Sunday and Bouchercon 2009 Closes

Last night I enjoyed a steakgasm at St. Elmos Steakhouse. That was one big beautiful piece of cow. I'm still recovering.

This morning I arrived to the Hyatt lobby and emerged into a bazaar sight. Well, actually, it was a bazaar. Cooked up by, I think, J.A. Konrath, authors were invited to bring a boatload of books and attendees got some tickets to pick up said books for free (this, in lieu of those heavy bookbags filled with books no one wants.) I didn't bother asking St. Martin's to cough up the minimum 50 books required to participate, mostly because I don't like being laughed at, even in an email. So instead I watched from above like a benevolent diety.

Checked out after the last panel--a liar's pop quiz, moderated by S.J. Rozan, with friend Eric Stone, Charlaine Harris, Eric Lin, and Dana Cameron. Very funny, with a standing-room only crowd.

And so another Bouchercon comes to a close. This was my fourth and I've learned a lot since that first one when I didn't even have a book contract. What I had was my agent who sort of ferried me around while I got the lay of the land. What I have learned after four Bouchercons and two Left Coast Crimes (also a mystery convention, not a confession), was that I attend less panels and do more schmoozing between them. I'm still not a person to go to bars at all hours of the night. If I arrive with friends to a bar, I tend to stick with them. I know that's how some folks work the convention, bar schmoozing. What I do, instead is hang out during the day meeting readers/librarians between panels and getting a little valuable one on one time with them. To that end, I think I made out okay at this year's B'con.

I'm back at the Best Western and ready for my stint tomorrow at a Middle School (talking about the writing life and Life in the Middle Ages) and then a bookstore signing that evening. So be looking for those pictures.

Meanwhile, I'm still trying to figure out how to transport 16 bottles of Indiana beer, two bottles of wine, a knight's helm, a sword and assorted medieval weaponry back to California without it costing me a fortune.  

Comments

[K M Britt]

Wish I could have been there.

[Jeri Westerson]

Yes, because then *you* could carry some of my stuff. :)