our Sisters in Crime Colorado website and read the kick-off story.

Hope you pick it up and give it a spin! And if you’ll be at Left Coast Crime Denver, keep your eyes and ears open … we have some fun stuff planned!

Readers … do you like to read short stories? Have you ever written one? Have you ever dragged your friends through a project that threatened to swallow everyone whole?

33 thoughts on ““C’mon … It’ll Be Fun,” She Said”

    1. LOL! Personally, I love doing the formatting, although if I had to do it by committee it would be much more complicated. I format other people’s books for them as a side hustle and luckily they let me just do it. But, you’re right, back in 2013 (and 1999-ish when I was formatting my first book long before the internet and other platforms made stuff so easy), it was HARD!

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        1. Oh, it was CRAZYHARD back in the day. But I had technology and a few skills. In fact, just yesterday I was reminded in a couple of my books from 2014-ish I put flip pictures in the corners of the pages of the paperbacks. I don’t think I could do that today!

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  2. I mostly read novels, but I enjoy a short story once in a while. I have to say, that I did read your anthology and LOVED IT!!! It was a very clever concept. Do you think you will ever do it again? If you do, I’ll read it for sure.

    I have never dragged anyone into a difficult project, but I am usually the one who gets dragged into things. I have a hard time saying no. Once into things though, I usually have fun. I hope you all had fun creating your book.

    Carol

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    1. Carol, I’m SO HAPPY you liked it! I’m pretty sure we’ll do more, and subsequent ones will be so much easier! I’m using a new publishing platform that involves a learning curve, but now that I have one under my belt—and my SinC chapter sees what I’m trying to do—each one will be a little less painful!

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  4. Congratulations to you all, Becky! I enjoy reading short stories. It’s a nice change of pace from a novel. I tip my hat to the creative folks who write them, too. What a skill!

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    1. Thanks, JC. Short stories were never something I felt I could do justice to in my writing, but having lost a bit of my mojo, it was a relief to know that I could still do something creative that wasn’t a huge novel. Many of the other authors told me the same thing. Working on this project might be a bit of a palate cleanser before I dive back into novels. Maybe give it a whirl, if you need a break from a bigger project. (And if you join our CO chapter—which anyone can for $20 if they belong to national SinC—maybe you can be in our next anthology!)

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  5. hestia here.

    I love this! Please let us know when the paperback is available. I need one! I love reading short stories, especially themed anthologies.

    yes, I keep trying to get in an anthology, but keep getting turned down. Even by my local SinC chapter, and I thought my take on the theme was awesome!

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    1. I will definitely announce when the paperback is out because then we’ll be going gung ho on our marketing/promo.

      It’s funny you mention getting turned down for anthologies because I do too! Kinda lost count. I’m waiting to hear about the Malice Domestic anthology. My consolation is that at least my readers like my short stories so it’ll give me one more for them!

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  6. Yay, Becky! This sounds like it was a lot of work–but so creative! (I had to read your submission instructions twice.) Anyway, love the brilliant cover and the concept. Congrats to all the contributors & to you for coordinating!

    P.S. I like reading short stories for inspiration and have written a few, but I find them more difficult to craft.

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  7. Becky, congrats! I honestly can’t figure out what you’re talking about in terms of structuring this, which tells me it’s brilliant and way beyond my bandwidth.

    I never thought I’d write short stories after writing one about five years ago that got published by Suspense magazine. But I’ll have one in an upcoming anthology, “Hollywood Kills,” I submitted one for the NOLA Bouchercon anthology (waiting to hear). And I have a cozy short story in reserve in case there’s an anthology I want to submit it to.

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    1. LOL! I didn’t want to get too far into the weeds with describing the concept, so maybe i didn’t go far enough! Basically, I gave all the authors a clue to my mystery, and they had to work it into their story organically through some sort of news story. You know how when there’s a big story, there’s news about it everywhere? That’s how it is for all these characters too. No matter where they are in the state, they can’t get away from the news of Doctor Dictionary’s murder!

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      1. And doubly brilliant because that way each author’s story will be read! Not that many readers cherrypick (Autocorrect says: cheerypick) the table of contents, but just in case.

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  8. OMG, this is such a brilliant concept, Becky–can’t wait to read it! And kudos for doing all the work to put it together, as it does indeed sound like a crazy amount of organization and labor. So looking forward to seeing all my Colorado peeps in Denver this March!

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  9. I can’t wait for LCC in Denver–and now I have still another reason to look forward to the conference! Becky, you have so many amazing skills and talents–and now anthology producer queen! Can’t wait to read the paperback. I have written one short story, but I would love to attempt another in the near future!

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    1. Aw shucks, thanks. But none of it would have happened without so many of you FABULOUS authors sticking your neck out so fast even when you really didn’t know what was going on yet!

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  11. I like short stories and there are lots of anthologies out there that I would like to read. It was a cool coincidence for me to discover that I had actually read a short story by Korina Moss before I discovered her as a cozy mystery author. She had written a short story in a time travel anthology. This sounds like a very cool concept. I look forward to reading it! This is Sue Leis writing on my phone . I have no idea who WordPress is going to identify me as lol.

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    1. LOL, Sue! WordPress never lets me do anything on my phone, and half the time not on my laptop either so you’ve got a leg up on me!

      That’s interesting about Korina’s short story. Just goes to show you how insidious we authors are!

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    1. I find it a bit harder to find short stories to read—especially in the mystery genre. Seems there are a ton of them in horror and fantasy, though. But those aren’t my faves. And thank you!

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