Today, I wanted to check in on a genre I usually don’t read just to get the full experience of the convention and because some of these authors have come to be good friends, so I attended the “Cozies: Don’t Kill the Cat. Really?” panel. Cozies are quite a big part of the mystery community. They are those mysteries that used to be known as village mysteries or the Agatha Christie type, though I tend to think of Dame Agatha’s as “traditional” as opposed to the Murder, She Wrote sort of contained mystery—without sex or violence. You know, the stuff that makes them fun? (Kidding!)
Hobby mysteries are quite the thing; crocheting, quilting, cooking, etc. It’s nothing to sneeze at, even if it isn’t your kind of book. The panel consisted of Marlyn Beebe, moderator, Claudia Bishop, Betty Hechtman, Maria Hudgins, G.M. Malliet, and Maggie Sefton. They talked about how character informs the story (which sort of turned out to be a theme today) and how the genre has grown in the last twenty years, getting itself a name, particularly the hobby/craft cozies. And the title? Interesting that I had this discussion only yesterday with some authors and readers. Some readers will absolutely refuse to read further in a mystery if a cat or dog is killed, even if it serves the story. My own beta readers had me remove an instance where a dog was killed in VEIL OF LIES (which, thinking on it now, I would have left it in.). The rule in cozies is you never kill the cat. Make him sick, make him talk, but never kill him.
Later, I attended the Guests of Honor conversation with Barry Eisler and Rhys Bowen. I’d not met Barry before but I had served on my first panel at Bouchercon Alaska with Rhys and found her to be a terribly gracious lady. It started when Barry asked Rhys how she placed herself in a different era and location, a location that, for the most part, no longer existed. She said that she’d always had a keen imagination which allowed her to make that leap into writing about it. Barry agreed that it was akin to being an actor and getting into character.
Rhys then asked Barry if he’d always wanted to be a writer, and he admitted that he always had a talent but, not unlike yours truly, never really considered turning this interest into a career until he was in his thirties. Barry recommended to any budding writers to “feed your imagination with what you’re passionate about …make your mind fertile and something will take root and grow.”
Eisler worked for the CIA for about three years, so Rhys asked the obvious question, “Have you ever killed anyone?”
“It was voluntary,” he replied. He said the CIA bureaucracy is like the post office with spies.
Then Rhys shared some of her book tour experiences since Barry is in the middle of his. She said she was on tour and arrived at one book store with another author where there were no banners or advertisement of any kind that she was to be there, and naturally no one came. Then the store owner told her it was time to have pictures taken with the store mascot—a large, bristly pig. After enduring that for a bit, she turned to her author friend and said, “Do you know what we’re going to do now? We’re going to get a very large plate of spare ribs.”
Such is the glamorous writing life.
By then it was time for my last panel, “Black is Back: Hardboiled and Noir” with Baron Birtcher moderating, Michael Dymmoch, Vicki Hendricks, Christopher Moore, and Lono Waiwaiole. First, a great big thanks to Baron for some great moderating. Good questions and great humor. We were asked why we’d gone to the dark side (and some of us very dark, indeed. I’m going to have to grab one of Vicki Hendricks books at some point), what made our books noir; setting or character? And to a man, we agreed that it was character that truly informed the kind of story it was going to be. A few questions from the audience, the inevitable “How did you get your weapons on the plane?” question for Jeri, and another great panel was over. This time we had better seating in the signing room but there is to be another all author signing tomorrow. I’ll see if I can slip that in before I have to leave for the airport. I ran into more people that said they already had my book either from Bouchercon or other sources, and it made me wonder if I should be attending a different convention every now and then just to get in new people. The awards brunch is tomorrow at nine, more panels, and then back into the friendly skies for home. So that report will be in two parts since I won’t have access to the internet until Thursday when I get in (yup, 5:30 am Thursday morning). See you tomorrow.
By the way, the sun came out today as you can see from the picture above. The volcano Mauna Loa showed itself, snow-capped and innocent. It doesn't look it but it's some 14,000 feet.
Comments