Please welcome one of our newest
members to the blog today, Lisa de Nikolits. Her short story, “Fire Drill” appears in the soon to be released anthology, The Best Laid Plans: 21 Stories Of Mystery
& Suspense published by Superior Shores Press.
I’ve
always believed we were born poets, novelists or short story writers. This
sweeping statement may be met with some scepticism but I’m sticking to my guns!
I’ve tried my hand at all three forms and I admit I’m a natural-born novelist.
I
write long, I can’t help it! I’ve written dozens of short stories and here are a
few of them that have made it into publication. Flash fiction in the Jellyfish
review, Ms. Pacman Don’t Love Me No More
in PAC’N HEAT (a Ms. Pacman-inspired noir anthology edited and published by
A.G. Pasquella), Trouble Times in Thirteen O’Clock (the Mesdames of
Mayhem), Mad Dog and the Sea Dragon in
Thirteen Claws, Hit Me With your Pet Shark (forthcoming in In The Key of Thirteen, Fall 2019, The Mesdames of Mayhem). Tour Guide was published in the Sisters
in Crime anthology, The Whole She-Bang 3,
Postscripts to Darkness featured Eve Ago
about an obese art instalation public figure later eaten by her ravenous
siblings and, most recently, there’s Fire
Drill in The Best Laid Plans
(forthcoming by Superior Shores Press on 18th June).
All
of these are mystery short stories, noir suspense thrillers and they’ve all
proven immensely helpful, not only for the wonderful pleasure of being
published in an anthology but for sowing the seeds for novels. And if not the
exact story, then at the very least, the characters. I’m a meticulous
bookkeeper when it comes to characters, plot and storylines. And if I lose
track of one – you know that horrible feeling of ‘where is that idea, I knew I
wrote it down somewhere’ and you can’t rest until you find it again? Well,
that’s me! And I mine each character, plot and storyline until I’ve wrung them
dry.
When
it comes to short stories, I respond best to calls for submissions, I love
working towards a goal, with a theme in mind.
When
Judy Penz Sheluk put out the call for The
Best Laid Plans, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. I’m a freelance
magazine designer by day and I was called into a rather arduous meeting about a
year ago. Let’s just say that the meeting wasn’t going too well and less than
kind thoughts were milling around my brain, thoughts that only stepped up in
tempo when the fire alarm sounded and my boss refused to let me leave. I was
forced to sit there, bludgeoned by the noise and my boss was in my face, way
too up close and personal. As we left via the stairwell, we were the only two
people left in the building, high up in the empty stairwell, I thought “well,
imagine if…”
I
immediately wrote down my observations of the meeting, how I had felt, how the
sound had felt, almost a physical pounding. A character had been floating about
in my brain and Judy’s call created the perfect stage for the marriage of my
experience and this character, giving the story a focus and a theme.
Anyway,
I’m really happy to have joined the Short Mystery Writers Society and I look
forward to reading a bunch of other people’s stories and hopefully to contributing
to more anthologies. Anthologies and groups like this are a great way to learn
about new writers and make new friends
and I’m very glad to be part of the Short Mystery Writers Society!
Lisa
de Nikolits ©2019
 |
| Photo by Bradford Dunlop |
Lisa de Nikolits is the award-winning author of eight novels: The Hungry Mirror, West of Wawa, A Glittering Chaos, The Witchdoctor’s Bones, Between The Cracks She Fell, The Nearly Girl, No Fury Like That, and Rotten Peaches. No Fury Like That was published in Italian in 2019 by Edizione Le Assassine under the title Una furia dell’altro mondo. Her ninth novel, The Occult Persuasion and the Anarchist’s Solution, is also scheduled to be published in 2019 by Inanna Publications. Her short fiction and poetry have also been published in various anthologies and journals across the country. She is a member of the Mesdames of Mayhem, the Crime Writers of Canada, Sisters in Crime, and the International Thriller Writers. Originally from South Africa, Lisa de Nikolits came to Canada in 2000. She lives and writes in Toronto.
