“Shelly Dickson Carr’s Bag of Tricks”. Writing Tips

In this issue of EQMM (May/June), author Shelly Dickson Carr makes a very welcome EQMMdebut! Shelly is the author of the novel Ripped, which won three Benjamin Franklin awards and of a number of short stories published in our sister magazine, AHMM, and elsewhere. What makes her EQMM debut particularly notable is that she belongs to the third generation of her family to contribute to EQMM. Sons and daughters have followed parents into print in our pages before, but I cannot recall a previous third-generation appearance. Shelly Dickson Carr is the granddaughter of the illustrious John Dickson Carr (dozens of whose tales appeared in EQMM) and the daughter of Julia McNiven, who had a story in EQMM in 1974. In this post, she shares some writing tips, some gleaned from her grandfather and some from another master of the genre, Colin Dexter, and some learned from personal experience. The writers among our readers should find them all useful.—Janet Hutchings