meetingacrosstheriver

We're back from Bouchercon. Here's the scoop.

Barbara Seranella was there, thank goodness! She looks great and is as funny and quick as ever. For those of you who didn't know, Barbara has had not one, but TWO liver transplants in the past two months and the idea that she would be able to attend Bouchercon seemed to me to be completely far-fetched. She had 500 onions wrapped in netting along with a note that said something along the lines of "You can have the onion. I'm keeping the liver." Now, that's an upbeat personality!!

We saw a number of the other contributors to MATR (in alphabetical order): Cara Black, CJ Box, David Corbett, Steve Hamilton, Gregg Hurwitz, William Kent Krueger, Eddie Muller. We heard that Wallace Stroby was there but never ran into him. Sorry to have missed you, Wallace!!

M Is For Mystery sold more of our books from the supplies Richard brought to Chicago. Cara told us that she signed a number of copies of MATR at Bouchercon.

It was a great show, a terrific weekend and, best of all, we're glad to be back home.

meetingacrosstheriver

meetingacrosstheriver

Richard Brewer and I are at Bouchercon in Chicago, a mystery convention which is filled with mystery writers, publishers, booksellers, fans, you name it. Check it out at bouchercon.net.

First of all, Chicago is a wonderful city and the weather is perfect - not too hot with a bit of a breeze yesterday. Richard has never been here and he's loving it. The architecture alone is incredible.

We picked up our badges yesterday and as we checked in we saw one of our contributing authors, Steve Hamilton, so that was a nice way to start off!

At registration they handed us a Bouchercon tote bag filled with books. I mean FILLED with books. Glad I didn't take much along for reading on this trip but I do wish I'd used a larger suitcase. The contents of each bag is different, to some extent, so Richard and I did a little oohing and aahing over them. Oh, thanks to Bouchercon for the souvenir pin too - it's like the pins people collect at the Olympics. We ran into a woman in the book room whose convention badge was covered with pins - some were Bouchercon, she said, and some were DorothyL (a great listserv for the mystery community). How does one get a DorothyL pin? Inquiring minds want to know.

The book room is basically tables with mystery books and thrillers manned by booksellers from all over. It was a treat to find out the M IS FOR MYSTERY had sold out of our book - in fact, the last one sold in front of our very eyes. I was totally amazed.

Richard had the forethought to take some copies to the show so we will replenish the store's supply. After all, yesterday was just the first day of the show.

There are panels galore at Bouchercon. We arrived too late to attend any yesterday but today and tomorrow there are so many that it is tough to choose, but choose we must because there are several during each time period. You can see the list on the bouchercon.net website.

This is a very high-energy convention. The personalities are strong and vibrant and there is a great deal of joie de vivre in the air. These are people who love what they do and appreciate each other (or at least they talk about each other!).

Next year it is in Madison, WI. I'm looking forward to it, not only because this is a great convention but also because Madison looks like a pretty city AND Wisconsin is one of the three US states I've yet to visit. Look out, North Dakota and Alaska!