Robin Agnew
I'm a member of IMBA, the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. We're a loose association of the nearly 50 mystery specific bookstores sprinkled all over the country. We all benefit by our member list-serv, emma-l, where we can figure out problems and issues that affect all of us. On emma-l, we hammered out our list of "100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century". IMBA also provides a list of 5 "Killer Books" every month - books our member booksellers recommend - and we annually present the Dilys Winn Award, given to the book we most enjoyed handselling throughout the year.
IMBA was founded by Barbara Peters, Jim Huang and Tom & Enid Schantz, and it's carried on by those of us who still remain. Sadly, we recently lost Enid, though she and Tom "retired" from IMBA a few years ago. I've served in all sorts of capacities - as administrator, as director for a few years, and for a long time as the Dilys award coordinator. This year the Dilys mantle passes on to Deb Beamer from the Machanicburg Mystery bookshop in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Thanks to working with the enthusiastic Deb on last year's Dilys, we've forged a nice e-mail friendship. I knew she had a big event last weekend, and I asked if she wanted to write it up. What follows is Deb's account of what looks like a successful and fun book event.
From Deb:
Mechanicsburg Mystery Bookshop hosted its first mystery conference – Murder As You Like It - on Saturday, September 24, 2011. The event was for fans of mystery, spy, thriller and horror novels. An enthusiastic 48 people attended and 16 authors participated on panels and workshops.
Authors included: Cordelia Frances Biddle, Chris Grabenstein, Kathryn Miller Haines, Robin Hathaway, Don Helin, Larry Kerr, Paul Malmont, Valerie Malmont, Alan Orloff, Marta Perry, Dennis Royer, Elena Santangelo, J D Shaw, Mike Silvestri, Maria V. Snyder and David R. Stewart.
Chris Grabenstein read a selection from his newest kids’ book The Black Heart Crypt and his John Ceepak book Fun House scheduled for release next year. One of our bookshop friends interviewed Valerie Malmont and Paul Malmont while Cordelia Frances Biddle ran a writer’s workshop on “Mystery and History.” Mike Silvestri’s writers’ workshop was a “primer on writers’ technical issues and how to get the most for your technological dollar.”
Panels covered topics ranging from Keystone State Mysteries (mysteries that take place in Pennsylvania) to historical mysteries.
The hit of the conference was Cordelia, Chris and Kathryn doing improv to show how they come up with their stories ideas.
Numerous people came up to me after at the close of the conference and said how glad they were that they attended and how much they learned. The conference was held at a local church and their youth group took care of the food for the event. The morning fare (coffee, tea, rolls, etc) and the afternoon break (pretzels, cookies, etc.) were provided for a donation. Lunch was $4 per person. This allowed us to keep the registration extremely low ($7.50 early and $10.00 late) since lunch was not included and gave registrants the option of not buying the lunch. Our goal with the registration fee was simply to pay for the church rental which we did.
The only slight problem we had was registration. Registration was supposed to run from 9:00 am until 9:45 am. We set up the two church rooms the night before and arrived at the church at 8:00 am to finish the registration area … connect the computer to the printer, etc. However, people started arriving at 8:40 so we had to ask the early birds to have a seat and we would let them know when the registration desk was open.
From all reports a good time was had by all … fans and authors. Now next year…
