Robert Crais and Toronto fan, Janet Costello
For more coverage and photos of the conference see ashedit.wordpress.com
See also http://www.spinetinglermag.com/ 2011/09/26/more-bouchercon-2011/
Everyone in the mystery and thriller world goes to Bouchercon, named after Anthony Bouchercon the first literary critic to raise mystery fiction to literary status.
Everyone is there to network as well as hear established authors and see what’s new. I went to talk about my debut mystery, No Dice.
The greats and the near greats were there as panel members, bantering with one another, answering questions from the moderators and the audience. During the half-hour break between panels the crowds hustled to the hospitality room for coffee, all too few pastries, and more conversation about the turbulence in the publishing world.
The panel rooms and the corridors of the hotel buzzed with networking conversations and the bar in the evening was lively. Mystery writers are storytellers and good talkers. Get a few drinks in them and things get boisterous. Get John Lutz and Harlen Cobden together.
Val McDermid and Colin Cotterill signing books
The booksellers rooms, two ballrooms probably, is too tempting. All the mysteries and thrillers from the past are there to chose from. You see a book by a new author you just heard on a panel who writes your favorite setting and genre. You must buy it. And there’s another. And another. And graphic novels. And audiobooks. Long lines formed at the UPS store at the hotel with buyers shipping stacks of books home.
Not just writers, newbies and bestsellers go to Bouchercon; it’s librarians and booksellers, publishers, agents and editors, and bloggers. Fans came clear across the country to sit in on an interview with Robert Crais or Val McDermid. The Sisters-in-Crime session was a highlight for me.
Your guess is as good as anyone else’s about what directions publishing is headed, including the editors, publishers, and agents who spoke. Nobody knows.
Surprisingly, there were only a handful of panelists who had self-published, if that many, which led to a rather elitist view from those who had been taken up by traditional publishers. That will surely change.