Monday, March 25, 2013

I'm Back Home from Left Coast Crime 2013

What a great mystery fan convention!!!

I hadn't been to one since 2009 when I attended Bouchercon in Indianapolis, so I'd almost forgotten how much fun it is to catch up with old friends and make a lot of new ones among the writers and readers of crime fiction. And this year, there was the added bonus of meeting a lot of the folks I've known online through Twitter, Facebook, or blogs but never connected with in person.

There's no way I can list everyone I met, but here are a couple:

Janet Rudolph who blogs about crime fiction and chocolate was on a panel with me and others on the topic of websites, blogs, and social media. Janet gave everyone on the panel chocolate. This is, without exception, the best way to make friends and influence people at a writers' gathering.

Eric Campbell of Down and Out Books. I had dinner with Eric and learned all about his company and the authors he's representing. We already had Joe Abramo here as a guest author, but I'm hoping to get more of Eric's authors to join us as well.

And by attending the new authors' breakfast, I discovered a whole bunch of debut crime writers with books ranging from thrillers to fun cozies. I passed out a lot of business cards when I invited authors to sign up for a guest post.

For now, I'm back and getting ready for the April A to Z Blog Challenge. Note that I have no guests scheduled for April so I can stay on track. I'm doing a totally fun themed project this year with mini-stories in an ABC of Emotions for Adults...using animal characters. The stories will be fun, and some of them a tiny bit dark.

Can't hardly wait, right?

11 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Glad you met up with old friends and made new ones.
Animal characters? Now I'm intrigued!

Unknown said...

Sounds like an awesome time, Pat! I'm planning on attending my first conference this year, and looking forward to it for many of the same reasons you shared. I always imagine what you all are like in person, so it'll be fun to see how wrong I am. :)

Patricia Stoltey said...

We're all a little crazy, E.J. I think that's because we don't get out enough...

Patricia Stoltey said...

Hi Alex -- I hope to entertain and amuse this year. We'll see what happens...

L. Diane Wolfe said...

That's the fun of conventions - meeting up with old friends and those we wouldn't see any other way.

Unknown said...

Sounds like you had a fun and refreshing time. So glad you left feeling connected and recharged!

Jan Morrison said...

Oh what fun! And it's true - we forget how utterly refreshing such a time can be!

Anonymous said...

Pat - So glad you had such a wonderful time! I hope you'll post 'photos. And I am looking forward to your A-Z posts.

LD Masterson said...

Sounds like you had a wonderful time.
That's great.

Animal Characters...hmm...

Patricia Stoltey said...

I wish I could say I had great photos to post, but I kept forgetting I even had a camera. So dumb, because there were 1,001 great photo ops. Sigh.

Terry Odell said...

And it was so good to meet you F2F at last!

Terry
Terry's Place