I’m back home and still unpacking – physically and mentally – from ShortCon, the annual one-day writing conference in Alexandria, Virginia, for writers of short crime fiction.
Launched in 2024, ShortCon focuses primarily on the writing craft, but also serves as a forum for discussions about the state of the short-fiction publishing industry, emerging trends, marketing strategies, and all the other things that don’t have much to do with the actual writing process but still demand the attention of crime fiction writers — or writers of any genre — with aspirations to sell their short stories.
The conference has been held every year since its inception in the spacious upper room of Elaine’s Restaurant on Queen Street in Alexandria. Michael Bracken and Stacy Woodson – writers and editors with extensive credits on their respective resumes – are the primary organizers, and they get an enormous amount of support from Jeffrey Higgins, the co-owner of Elaine’s. Higgins is the author of several thrillers and short stories, and he’s a staunch supporter of the DC/MA/VA literary community. He hosts Elaine’s Literary Salon in the restaurant’s upper room. (And for any foodies who might be curious, the Mediterranean cuisine at Elaine’s is outstanding.)
In addition to its structured presentations, ShortCon also allows plenty of time for just hanging out and doing some informal networking – which is, in my opinion, just as important as the discussion topics listed above. This year’s gathering marked the third ShortCon. I’ve attended the last two, so it was great to reconnect with some of the folks I met last year and make a few new friends as well.
To call ShortCon a one-day conference is actually a little bit misleading. While the main presentations and sessions stretch from 8am to 5pm on Saturday, things actually kick off on Friday evening with a Noir at the Bar gathering at Elaine’s that includes readings by several short story writers.
This year’s Noir at the Bar lineup included Gary Phillips, L.C. Parfomak, Debra H. Goldstein, Brayden Whisler, Avram Lavinsky, Chris Dreith, Ed Ridgley and Art Taylor. Each brought their distinct voices to their presentations, and they were all entertaining. Particularly memorable was Avram Lavinsky singing his way through his selection – a children’s story he’d written about a place called Alphabet City and imbued with a clever and lighthearted dimension of crime noir.
The conference itself got under way on Saturday morning. Gary Phillips – a veteran writer whose large and diverse body of work includes novels, short stories, comics and television screenplays – started the day with a session called “Blueprinting Criminal Behavior,” a discussion of what makes a criminal or a villain, and what drives them to do what they do. While the question may seem simple on its surface, I was intrigued by some of the nuanced answers that emerged from the conversation.
(Sidebar: I always enjoy listening to Gary’s voice and his laughter, both of which roll through a room like a joyful thunder filled with the wisdom of experience. When he talks, people can’t help but pay attention.)
At mid-day, Stacy Woodson led Michele Slung through “Every Moment Is a Story,” a Q&A discussion of Slung’s long career as an editor of mystery and crime fiction anthologies — including extensive work with publisher Otto Penzler.
In the afternoon session, Art Taylor – winner of every conceivable award for crime and mystery fiction – explored an interesting literary phenomenon in a presentation called “Linked, Intertwined, or Seamless: The Curious Case of the Novel in Stories.” He examined the practice of using individual short stories as building blocks in the architecture of full-length books – a strategy he has followed in his own work, most notably with his 2015 debut book, On the Road with Del & Louise: A Novel in Stories, which won an Agatha Award for Best First Novel.
All three of the main presenters reunited late in the afternoon for a final Q&A panel to address any lingering questions from attendees before the proceedings came to an end. Jackie Sherbow, editor of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, also joined the panel to provide an update on the status of EQMM and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine following the sale of both publications to Must Read Magazines in 2025.
The weekend was full of high points: reconnecting with writers P.K. Richard and Ed Ridgley, both of whom I met at the conference last year, and getting acquainted with Chris Dreith, BJ Condike and Debra Goldstein; a few minutes of one-on-one with Gary Phillips, whom I met at Pulpfest a couple years ago in Pittsburgh; finally meeting writer Hugh Lessig face-to-face when he approached me with a copy of my 2016 novel, The Midnight Guardian: Hour of Darkness, and asked for a signature; a brief but interesting conversation with Joseph S. Walker, author of the recently released Crime Scenes collection, about the occasional challenges and frustrations associated with dramatic book cover imagery; chatting with Art Taylor about how Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles fits squarely within the definition and parameters of a novel in stories.
(My conversation with Art continued after the conference ended Saturday, via a series of back-and-forth emails over the next couple days. He was kind enough to share some of his research about Bradbury and the genesis of The Martian Chronicles in the late 1940s.)
Writing is often referred to as a journey, and ShortCon is definitely that. Alexandria, Virginia, is a long drive from Cleveland, Ohio, and I admit that somewhere along the way – this year and last, usually in the midst of some inevitable Beltway traffic snarl – I’ve momentarily asked myself what I was doing and why. But for me, the answer always comes back to community. Any opportunity for a writer to connect with his or her tribe is a vital counterbalance to the otherwise internal and often solitary experience that defines the writing life.
ShortCon has proven to be an ideal opportunity for that kind of engagement. Despite the miles and the road time, I’m already thinking about next June.