Laurie R. King

It takes a village to put on a BoucherCon.

One of the early conversations we had about BoucherCon concerned coffee, specifically, the need for copious quantities of good coffee.  And tea.  Since two of the three author guests of honor are published by Random House, that house generously stepped up and offered to sponsor the hospitality room.  Big expense, and a huge difference to the cheerfulness of the attendees.  And really—when you’re reading about Jack Reacher, Kate Martinelli, or Mary Russell, isn’t it all about the coffee?

Then Random House went a step further, and surprised me with official Laurie King napkins for people to rest their banana bread and chocolate chip cookies on and dab their lips with:

My very own napkin.

And speaking of tea: artist Heather Neill, a long-time Friend here (she did Russellscape #3,) generously offered to let us use one of her gorgeous images to decorate the hospitality room.  Heather does an entire series around the theme of a teacup, and it was only appropriate that her fabulous “Writer’s Blocks” welcomed hungry and thirsty attendees to the hospitality room:

The hospitality room was staffed by Sisters in Crime (the NorCal branch)—an organization that everyone should join if only to support their superbly informative and thoughtful blog.  They brought the food (cinnamon-raisin soft pretzels: best thing ever, although we could’ve used a basin for hand-washing afterwards…) and kept everyone at the Con well caffeinated, well met, and well refreshed.  Like this:

(Thanks to Alice, Gigi, and Zoe for the photos—one thing a GoH rarely manages to do is take photographs of everything she wants to capture.  Yet another example of it taking a village, to keep a crime writer together.)