Susan Oleksiw

February 20, 2025
 
As I look at this date, and then the date on the previous post, I'm appalled that I have been silent in this space for almost a year. It hardly seems possible, but it is. My niece occasionally asks me if I've been posting regularly on Thursdays as I said I intended. Fortunately, our conversation moves on quickly and more than shaking my head in chagrin, nothing more is said.
 
A lot has happened in the last year. As you might imagine, a lot changes for someone when their life partner of 55 years dies. My experience hasn't been so different from other women losing a partner. I passed through the stage of seeing something interesting and thinking, I should tell Michael about that. He'd loved hearing that. Then came, I wish I could tell Michael about that. And after that, the less interesting, Oh, look at that. My response to minor catastrophes was about the same. I'm now at the stage of wondering where I left that very useful screw driver, or maybe it's time to check that pipe that runs so close to the outside wall—it has been pretty cold lately. And out of six hammers, one is just right for my hand.
 
I suppose the major change is what happens when there's more time of a different sort. There's less focus because there's no time crunch; the mind wanders and bumps into unexpected thoughts. I'm at the stage of thinking I meant to try that, to spend more time there. I have more time and I have less time. The result is less fiction and more photography—and yet it's all narrative.
 
This is an ongoing transit. I use the word transit because transition seems to imply an end point, and I'm not convinced there is one. Instead, I seem to be on a spiraling upward or sideways or somewhere, changing and discovering and trying things out. There will be more to report, but this is enough for now.
 
 
 
 

Crime fiction has a certain magnetism that draws writers of varied experiences and interests, who introduce readers to unexpected and perhaps unexplored corners of the world. Three writers new to the genre have done just that in Wolfsbane: Best New England Crime Stories 2023.
Two of the three writers are social workers, so they bring to their work an overabundance of experience with human beings at their most intense, perhaps not at their worst but possibly at their most extreme.

In Michael Ditchfield's "Undercover in Alcatraz," a young man soon after his marriage is approached by two federal agents who persuade him to undertake a short stint as a criminal in Alcatraz. The job is simple enough—just gather certain information—and the pay is good. But like all things in life, there's a lot more to the proposal than going undercover in a prison.

In "The Snitch" by Sean Harding, we remain on the outside but life isn't much better. An ever-patient informant waits for his handler to pay him, and to show up on time. He has little status in his life, no prospects for anything better, and a meager network through which to earn his pay. But he makes friends easily with a young girl, and we learn what kind of character is hidden within a man who is held in contempt by most people on both sides of the line.

Christine H. Chen brings a different perspective from her multicultural background. After numerous short stories in diverse publications, Chen turned her skills to mysteries, and managed to serve up a gem. In her story "Lost and Found" the generations cross history and cultures before they can meet. Only then can an act against the victim be understood.

These are only three of the twenty-one stories in the forthcoming Wolfsbane, the third anthology from Crime Spell Books in the ongoing series to highlight New England writers. We are proud to publish the first short stories by Michael Ditchfield and Sean Harding, and the first crime story by Christine H. Chen.