Laurie R. King

The Wednesdays of Edgars week are for the symposium, when people shell out money for a day of panels and an interview with that year’s Grand Master, in this case, my distant (very, very distant) cousin, Stephen King. And although it’s intended for writers new to the business, I often shell out my own ninety dollars in order to listen to my colleagues talk about their experiences, because I always learn something. This year I got a free pass to the other panels because I was on one, so I stayed on to listen.

One of the pleasures of being on a panel is that often you get to meet writers you’d never met before, or if so only briefly. This time the only person I’d worked with before was Jerry Healy, which meant I got to meet Sandra Brown, Joe Finder, and Barry Eisler—I had to come to NY to meet Barry, although he lives maybe fifty miles from me, but on the inland side of the mountain range while I’m on the coast, and although it’s not quite the case that never the twain shall meet, it’s much more likely to meet in NY for Edgars or Anchorage for BoucherCon.

And one of the pleasures of this particular gathering is that I have the leisure to sit and have a chat with various people, which rarely happens in the rush of BoucherCon. SJ and I enjoyed a long breakfast and a walk up to 59th Street Wednesday morning, talking about writing and the publishing business (which are not at all the same thing) and tossing ideas at each other, a great and rare joy.

But I skipped out early on the agents’ and editors’ cocktail party that evening, somehow I don’t have a lot of excess energy this trip. And today it’s been quiet, breakfast with agent and daughter, coffee with friend Les Klinger (World’s Greatest Expert on All Things Sherlockian, and about to take on the title of W. G. E.on A. T. Draculanian), responding to emails from my editor, writing this blog, and putting together my (brief!) remarks for the Edgars dinner tonight.

Tonight you can see the results of the Edgars awards on the MWA web site, or read all about it on Sarah Weinman’s always-excellent blog.

And tomorrow I will try to report on things myself.

In the meantime, you can imagine sixty writers, new and established, print and film, who are trying to ingore the growing jitters in their bones as they consider the awards tonight.

I’ve been a nominee and I’ve been a judge, and I have to tell you, the judges find it a whole lot easier to eat their banquet dinners.