Writing the short story has many benefits -- it's quick -- you get an instant result, there are less characters to create, only one plot to deal with, and more important to the writer, it's fun! That doesn't make it any easier to write than a novel -- you've got to be far more precise -- but it's like a writing exercise that will help you when you decide to tackle a full length, 80,000 word book. I usually create my short out of a character rather than a plot. I put my character in a situation and then let him or her figure out how to resolve the problem. How do I find my characters? I can take them from my novels, like Hetty Henry or her pet pig Priscilla, who was featured in her own award-winning story, or I can open an old history book (since I write historical mysteries) and find a name or a situation that intrigues me. As for markets, there are few magazines that carry shorts any more, outside of ELLERY QUEEN and ALFRED HITCHCOCK where the competition is fierce, but there are many anthologies looking for material. Check the writers' magazines and writers' organizations like Sisters in Crime, whose chapters may decide to do an anthology, and go submit!

Best of luck. M. E. KEMP

You could set your watch by Charles P. Hemburger as he marched down Central Avenue to the train station. The train into the City left Plainfield, New Jersey at precisely seven-fifteen in the morning. The precise timing was the result of complaints by Charles P. Hemburger to the owner of the Metropolitan Railway. Time is money, after all. Hemburger left his Victorian house in the pleasurable anticipation of accumulating more thousands of dollars, with the added incentive of escaping the noise and confusion of the renovation work going on at that same house. A new roof, a turret, a tower and a large porch were the additions under construction. The additions would make Hemburger’s house the largest on the street.

Hemburger nodded to the young man who slid into the seat next to him. The train started off with a jolt and settled into a comfortable click-clack of wheels. Hemburger shook out his newspaper. The young man next to him also shook out his newspaper. The two men read on in silence for several minutes.

“I see Hemboldt Corporation has gone up another point today.” The young man rattled his paper slightly to gain Hemburger’s attention.

“Has it?” Charles P. Hemburger turned his head, regarding the young man. A clerk, he judged, noting the dark blue suit, its cloth shot through with thin stripes of a pinkish color. Charles P. Hemburger was a founding partner of Hemboldt Corporation, with his partner, John T. Boldstetter...

M. E. Kemp took fifth place in the Deadly Ink short story contest at the Deadly Ink Writer's Conference in Parsippany, NJ. Her short story, "A Pillar of the Community," is published in DEADLY INK 2008 anthology. The twist in her story: the body is buried inside a pillar!