31 March 2025

What Makes An Anthology The Best?


The SleuthSayers anthology, Murder, Neat, edited by our own Michael Bracken and Barb Goffman, has had the distinction of being named one of the finalists for the inaugural Derringer Award for Best Anthology in an impressive field of 2024 short crime fiction anthologies.

I've edited two anthologies and contributed stories to almost a dozen including my own. I've also had a story included as an "Other Distinguished Story" in a volume of Best American Mystery Stories—an honor that means the notoriously critical series editor picked it as one of fifty out of a field of several thousand, but that year's guest editor failed to select it as one of the twenty to include in the anthology.

So I feel qualified at what seems a good moment to talk about some of the elements of excellence in an anthology.

Any anthology needs focus. This may be provided by a theme, restriction of the setting or authorship to a certain region, or limitation of submissions to a particular group or organization. All the contributors to Murder, Neat are current or former SleuthSayers. The theme, some aspect of alcohol, bars, and drinking, was chosen after much lively discussion among the blogfellas.

 The highly regarded Noir anthology series from Akashic Books was fresh when it began with Brooklyn Noir. It now runs to more than a hundred books. I've heard that the publisher is deeply committed to publishing stories on a variety of aspects of the chosen location as well as a genuine noir flavor. On the other hand, the concept of the "anthology noir" has been a runaway success far beyond the original publisher's series. I wrote a story for Jewish Noir II (2022). The stories ranged from Biblical to paranormal to historical to modern, the genres from noir to comic to speculative, the settings spanned the globe. Submissions were by invitation only, but not all of the contributors were Jewish.

Some editors choose to engage potential readers through a mix of beloved authors and fresh voices. Those are the anthologies in which half the stories are by invitation, the other half by open call. I've never made it into one of those. I tried to seed my own anthology, Me Too Short Stories, with a few well-known authors along with open submissions in hopes of attracting a better publishing contract. As it happened, a political issue was raging at the time, and the more courted authors were the first to abandon ship. I persisted and ended up with a book of wonderful stories that failed to get the attention it deserved.

Apart from market considerations, the best anthology is one in which every story is a winner. I got that in the end with Me Too Short Stories. All the stories adhered to the theme, but each of them did it in a different way. None of the writers was famous, but all were terrific at working cooperatively and appreciated a strong editor. Even when fifteen or twenty or two dozen stories are all about bars or all about Jewishness or all about crimes against women, they can be as different as each writer's voice and way of building a unique structure on the three-cornered foundation of plot, character, and writing or storytelling.

Once the editor or editors have selected the stories, they must put them in the best possible order. This is a creative act, akin to putting together a single-author collection of short stories or poetry, and I assure you it produces endorphins. A well arranged anthology starts with a pie in the face—a first story that grabs the your attention (especially in the library or bookstore or in the Amazon sample) and makes you want to read on. The second and third stories must also make you want to read on, and they must be entirely different from the first and from each other—dark and light, tragedy and humor, horror and cozy, snappy dialogue and brooding narrative. And one of the very best must be saved for last, so you close the book with a smile or a sigh of satisfaction.

17 comments:

  1. I'm reading Murder, Neat as we speak, and the French setting you chose for your story A Friendly Glass was an interesting one.

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    1. Thanks, Justin. The bar and drinking theme was challenging for me, so I went back to a time when I was young and ignorant.

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  2. Organizing an anthology is always a challenge, and your description of one way to do so is similar to how I try to organize most of mine. Even so, some anthologies lead themselves to other methods of organization.

    For example, each of the private eye anthologies I've edited that are set in specific decades (Groovy Gumshoes, Private Dicks and Disco Balls, Sleuths Just Wanna Have Fun, etc.) are organized in chronological order. That is, the first story takes place early in the decade and the stories progress through to the end (or near the end) of the decade.

    Steph Cha's and Otto Penzler's best-of-year anthologies are organized alphabetically by authors' last name, which makes a certain sense, but Robert Randisi organized his anthologies the same way, which meant that sometimes the first story was not the most representative of what was to follow.

    And no matter how hard an editor works to get the stories in the perfect order, readers (gasp!) sometimes just skip around and never realize the stories are in a specific order for a reason.

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    1. Michael, there's nothing I hate more than the alphabetical last name format, since I always end up dragging along at the end like that pair of shoes on the proverbial honeymoon getaway car.

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  3. Good column, Liz. I'm skipper-rounder, Michael! (grin - yup, it's criminal what I do) Mainly because I love humour in crime fiction, and tend to read the authors first that I know deliver that. I find it fun to go back and discover new authors in my jumping around - sort of like the satisfaction of finishing a puzzle.

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    1. Funny ones first, huh? I'll have to try that, Melodie. But then will I want to go on to all the gloomy ones in one fell swoop?

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  4. I edited an anthology for the first time last year. Quite an interesting experience! One thing, Liz... Readers not understand from your column that Jewish Noir I and II were published by PM Press, not Akashic.

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    1. Thanks for clarifying that, Rob. I should have mentioned PM Press. I thought I made it clear that it wasn't Akashic, since "Jewish" is not a geographical location. In fact, au contraire.

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  5. Whoops, anonymous is Robert Lopresti. Sorry.

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  6. Elizabeth Dearborn31 March, 2025 14:48

    I love Murder, Neat & hope it wins the Derringer! In one of the two anthologies I've had stories in, my story was the first one in the book & I'm pleased to think the editor considered it a "pie in the face".

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  7. Glad to hear it, Elizabeth. I hope it wins too, even though it's got some tough competition. The SleuthSayers gang are an awesome bunch of storytellers.

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  8. To Liz: The person who says he likes the way the Penzler anthologies are sequenced (alphabetically) is Doug Allyn, that rascal.

    To Michael: I too am one of those readers who like to skip around and read stories in an anthology out-of-order. Just sayin'.

    To Melodie: I also like to read the stories with humor first, if I know a particular author usually writes that way. (But of course you and I are a little weird anyway . . .)

    Enjoyed this post, Liz.

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  9. Thanks, John. I lose with books on bookstore and library shelves too. I'm down on the floor in the corner. Or they don't have room past the Ws, and I don't appear at all. But you wouldn't know about that. You can reach ALL the shelves!

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  10. I seem to recall a certain young woman told me she didn't feel qualified to write for Murder, Neat because the theme of one of her signature series was about alcohol treatment and rehabilitation. And I sad, So? Make that your message.

    As it turned out, she wrote one of the best stories in the anthology. The book wouldn't have been the same without her.

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    1. Aw shucks, Leigh, thanks. As I said, I had to dig deep into the past to a time when I didn't know too much about alcoholism to find drinking too much funny. Luckily, I did have such a past. And "young woman"? Really? Surely we haven't known each other THAT long!

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  11. "Curiouser and curiouser," said Alice.

    For Crimeucopia we always run an open house submissions policy, as one of our foundations has been to bring new voices/writers 'into the fold' and increase their writing CV.

    We (supposedly) have themes - but most are as loose as a supermodel in a 4XL - though we've never had anyone say 'That shouldn't be in there.' At least, not to our collective face :)

    We also often go from Cosy to Grime/hardcore Noir in the running order. After 23 Crimeucopias, regular readers expect that kind of arrangement - though we also tend to put the longer pieces towards the end. And yes, we stand by the line 'You never know what you like until you read it' - and we've had some writers come to us with 'this is the first time I've written in this sub-genre...' so it's gratifying that they trust us enough to show us one of their 'guilty secrets' :)

    As to how the reader reads the latest beast? That makes little difference to us - just so long as they find things to engage with within the covers, then we consider it a 'job done.'

    John Connor
    Chief Cook and Bottlewasher
    Murderous Ink Press
    Crimeucopia - Chicka-Chicka Boomba! All women authors 4th Anniversary anthology
    Crimeucopia - What The Butler Didn't See - due out Tuesday 10th June (2025, for those who do the time travel thing)

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  12. John, I'd say another signature if your anthologies is provocative titles.

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