Fab Friday at BCon
Friday in Indy, lots of business gets done.
People who come to BoucherCon primarily as readers (the “fans”) may not be aware that the Con is also a trade show, with writers as the manufacturers of product. My morning began with a long breakfast meeting with my editor, Kate Miciak, during which we covered everything from the state of publishing in general to what this particular cog in the wheel will be working on next. And because we’ve been friends for more than a decade, even though we see each other perhaps twice a year, there was a lot of catching up to do as well. If you would like to be a fly on the wall for one of these conversations, tune in to the Poisoned Pen WebCon next Saturday when I’ll be talking with Kate and another of her authors, a fairly new guy who is showing a bit of promise, what’s his name? Lee Child, I think it is.
I then moved from breakfast to lunch and put my head together with Vicki and Alice of our very own online empire, to share preliminary thoughts about plans for next year’s The God of the Hive. Although in fact, we mostly just ate lunch and wondered at the décor of the Weber Grill which was, yes, a lot of Weber grills. Hey, it’s the Midwest.
I did manage to listen to a couple of panels, finally, one with good friend Sarah Smith moderating on “Second Acts” (or third…) with the underlying theme that it’s stubbornness that makes a writer, and another panel run by the ever fabulous Michelle Gagnon talking about thrillers with a panel that included one of my very favorite writers whom I hadn’t met, Aussie Michael Robotham. I even did the fan girl thing at the signing afterwards, although I don’t carry books for signing, but I thanked him for coming all this way and I hope he’ll come to San Francisco as well.
Then the Random House cocktail party, followed by dinner with fellow author Brendan du Bois and Random House personnel, from editorial to sales, at probably the only steak house I’ve ever been to that cooks vegetables well, Mo’s.
And although I’d intended to hang out in the bar last night, my body said that was not a good idea, so I slept instead, and am now heading over to start the day.
Signing off from Indy.
I would just add that judging by how exhausted this Fan is, I can’t imagine how the authors (who are Working, after all) are able to sit up and take nourishment by the time they get home from this thing. It’s Brutal! (But in an entirely wonderful way, of course…)
Just finished reading The Language of Bees. Great fun!! I have found Mary Russell a pretty cool invention, and I also very much enjoyed the sense of place and time: the flight north was wonderful to read and even if I knew she was NOT going to die (she is after all the narrator) it did convey the fright and perils of such a trip… I will definitely be reading more of the series and of your (until now not known) work. As you can see I felt tempted to check your webside. Best wishes for the future from London!
I like to refer to Bouchercon as a “Death March with Cocktails.” You were wise to turn in early, I barely managed four hours of sleep a night my entire time there.
Lovely seeing you again, Laurie- and glad you enjoyed the panel. Michael was wonderful, wasn’t he? He promised to come to San Francisco next year.
I like to refer to Bouchercon as a “Death March with Cocktails.” You were wise to turn in early
cach chua vo sinh