Trace Evidence: It’s All One: Music, Stage, and Words on the Page (by Steve Liskow)

 Trace Evidence: It’s All One: Music, Stage, and Words on the Page (by Steve Liskow)

SleuthSayers: MURDER, NEAT, or The Twenty-four Bar Blues

SleuthSayers: MURDER, NEAT, or The Twenty-four Bar Blues:          Murder, Neat came out on February 13, and I'm thrilled to be included with so many of my talented friends, twenty-three of the...

SleuthSayers: Crime Conn '22 by Steve Liskow

SleuthSayers: Crime Conn '22: Last Saturday, I attended a writing conference for the first time in much too long. The in-person attendance was sparse, but many people cho...

SleuthSayers: Writing Outside the Outlines by Steve Liskow

SleuthSayers: Writing Outside the Outlines: Two weeks ago, I attended an interview with Don Winslow at which he was autographing his new novel. During the Q & A, someone asked abou...

SleuthSayers: Crime Hits Home (An Exercise in Shameless Self-Promotion) by Steve Liskow

SleuthSayers: Crime Hits Home (An Exercise in Shameless Self-Pro...: Last Monday, Liz Zelvin posted about Edgars week and the whirlwind of activities in New York. Otto Penzler hosted the launch/signing for MW...

SleuthSayers: Style NEVER Goes Out of Style by Steve Liskow

SleuthSayers: Style NEVER Goes Out of Style: by Steve Liskow Years ago, I gave my honors American Lit students a summer writing assignment that was a little outside the lines. I had the...

SleuthSayers: Workation by Steve Liskow

 SleuthSayers: Workation  by Steve Liskow 

SleuthSayers: Looking For the Next Best Thing by Steve Liskow

SleuthSayers: Looking For the Next Best Thing: Several years ago, I met another local writer at a conference. He was unpublished, but his business cards and website bore the legend "...

SleuthSayers: Guys Writing Girls by Steve Liskow

SleuthSayers: Guys Writing Girls: Last week, my short story "The Bridesmaid's Tale" appeared in Black Cat Weekly , and I shared the news with all three of my fr...

SleuthSayers: Rolling With The Punches by Steve Liskow

SleuthSayers: Rolling With The Punches:  by Steve Liskow The last two years have shown the wisdom of not asking "How can things get even worse?" Fortunately, most of us a...

SleuthSayers: Love and Carnage by Steve Liskow

SleuthSayers: Love and Carnage:   by Steve Liskow Valentines' Day. Flowers, candy, champagne, diamond rings and bended knees. Murder. Love and Death are the two most im...

SleuthSayers: Gettin' Back My the Mojo by Steve Liskow

SleuthSayers: Gettin' Back My the Mojo:   by Steve Liskow I used to outline my novels but not my short stories. For them, I'd jot down the basic idea and let it ferment for a f...

SleuthSayers: Next to Last Step by Steve Liskow

SleuthSayers: Next to Last Step: I always read my work aloud as the last step in my editing/revision, but there's one last step I take before that. It's the "Re...

Guest Post: On Writing “Kick Out the Jams” by Steve Liskow

Please welcome back Steve Liskow to the blog today. Like Tom Milani who recently shared his experience of writing his short story, A Hard Night In Hamburg, for the Groovy Gumshoes: Private Eyes in the Psychedelic Sixties anthology, Steve Liskow has a story in the anthology. Today he shares the background for his tale, Kick Out The Jams. Edited by Michael Bracken, the book is currently scheduled to come out in April. One gets the feeling that April is destined to be a busy month for anthology readers.

 

Some time ago, Michael Bracken posted a submission call for Groovy Gumshoes, Psychedelic PIs in the Sixties. He encouraged writers to use a real historical event in the story, and I graduated from high school in 1965, so I knew the turf.

But what major event? We saw several assassinations, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, Vietnam, Woodstock…so many choices. I wanted one nobody else would select so I’d stand apart.

Then I remembered the riots.

I attended Oakland University’s summer session in 1967. Oakland County lies just north of Detroit. About 85% of the Oakland students were residents of the Detroit Metropolitan area, and many lived on campus to avoid the commute.

One Monday morning in July, CKLW radio reported that police had raided a “blind pig” Sunday night. By Monday afternoon, organized resistance swept the city. My dorm mates and I watched the television coverage as the fires grew and demonstrators kept fire fighters at bay with bottles and rocks. The Detroit police actually had radio stations stop playing the Doors’ “Light My Fire,” number three on the charts.

Over the next four days, 100 blocks burned, including the homes of two of my dorm mates. One watched his house collapse on ABC evening news. I don’t remember his name, but I still see his face.

My room mate at the time became an attorney in Detroit, and I asked him to email me pictures. I had a Detroit map because my Woody Guthrie series is set in Detroit already. I had albums by the Motown groups, Bob Seger, The Amboy Dukes, The Stooges, and the MC5. The following winter, the MC5 recorded their first LP live at the Grande (pronounced GRAN-DEE) Ballroom in Detroit, including the song “The Motor City’s Burning.” They performed at the Grande the weekend after the National Guard arrested thousands of people. Their famous (censored) album cut was “Kick Out The Jams,” introduced by the singer as “Kick Out the Jams, Mother F#*@&s,” the last part being sloppily dubbed to “brothers and sisters,” but not until the record’s second pressing.

There was my title. I gave my PI a case following a radical young woman who had a lot to do with starting the fireworks. I wrote the first draft in two days and kept polishing the dialogue and details.

It will appear in Groovy Gumshoes sometime in April. I hope you’ll pick up a copy and take a walk down memory lane, even though there are some dark spots along the way. That’s what noir’s all about, innit?

 

Steve Liskow © 2022 

Steve Liskow (www.steveliskow.com) has published 16 novels and 40 short stories in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Tough, Mystery Magazine, and various anthologies. Before Covid-19 appeared, he conducted fiction writing workshops at libraries throughout central Connecticut. He has appeared on panels for both MWA and SinC, and blogs on Sleuthsayers.org. He has been a finalist for both the Edgar Award and the Shamus Award, has won Honorable Mention for the Al Blanchard Story Award four times, and was the first two-time winner of the Black Orchid Novella Award. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, Barbara, a costumed tour guide at the Mark Twain House.

 

Guest Post: On Writing “Jack in a Box” by Steve Liskow

Please welcome Steve Liskow to the blog today. His short story, Jack in a Box, will appear in the upcoming anthology, Mystery Writers of America Presents Crime Hits Home: A Collection of Stories from Crime Fiction's Top Authors. Edited by S. J. Rozan and published by Hanover Square Press, the book is scheduled to be released on April 19^th. It can be pre-ordered now at the link below. 

One of the perks of being an active member of MWA is that you get submission calls for the themed anthology the group produces two years or so. They’re edited by a well-known writer, and the theme works as a good writing prompt. Over the last decade, I have submitted five stories. I only made the cut with one of them (“Hot Sugar Blues,” which showed up in Vengeance, edited by Lee Child), but all the others eventually sold somewhere.

In summer of 2020, MWA called for stories to fill Crime Hits Home, edited by SJ Rozan, one of my favorite writers. I’ve met her at two events and liked her as much as her writing, so I wanted a story in a collection with her name on it.

Crime Hits Home features stories that revolve around what “Home” means to different writers. The submission call quoted Robert Frost’s line from “The Death of the Hired Man.” I took it for granted that the judges would receive several stories that dealt with family reunions, home invasions, or both. That meant I needed something different to avoid being buried in the crush. After a few days of doodling and free-association, I thought of the opposite of home, homeless.

What if my protagonist were homeless? Why was he homeless? One thing led to another, and I decided he had emotional or mental challenges, or both. My wife, the brains of the outfit, offered a tentative title, “Jack in the box,” and I grabbed it. Jack lived in a box, and I figured out why. He needed to be damaged, but not pathetic, so I added humor to keep from writing a sermon on the less fortunate.

When I remembered that Rozan likes cats, I added some to the cast. And a dog (Who says we can’t live together?). Jack has so much in common with stray dogs and cats that they hang out together. If you’re NOT a writer and you hear voices, it’s probably a bad thing, but when my characters start talking to me, it means I’m on the right track. Jack’s voice got clearer and clearer, especially his thought process, which is linear and concrete, but a little…different.

Now I needed a crime. Jack’s homeless and damaged, and he likes animals. What if someone else didn’t like animals? From there on, it was pretty easy.

I wrote the rough draft in three days and spent the next month tweaking it. When I sent it out, I hoped the judges didn’t think I colored too far outside the lines. They didn’t.

If tradition holds, Crime Hits Home will launch during Edgars Week. “Jack in a Box” will be the next-to-last story, the opening act for Rozan’s own story.  Check it out. I hope you like the collection, but have a special soft spot in your heart for Jack.

 

Steve Liskow ©2022

Steve Liskow (www.steveliskow.com) has published 16 novels and 40 short stories in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Tough, Mystery Magazine, and various anthologies. Before Covid-19 appeared, he conducted fiction writing workshops at libraries throughout central Connecticut. He has appeared on panels for both MWA and SinC, and blogs on Sleuthsayers.org. He has been a finalist for both the Edgar Award and the Shamus Award, has won Honorable Mention for the Al Blanchard Story Award four times, and was the first two-time winner of the Black Orchid Novella Award. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, Barbara, a costumed tour guide at the Mark Twain House.

 

SleuthSayers: Look It Up by Steve Liskow

SleuthSayers: Look It Up:  by Steve Liskow Last week, Barb Goffman discussed details that make or break your work, and many people chimed in with stories or authors t...

SleuthSayers: No Longer the Golden (Age) Standard... by Steve Liskow

SleuthSayers: No Longer the Golden (Age) Standard...: A few days ago, I read the newest issue of Black Cat Mystery Magazine and realized something I've been aware of for some time but never...

SleuthSayers: Here and Now by Steve Liskow

SleuthSayers: Here and Now: by Steve Liskow A few weeks ago, I gave a short story one last read-through before submitting it, and I found myself wondering, "Would ...

SleuthSayers: Female of the Species by Steve Liskow

SleuthSayers: Female of the Species:  by Steve Liskow Last week, Rob Lopresti posed an intriguing question on the Short Mystery Fiction Society thread. He wanted the titles of p...

SleuthSayers: The Challenge of Exposition by Steve Liskow

 SleuthSayers: The Challenge of Exposition  by Steve Liskow