Opening Shots: Great Mystery and Crime Writers Share Their First Published Stories (2000) by Lawrence Block

Author:Lawrence Block [Block, Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cumberland House Publishing
Published: 2000-09-30T21:00:00+00:00

The Death of Me

MARGARET MARON

Margaret Maron’s Introduction:

In the jail of 1966, I tried to stop smoking.

Again.

I had been quit for about three hours, had gone through two packs of gum, and was ready to kill for a cigarette. Which made me wonder, “Would someone really kill for a cigarette? Why?”

I walked up to the corner drugstore, and as I walked back home with a carton of cigarettes tucked under my arm, I finished plotting out this story. It was eventually rejected by Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, but the printed rejection slip carried a handwritten note of encouragement, the first I’d ever received. I was over the moon. In the spring of 1967, Ernest M. Hutter, the editor at Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, bought it for the magnificent sum of $63.75. Your family may love every thing you write, your friends may say you’re another Jane Austen, but nothing validates you like a check from an editor you’ve never met.

Here’s the story exactly as it was first printed in January 1968 under my maiden name.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.