Learn all about how a cluttered closet and a lunch date with an editor friend helped inspire Meredith Anthony’s latest short story for EQMM! Find “Decluttering” in our July/August issue, on sale now!

There’s an old joke that writers always tell. A famous author dies and goes, of course, to heaven. St. Peter greets him at the Pearly Gates and says, “Welcome, sir. But before you go in, I just have one question.” 

The writer is flustered and starts to mutter, “I swear, I thought she was older—”

But St. Peter raises a white-robed arm and stops him. “No, sir,” he says. “I just want to know. Where do you get your ideas?”

Well, in the case of my short story, “Decluttering,” in the July/August issue of EQMM, I know exactly where the idea came from.

I was having lunch with my friend, Rachel, a former editor who has a side hustle helping people in a variety of ways. I had hired Rachel soon after my husband, writer Lawrence Light (PAYBACK) and I moved into our glamorous Sutton Place apartment with its view of the Chrysler Building. I was pleased with the modern, black and white décor, the edgy but playful art. The apartment was chic and stylish. Nevertheless, I found that I still needed someone to help me declutter.

Like many people, I had my secrets. A small utility room crammed with boxes of items I had no place for. A pantry that was bursting with unused serving dishes and aging small appliances and outdated ingredients. A spa-like bathroom with a medicine cabinet crammed with sample-size fragrances and half-used makeup items. A closet with at least a dozen white linen shirts with subtle design differences, none of which worked for me any longer.

Rachel rolled up her sleeves. She guided me gently and, together, we took care of it all. She wasn’t judgy. She never expressed a strong opinion, but somehow, under her watchful eye, I was able to send full bags to thrift stores, boxes to charity, a few items to vintage resale outlets.

But Rachel was more than my decluttering genius. She had worked in publishing and was a wonderful editor.  She was also a writer, struggling to sell women’s fiction inspired by her “Sex and the City” lifestyle. We always critiqued each other’s work. So, one day at lunch she asked me for a writing prompt. She had run out of ideas.

I didn’t hesitate. “Write a story about decluttering,” I told her. It was perfect. She could craft a plot around two women who spend some time together and get to know each other’s secrets.

Rachel loved the idea. She noodled around for a couple weeks before she gave up. “I can’t make it work,” she told me. “You do it.”

I review mystery and thriller novels for a living (Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine) and I hadn’t written a short story for a couple of years. I had no intention of writing one now. But I found myself sitting down at the laptop. What if a declutterer is working with a client and sees something she shouldn’t . . .

I wrote the story in an afternoon and attached it to an email to Rachel. I called her before I hit “send.”

“I wrote the story,” I said. “Could you read it and tell me what you think?” Rachel agreed enthusiastically.

But I hesitated. “Rachel, darling, there’s one more thing . . . Is it ok if I kill you?”

 “Of course,” Rachel said promptly. “It would be my pleasure.”

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Meredith Anthony reviews mysteries and thrillers for Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine. She also writes the occasional short story. Many of her stories have appeared in EQMM and AHMM. She lives in New York with her writer husband, Lawrence Light. You can follow her @meredith.anthony.3 on Threads, or  @meredith.a on Instagram.