What a mess, on the ladder of success...
Where you take one step and miss the whole first rung...
Greetings, fellow humans, friends and wayward children!
Welcome back!
News (Not Really News)
It’s been a couple of weeks — time flies when you’re smashing out that next book — since I attended my 2nd Writers Conference of the year. And it was a big one. Maybe the biggest…
*An unpaid intern whispers in my ear*
It was the biggest. Bouchercon, named after Anthony Boucher, a writer and a big old cheerleader of mystery. His name will come up again in this post. Well over a 1000 people registered for a four day extravaganza of panels! interviews! drinking! meeting people! more drinking! and book buying!
And this year’s conference was in Minneapolis! A city close to my heart.
Most of the day could be spent going from panel to panel, seeing amazing authors talk about their books, about craft, and just being damned entertaining. (I’m looking at you, Charlaine Harris.)
And there were panels for everyone. From Cozies to Thrillers, from Indie authors to How To Talk To An Agent, from Espionage to PIs. A plethora of panels.
But, most of the action took place at the bar.
And by action, I mean, people talking to each other. Crimes may have been discussed, but all of them were theoretical. I hope. On my part it was.
On the Saturday night of the conference, as I was talking with a writer I hadn’t seen in ages — thank you, pandemic — two guys from South Dakota stepped into our conversation. They were literal cowboys, in Minneapolis for the the football game with next day. And they were mystified about what we were all doing here.
“Writers?" They asked. “Tell us a story!” They demanded.
OK, dear reader, you should also know, these guys were drunk. Der-ruunnnnnk. Needless to say, we did not tell them any stories as they kept interrupting with their own lives. One asked, “Do you know how much my father is worth? With all the land and the cattle?”
We all shook our heads, because, well, it was rhetorical.
“Five million dollars. Five.” And he held up one hand — while gripping two beer bottles in the other — just to make sure I knew how much his father is worth. “I’m not worth anything.”
“Well, you’ve come to the write conference to solve that problem. You could kill him.” We brainstormed for a hot second and came up with several ideas on how he could get his father’s money.
His mouth hung open and he looked at us and said, “I can’t kill my father.”
Which is good to know, I’d hate to be an accessory after the fact. And with that, we bid them adieu.
*crosses fingers that no ranchers were murdered in the last week*
And what would a writing conference be without a book store…!?
The bookstore was managed by Once Upon A Crime, an indie mystery bookstore in Minneapolis. They were fabulous and happily took all of my money.
The conference climaxed on Saturday night with the Anthony Awards — see, I told that name was gonna come up again. The Anthony is one of the big awards in Mystery and Crime and all the nominees were fab.
Here’s a link to the list of nominees and winners: find a great read!
Four days of conferencing is a lot of conference I discovered….
Regardless, I can’t wait too do it all again next year.
Book Recommendations!
I probably don’t really need to recommend this book because it’s like…. winning all the awards. And getting all of the recommendations. But, I f@!king loved this book.
Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby is a banger of a novel. Fast paced, harrowing, and with two amazing characters at the center. The two fathers face the worst thing a parent can face: the murder of their — in this case — adult children.
And no one gives a damn about the murders it seems, because they were two gay, married men.
But the fathers give a damn, even if they were estranged from their kids at the time. The fathers face their own choices, their own bigotries as they do what it takes to find some peace and justice for their kids.
Along with with all the other awards, it picked up the Anthony for Best Novel. Cosby is a fantastic writer. He assembles great plots and matches them with compelling characters. Check out all of his work.
Until next time.