What a good time. And worth every penny. I connected with authors, readers, booksellers. Just what I needed to do. What a crazy busienss, huh? When you can't just write. But what a joyous opportunity for mystery fans to see their fav authors. I saw mine, too. I don't think I mentioned that Laurie King was there. Or Denise Hamilton. Or Michael Jecks. Or Sharan Newman...I could go on. And, of course, discovering more writers I want to read.
Many thanks to Suzanne Arruda for putting all that hard work into our creative panel. And also many thanks to Rhys Bowen, Pat Wynn, and Kathy Lynn Emmerson for their gracious generosity in letting a newbie sit in with them.
What was good about it? It was smaller and it seemed it was easier to connect to people (though I missed the Jordan's of Crimespree Magazine and Janet Rudolph of Mystery Reader. Darn.) The local restaurants were fabulous and if you needed a drink or a pelt, there were plenty of bars and plenty of fur stores to choose from.
What was bad about it? It was small, and there were fewer panels to choose from and only three book dealers in the book room!
I also appreciated the color-coding on the nametags to help you spot authors from others, but perhaps we could have more coding: for booksellers, reviewers, publishers and agents?
I'm not as tired as I thought I would be upon return to sunny and warm California, but I do have a lot of work ahead of me. Mostly, I know I am going to have to plan to go to more events prior to the book coming out. I thought I could hold off on conferences until I got the book in my hand, but it ain't so. The more you dangle the carrot in front of people the more they want it. So I'm dangling. Erm...
Here are some pix of the trip.
That's the view from my hotel room. If you ignore the satellite dish below, it was pretty spectacular. Mountains all around. I didn't know you could see Mt. McKinely from there either until I got to the St. Martin's party up in the tower. I turned around and went "whoa!" Kind of like Mt. Fugi sticking up above the horizon.
This was the only wildlife I saw; dead stuff. I did see a bald eagle during my taxi ride back to the airport. Quite the sightseer, eh?
The Egan Center in Anchorage to the left (where the conference was held. Only a short walk from the hotel) and a cute little tea and chotchke shop called The Kobuk on the right.
Well worth the trip. Wish I could have seen more of Alaska. But on to Left Coast Crime!
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