Award-winning short story writers Art Taylor and Barb Goffman chat about short fiction, crime stories, and their two recent collections: The Boy Detective & The Summer of ’74 and Other Tales of Suspense, featuring 16 of Art Taylor's stories, including the Edgar Award-winning “English 398: Fiction Workshop,” and Crime Travel: Tales of Mystery and Time Travel, edited by Barb Goffman and featuring her own story “Alex’s Choice,” recently named a finalist for this year’s Agatha Award.

Art Taylor is the author of the story collection The Boy Detective & The Summer of ’74 and Other Tales of Suspense and of the novel in stories On the Road with Del & Louise, winner of the Agatha Award for Best First Novel. He won the 2019 Edgar Award for Best Short Story for "English 398: Fiction Workshop," originally published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and he has won three additional Agatha Awards, an Anthony Award, three Macavity Awards, and three consecutive Derringer Awards for his short fiction. His work has also appeared in Best American Mystery Stories, and he edited Murder Under the Oaks: Bouchercon Anthology 2015, winner of the Anthony Award for Best Anthology or Collection. He is an associate professor of English at George Mason University.

Barb Goffman edits mysteries by day and writes them by night. She’s won the Agatha, Macavity, and Silver Falchion awards for her short stories, and she’s been a finalist for national crime-writing awards twenty-eight times, including thirteen times for the Agatha (a category record). Her story "Alex's Choice" was a finalist for the Agatha Award this year. This tale about family, love, loss, and time travel appeared in the anthology Crime Travel, which Barb edited. Her work has also appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and Black Cat Mystery Magazine. To support her writing habit, Barb runs a freelance editing service, specializing in crime fiction. She lives with her dog in Winchester, Virginia.

Art Taylor and Barb Goffman Discuss Short Crime Fiction