I’ll be honest. I get a lot of requests to read ARCs and write intros. I turn most of them down, if only because I’m insanely busy what with publishing anthologies, writing books and short stories (or trying to), not to mention the work involved as Chair of Crime Writers of Canada. But every now and again, a request will come in that I want to be part of. Such was the case with Last Shot, a collection of four short crime fiction novellas by Alice Bienia, Winona Kent, Peter Kingsmill and Dwayne Clayden. And so, you’ll find my foreword to this terrific collection at the beginning. And now, here’s Alice Bienia, the mastermind behind the anthology:

Putting the Last Shot anthology together was a lot of fun, but let’s face it, it took work.

The reasons for putting together an anthology can vary from building up an author portfolio, creating content for readers and fans, generating revenue, increasing author visibility, raising awareness for an organization or charity, and so on.

So, what was our reason? How did we do it?

I love writing, and I want to get my stories into readers hands so they can enjoy them as much as I enjoy creating them. But how do readers find new authors? How do authors find their readers?

I’ll openly admit, for me, marketing is like a Giganotosaurus standing at the entrance of my writer’s cave, reaffirming that I best stay inside and just write. But with several novels and short stories already written and published it was time to tackle the beast.

But did I have time to take on a whole anthology? I’d need to come up with a unifying theme, set the rules, put out a call for submissions, choose the stories, issue contracts, edit, edit, edit, proofread, format, and publish the book. And that would only get me to the marketing stage.

I decided to tackle the anthology as a collaboration. The goal was to find 4-6 crime writers who wrote within the bounds of the crime genre; were indie authors; treated writing as a career; wanted to find authentic ways to market – that is, to write what they love to write and find readers who love to read the kind of stories they produce.

Luckily, I knew several crime writers who fit the bill.

I pitched the idea to Dwayne Clayden, Winona Kent, and Peter Kingsmill, in November 2020. All of us are indie authors who write crime, whether that be kick-ass adventure thrillers, whodunnits, or intriguing, warm hearted cozies. It’s a given that we all want to grow our reader/fan base. Everyone was keen to learn from the marketing aspects of the project and share the findings with the author community. I got a resounding yes.

We held a zoom session to select a unifying theme, one that would work for all of us and be fun to write about. We quickly settled on ‘last shot’, to be interpreted physically or metaphorically. We liked the tongue-in-cheek humour in the theme, as all of us are over sixty and taking a shot at building author careers.

Although we followed the recommended steps to produce a quality anthology, there were several differences, namely:

• We’d each retain the rights to our individual stories, and after publishing them in the anthology, could do with them as we wished.
• We would each have our stories edited before submitting them to the anthology for final tweaks.
• All anthologies are a collaboration of sorts, but in our case, we would divvy up the tasks.
• Since we want to learn which marketing/promotion techniques are most effective, revenue generated would be put back into marketing.

Taking on a collaborative project can be tricky—working styles and personalities can become more challenging than the writing and compilation itself. In our case—we jelled like peanut butter and jelly.

Maybe I caught a lucky break. But I think it was more than that. I found four co-conspirators who each saw qualities and skills they admired in the others. We’re all disciplined in our writing, we meet deadlines, we know how to get things done. Everyone has a great sense of humour. Dare I say it? Perhaps the grace and wisdom that comes with a few gray hairs helped.

Alice Bienia is an Alberta crime writer and author of the Jorja Knight Mystery Series. Her debut novel, Knight Blind, was a 2016 Crime Writers of Canada award finalist for Best Unpublished Crime Manuscript. The second of the series, Knight Trials, was published in February 2021. Her short fiction is published in The Dame Was Trouble and Crime Wave anthologies.

With a Bachelor of Science degree in geology, Alice spent her early career conducting field exploration programs in remote regions of Canada, where she honed her passion for storytelling, reading, coffee, and adventure. After riding the energy industry rollercoaster for thirty-five years, Alice has finally found a way to put her inherent introversion to use and now writes full time.

When not plotting a murder, Alice amuses herself watching foreign flicks and exploring Calgary’s urban parks and pathways. Find her at www.alicebienia.com.

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