Laurie R. King

The Sunday of BoucherCon is a tail-end kind of a time, with panels going on but a distinctly autumnal feeling in the air. I rudely invited myself into a car headed for the airport in Chicago at a more useful time than the one I had originally intended to share with Les Klinger, and heartlessly abandoned Les to a solitary drive instead of spending six hours on my own in O’Hare.

Instead, we drove up to a vacation spot called the Wisconsin Dells that one of our party remembered as an idyllic scenic spot, which over the past four decades has been transformed into a ticky-tacky wonderland of pirate theme parks, dinosaur theme parks, water slides, and the very worst American culture has to offer. There was no way to the river that wasn’t in private hands, no hiking trail or picnic spot other than one scruffy patch of hillside in the town of Wisconsin Dells that was surrounded by a rusty barbed wire fence.

Not only can one not go home again, really, one shouldn’t try.

I reached home three hours late, following delays at Chicago that forced a stop in Denver for refueling (modern life is certainly complicated) followed by the nonappearance of the car I’d booked, delayed by having to wait for the AAA to give it a jump. Fortunately, once started it continued to run. Even more fortunately, when I got home I found the place still standing and everyone where they should be.

So, was BoucherCon a success, from the LRK point of view? Absolutely. People who’d never heard of me had me sign books for them, a thing that always astonishes me—not that there are people who don’t read my stuff, since really, who can please everyone, but that despite 14 years, 17 books, and an aggressive commercial publisher, there can be mystery readers who apparently haven’t heard of Laurie King. Faithful readers had a chance to tell me how great I was, so I had the opportunity to practice my graciousness skills. I saw friends, met new people, had the opportunity for an extended conversation with six of those faithful readers. I sat in the sun with my British publisher and ate a plate of the best French toast I’ve ever had, and sat in an Italian restaurant and drank beer with two of the best friends I’ve ever made. I learned things about publishing, came away with other ways of looking at my job, and was reminded of the tight community we’ve somehow constructed around a loosely-knit center.

BoucherCon can be lonely for first-timers, especially if they haven’t learned the art of walking up to strangers with outstretched hand. But it gets better and better with experience, and even for newcomers, there’s a ton to learn and to do.

So look at this, and we’ll see you there.