A Stranger Calls on Christmas Eve
Yes, I know it is 2026, and the holidays are technically behind us. But our house and front yard are still festooned with decorations, and I don’t think I’ve taken enough photos of the Christmas Village that took so much effort to put up this year. So when it came time to write a post for SleuthSayers, the mystery blog, this week, my head was still stuck on Christmas. In one of my first posts of the new year, I always try to share some sort of inspirational message for writers. Today I am sharing an anecdote of how I came to write my first published story, and the strange thing that happened immediately afterward.
You can read my article at this link. It is called:
The Stranger on the Other Line
Here is how the story starts:
The weekly newspaper appeared at our house one day bearing the details for an unusual call for short fiction. They wanted holiday stories—Christmas, Hanukkah, what-have-you—with only two stipulations. Submissions had to be a maximum of 300 words, and authors could not be older than 18 years of age. Payment would be exactly zero dollars, and all the copies young contributors could swipe out of the weekly advertiser’s boxes around town.
The year was 1980. I had just hit age 16 in the fall. I wanted to place a story in this paper badly. My ego demanded it. I had been submitting stories to EQMM and AHMM to no avail. It did not matter that this newspaper mostly reported on volleyball scores, town council news, and the openings of new hair salons. I needed the win.
My parents had bought me a used manual Olivetti ages ago. I rolled a sheet of paper in it, hunched over the damn thing, and paused…
Sorry to leave you hanging, but you will just have to go read the whole post to learn about the mystery. Because there is one. It’s haunted me for decades, and I’ll probably never get to bottom of the story. But that’s okay.
The gist of the story is this: writers have to get comfortable with the fact that the public at large will read our work, and have reactions to them. They are strangers to us, and we’ll never fully comprehend how our work impacts them. I was very young when I first caught a glimpse of this, and it’s stayed with me ever since.
I hope to be back in little bit to share some of the Christmas stories and books I’ve enjoyed in the past few weeks. But until then, welcome to the New Year. It’s great to be here.
