BENJAMIN LEROY
I'd like to make a confession.
I'm tired. Exhausted in the way that comes with being on the road for a long stretch of time. A week ago this past Monday I started my day in Madison, took the bus to Milwaukee, then flew to NYC for a few days of Edgar Award festivities. I did my best to make it to all of the cocktail parties, talk to friends, meet strangers, and celebrate the books and people that make this community such a fascinating and great place to spend time.
Then, before the sun rose on Friday morning, I jumped on a plane heading from NYC to El Paso Texas. Well, that's not exactly right, there was first the matter of a layover in Atlanta. Then El Paso. Then a three(ish) hour drive east into the heart of West Texas (Ft. Davis) for a writing conference. Also, because I have long been fascinated with one, very random town in West Texas, I drove an additional five hours roundtrip so that I could hang out for thirty minutes in the town of McCamey. I had hoped to find the old McCamey hospital and locals to talk to, but the restaurant it had been suggested I visit was closed (permanently?) and all I got was a trip to a Dollar General where I picked up a hat and a warm bottle of Dr. Pepper.
After a brief detour into New Mexico on Sunday, I flew out of El Paso on Monday to Cincinnati for work meetings. It should be noted that, as best I know, there are no direct flights between the two cities so I ended up flying El Paso to Atlanta to Detroit to Cincinnati, arriving a little before midnight, at which point I picked up a rental car and drove the forty minutes from the airport to my hotel.
The last two days have been day long meetings, team building exercises. And, like I mentioned earlier, I'm exhausted.
To beg your forgivness for this otherwise thin update, I'd like to offer a gift -- Prologue Books (one of the two companies I oversee) is giving away William Campbell Gault's, Don't Cry for Me, the Edgar Award winner in 1953 for Best First Novel.
In a few weeks we will discuss the book with a variety of crime fiction luminaries and would love to have you be a part of that discussion.
