Stephen D. Rogers

WOMEN, GIRLS, AND SPINSTERS

How many women die each year
Just so an amateur sleuth
Can trip over the body
Just so a detective
Can fight for justice
Can make it personal
Can overcome a tragic past
How many women die each year
Simply to generate clues?


Stephen's YouTube video reading of "Women, Girls, and Spinsters":



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Stephen confesses nothing.

STEPHEN D. ROGERS is the author of SHOT TO DEATH and more than 800 shorter works. His website, www.StephenDRogers.com, includes a list of new and upcoming titles as well as other timely information.

Stephen D. Rogers

PUBLIC ACCESS

He crosses the street after school to the library
Where he signs up for a computer
Where he waits, gray backpack tucked between his legs
Until his turn comes
And he sees his mother
Staring back from her booking photograph
Telling him he's loved
Until the screen blanks
He presses the space bar
To bring her back.


Stephen reads "Public Access":



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Stephen confesses: "This poem was not so much inspired as stolen. I'd gone to the library to write, and while passing the public-access computers, I saw a boy of about eight staring at a booking photo. He and she looked similar enough to be related, and my heart broke."

STEPHEN D. ROGERS is the author of Shot to Death, Three-Minute Mysteries, and more than eight hundred shorter works. His website, www.StephenDRogers.com, includes a list of new and upcoming titles as well as other timely information.

30 Days of The 5-2 - Day 27: Lou Boxer

NoirCon organizer Lou Boxer discusses Stephen D. Rogers' "Too Easy by Far".

See the full 30 Days of The 5-2 schedule.

30 Days of The 5-2 - Day 21: _holm

Scientist and author Chris F. Holm discusses "Reminder" by Stephen D. Rogers.

See the full 30 Days of The 5-2 schedule.

Stephen D. Rogers

TOO EASY BY FAR

The cherry popped easy.
The good times came easy.
The ring circled easy.
The booze swallowed easy.
The money went easy.
The fights started easy.
The bruises hid easy.
The blood clotted easy.
The lies spouted easy.
The anger, now that took time.
The trigger pulled easy.


Stephen reads "Too Easy by Far":



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Stephen confesses: "The first thing that came to me was the last line. I shifted the pad of paper I keep on the passenger seat and filled out the structure: the path to victimization that mirrored the path to action. From the back seat: 'Dad, why are we all over the highway?'"

STEPHEN D. ROGERS is the co-author of A Miscellany of Murder and the author of Shot to Death, Three-Minute Mysteries and more than 700 shorter pieces. His website includes a list of new and upcoming titles as well as other timely information.

Stephen D. Rogers

REMINDER

While sweeping the porch
My broom handle hits
The outdoor chimes
Ding, dong, cling, clang
Dropping me into the rocker
Sadly in need of repair
Letting the broom
Thunk against the rail
She always slapped the chimes
When she came home
If her assailant did the same
It must have been
The last happy sound she heard


Stephen reads "Reminder":



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Stephen confesses: I think a lot about the things left behind, the time bombs waiting to go off and remind us of what was lost. A set of chimes hang above the outside deck...

STEPHEN D. ROGERS is the author of Shot to Death, Three-Minute Mysteries, and and more than 700 shorter pieces. His website, www.StephenDRogers.com, includes a list of new and upcoming titles as well as other timely information.

Stephen D. Rogers

I never really wrote much poetry until a poem just came to me one night. I sold that to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and then went on to place another hundred and fifty poems, about a third of them mystery.

A thing I like about poetry is that it allows you to focus the reader. It's like the difference between a long inconclusive fight and a sharp blade to the belly. Despite all the blows that land in a fight, the blade has more impact. With a poem, the reader is less likely to get distracted by dialogue and action and subplots. What's there is real, and it's it.