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!
Do you like to read short stories? Have you ever written one? Did you ever drag your friends through a project that threatened to swallow everyone whole?