Learning About the Short Mystery Fiction Community

by Paula Gail Benson

For the past few years, I’ve had the privilege of working with Michael Bracken to organize a virtual online conference dedicated to writing short mystery fiction. We are excitedly anticipating our next installment, Mystery in the Midlands Goes Short 2026, to take place on Saturday, October 10, beginning at 11:15 am ET and concluding at 2:30 pm ET. The lineup of speakers features some truly fascinating short story authors and editors.

We hope you’ll be able to join us or watch the recording of the program. It’s free of charge! Just register at this following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/H7AkECfcQB-9Ej98_UX2DQ

To give you a better chance to get to know some of our presenters, I asked them to respond to a question or two or more. We had a quick turn-around time for responses and not everyone had time to answer everything, but what they did have to say gives true insight into the short mystery fiction community.

1. Were you intimidated by writing short or naturally drawn to it?

Art Taylor

Art Taylor: I’ve always been drawn toward short fiction, largely because of having read so much of it in my formative years, both within the genre—I subscribed to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine as early as junior high, during a school subscription drive!—and without, reading and studying Poe, Chekhov, Hemingway, O’Connor, Welty, and so many more in high school. It’s a form that seems a good fit for how I work.

Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier: I used to find the form very intimidating, actually! There's so much more pressure on the short story author to make sure a piece is tight, connected, and meaningful. Ever since I was a teenager, I'd "write long", meaning that I always had a novel-length work on my mind. Once I had kids, though, I didn't have the time to write anything long anymore, and I found that writing short stories was actually a lot more fun than I thought it would be BECAUSE of the challenge of making them tight, connected, and meaningful.

Carla Damron: I was intimidated! A short story is a very small canvas. The writing must be much leaner than in novels.

Joseph S. Walker

Joseph S. Walker: I was naturally drawn to writing short. I seem to have a short story brain; every time I start planning what I might do in a novel, I immediately start feeling like I'm just unnecessarily padding things. I think what appeals to me is the focus and intensity of a good short story. You're not getting a vast panorama. You're getting a close-up of a very limited scope of action, and your job as a writer is to convince the reader that this little sliver of space and time is important and engaging.

Katy Munger: I was naturally drawn to it for two reasons. One is my ADHD, which includes a lack of patience for delayed gratification. 😊 The other is that I outline my novels very extensively, with each scene getting a thorough synopsis before I dive in and write. I think this love of framing a pivotal event in very few words carried over into short stories, especially when I started reading at Noir at the Bar. I found that people responded much better to a fully fleshed out story with a plot structure compared to reading a section from a longer work.

Michael Bracken: I started writing professionally when I was a teenager, and I was too young to be intimidated by anything. So, I wrote everything, trying to find my place in the literary ecosystem. I wrote every length from one-sentence fillers to full-length novels. Ultimately, though, I settled into short stories, and have found my greatest writing success with them, with more than 1,300 sales across multiple genres. The past dozen years or so, I have written more crime fiction than anything else and now, when I have a story idea, it almost always fits into one of the crime fiction subgenres.

2. Do you have a favorite short crime fiction author? Have you met that person and what was it like?

Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier

Art Taylor: I admire so many short mystery and suspense writers, but shouting out even one or two would leave out too many more—I can’t do it! But looking back further, there are several writers whose work I keep coming back to as guidance and inspiration: Daphne du Maurier, Stanley Ellin, and Ruth Rendell. Never met any of them—and would’ve been too intimidated even if I had the opportunity!

Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier: They say not to meet your heroes, but I've met a few of them, both online and in person, and they're all lovely.

Joseph S. Walker:I can't say I have a single favorite; there are just too many writers who excel at the form, including a lot working now. In terms of inspiration, though, I don't see how anyone can touch Edward D. Hoch. There's a reason the Short Mystery Fiction Society's lifetime achievement award is named in his honor. Nobody will ever do anything to match his run of having a story in every single issue of Ellery Queen for more than thirty-four years. What makes it all the more astonishing is that all of his stories are smart, entertaining, quality pieces of work. He set the bar we should all be aiming for. It's one of my great regrets that my own writing career started a few years too late to meet him.

Katy Munger: As an editor, I feel like it would be inappropriate for me to name a favorite current author, although there are definitely a handful who make my day when they send a new story in for me to consider. All I can tell you is that I grew up reading a steady diet of Flannery O'Connor, Carson McCullers, and Shirley Jackson. It shows. I love dark stories, but I prefer dark stories about human nature rather than supernatural events or creatures.

3. From whose POV do you write: protagonist, villain, or observer?

Art Taylor: Ooh! All of the above at different times. That’s part of the beauty of the short story—the ability to experiment, to try different things, and to break free of any sense of brand or limitation. “Observer” strikes me in some ways as the most interesting and most underused or under-appreciated: the effect of a crime on a witness or a bystander, their decisions on how to handle what they’ve seen…. that’s ripe for plot development and fertile emotional territory too.

Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier: I mostly write mysteries from the sleuth's point of view, but when I write a straight-up crime story, it's usually from the villain's point of view. I usually write in first-person or close third, so I've never really experimented with writing from an observer's POV. I like to get as close as I can to the main character's thoughts.

Katy Munger

Katy Munger: I tend to write from the view of the protagonist because it's such a great way to convey who that character is and their past. When a reader really gets to know and appreciate (not necessarily like) a protagonist, I find they are more invested in the story and stick with the whole series.

4. Fill in the blank: "If I had to do without ___________, I would find it incredibly difficult to write short stories."

Art Taylor: Thesaurus. Finding just the right word is key to economy and efficiency in your prose. 

Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier: "the mystery-writing community and my support network". The mystery writing community is incredibly generous, helpful, and supportive, and I've made lots of writer friends and gained many wonderful opportunities because of it. My support network at home, like my husband and helpful kids, gives me time to write and grace when I need to focus on a project.

Katy Munger: My computer. Multiple revisions are your friend! With a short story, it is all about cutting, then cutting, then cutting some more. Sometimes I play a trick on myself: when I have to take those final passes at cutting yet more of my words, I save the longer version and tell myself I will publish a collection one day of the longer versions. I haven't done that yet, of course, but I may one day.

5. Is writing short mystery fiction a diversion or a career?

Art Taylor: Are there alternatives to “diversion” and “career”? Affliction, albatross, burden, curse…? (See: I’m using my thesaurus right now…)

Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier: I consider it part of my identity, at this point. It's something I'm incredibly proud of doing. I intend to continue to give it my best and see where it takes me. 

Carla Damron

Carla Damron: A diversion. I love to explore short stories when I'm between larger projects. Or when I'm stuck and need a break (I often "break up" with my novels). I'll explore short form fiction to keep my creative juices flowing.

Joseph S. Walker: In financial terms, sadly, it's a diversion. In today's marketplace, it's hard to see how anyone could make a reasonable living from short mystery fiction. It's all a matter of how you look at things, though. I do other things for money, but as far as I'm concerned, my vocation is as a writer, and this is the kind of writing I love to do. It may not pay the bills, but it's the work I'm proudest of, the work I hope I'll be remembered for.

Katy Munger: I believe it is a very necessary tool to sustain a career in mystery fiction. Writers these days, who have grown up watching visual mediums, write using way too much description and way too many adjectives. A short story forces you to focus on what is critical and essential in a story. It helps you learn to write without including excess information and unnecessary description. Even if you never intend to publish short stories, if you are a crime fiction writer, you should still be writing them -- if only for the exercise of using the written medium to its fullest advantage (which is leaving some things up to the reader, so they can fill in the blanks left in your story with their own experience and imagination).

Michael Bracken

Michael Bracken: Writing short mystery fiction is a career, though not as lucrative a one as I might wish. I have taken my love of short fiction beyond just writing short stories by editing  a crime fiction magazine, helping edit another, and editing many anthologies. I’ve also established ShortCon, helped organize Mystery in the Midlands’s annual conference, and  given presentations about writing, editing, and publishing short crime fiction. So, in a way, writing short mystery fiction has become more than a career; it’s become a lifestyle!

To hear more about the craft and business of writing short mystery fiction, join us on Saturday, October 10, 11:15 am ET/10:15 am CT/9:15 am MT/8: 15 am PT for

Mystery in the Midlands Goes Short 2026!

PRESENTED BY: the Southeast Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America, the Palmetto Chapter of Sisters in Crime, and Michael Bracken

COST: FREE just register at the link below

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/H7AkECfcQB-9Ej98_UX2DQ

Yes, if you can’t attend in person, the program will be recorded.

Program Schedule

11:15 am Welcome—Michael Bracken and Paula Gail Benson

11:30 am -12:25 pm Some Loose Thoughts on Tight Structures—Joseph S. Walker

12:30 - 1:25 pm Short Stories as Building Blocks

Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier; Carla Damron; Art Taylor; and moderator, Paula Gail Benson

1:30 - 2:25 pm Editors Reveal All

Alex Mattingly; Katy Munger; Roger Nokes; and moderator, Michael Bracken

2:25 - 2:30 pm Final Questions and Comments