bouchercon

The strangest thing happened to me at Bouchercon. I realized how much I missed being in school. Listening to all the discussions, even the ones that were not panels, was exhilarating. I get so bored at home talking to myself. And here was an entire hotel full of people who read.

And I see the attraction for authors as well. I know being seen and promoting the new book is the publisher and agent approach to conferences. Get my author out where people will buy the book. Exposure is everything.

But writing is such a solitary thing that the authors seemed to enjoy seeing each other. They hung with each other a lot of the time. And talked about books and writing a great deal of the time. And how cool is that? A huge salon of writers in a bar in a Hyatt.

We went to great panels. The humour (this is for Martyn) panel really delivered. You could hear the audience laughing all over the second floor. Chris Grabenstein and Donna Andrews have spent so much time together that they could take this act on the road. The Chris/Donna show was repeated at the auction where people paid huge sums to be in a Michael Connolly and Sue Grafton book. The bidding went by me really fast.

And we heard people we are going to sample who were on our panels like the aforementioned Martyn Waites. Such an engaging Brit.

The biggest surprise was the author who turned out to have been one of David's interns at the Associated Press. I looked at the name and said I thought we knew her. We did. That was a lovely surprise. So look for Persia Walker.

Yeah, it was worth it.