Edgars symposium

If you’re interested in crime, or writing, or crime writing—and especially if you’re anywhere near New York the end of this month—you should seriously consider the MWA Edgar symposium. This year is a particularly strong set of offerings, including Jeff Deaver, Alafair Burke, Megan Abbott, Reed Farrell Coleman, Lyndsay Faye, Charles Todd–oh, and that Laurie…

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One writer’s travails

Left Coast Crime is an annual conference that moves around the left coast, generally of the US. This year LCC was in Honolulu. Like the other moveable crime conferences, location is a prime consideration, since fans and readers use this as a holiday as well as a chance to meet their favorite writers. So, the…

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No hand-bag clutching in NOLA

The first mystery conference I ever attended was in London, in 1990. At the time, I had a separate agent for the English/Commonwealth market, and she happened to mention that there was this conference that I might go to… Because it coincided with family stuff, I went. And found it interesting, and informative, and more…

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The craft of crime

One of my favorite of the year’s mystery get-togethers is not a fan conference (although I love BoucherCon, and Left Coast Crime, and…) but one on the craft of writing. The Book Passage conference has a great track record with getting new writers published, and it’s a great place to meet your community, both in…

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Laurie emerges from her cave

Neck deep as I am in a first draft, nonetheless I’m due to extricate myself this week from the blizzard of paper scraps that is my study to appear in public, face scrubbed and carrying on normal conversation (as opposed to muttering vague bits of dialogue under my breath.) Thursday night I’ll be in San…

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Me & Edgar & Agatha & friends

That shriek that rattled the country just before 10:00 pm EST was me reacting to the sound of my name from the podium at the Agatha Awards: Malice Domestic’s choice of Best Historical Mystery is Dreaming Spies, by Laurie R. King! I was nominated for an Agatha once before (for The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, in 1995) and…

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Agatha and me

The list of nominees for this year’s Agatha awards is now up on the Malice Domestic web site. Malice, which takes place in Bethesda the first weekend in May, celebrates “the traditional mystery,” and Dreaming Spies is one of the attendees’ top choices for “Best Historical Mystery.”  This is a great honor–I mean, just look…

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Boucher’s Con

As you probably know, every year the Crime World [Fictional Division] gathers to discuss pretty much everything to do with crime & mystery books: from character development to social media, e-books to Hollywood. The conference is named after the editor/reviewer/writer Anthony Boucher and this was Bouchercon’s 46th year. We met in Raleigh, and the fun began.…

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THE ANTHONY!

BoucherCon is fabulous at any time, but when they call your name out for an Anthony, it becomes positively intoxicating. Or maybe stunning: Of course, I can’t help feeling I cheated.  After all, Les and I just had to talk a bunch of first-rate writers into playing in the Sherlock Holmes sandbox and writing a…

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BoucherCon!

The social event of the crime calendar each year is BoucherCon, named after the great writer/reviewer Anthony Boucher. This year the tribes gather in Raleigh, North Carolina for Murder Under the Oaks. The events page has just gone up, and I’m scheduled for two panels: Preventing a Mystery Series “Jumping the Shark” Oct 9, 1:00 Moderator…

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