Janet Reid
How much am I looking forward to Bouchercon?
THIS MUCH:
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For starters I get to see many of my fabulous clients. Andrew Grant is in from London, Dana Cameron is coming in from Boston, Bill Cameron from Oregon, Eric Stone and Robert Fate from California. And one of my all time favorite editors Alison Janssen from BleakHouse is streaking in on her skates from Madison Wisconsin along with another great friend Ben LeRoy publisher of BleakHouse Books.
A posse of the Dead Guys will be there and we'll be meeting up for lunch, something I'm looking forward to a lot.
There will be parties and gatherings and panels and meals and dancing on tabletops. 300 mystery readers, writers, editors and agents. What could be more fun than that? Well, no work for starters. This is the first conference I've gone to in a long long time that doesn't involve prepping for a panel, reading pages, practicing being nice (and yes for me it DOES require practice!) and trying to get things done while far removed from home base.
This week though, I'm taking off. No email. No mail. Phone on vibrate, and screening calls. No blog posts! No NOTHING. I plan to sit around a lot and listen to authors talk. And read. Read stuff just for fun. Read books cause I like the author. Read books that sound good. Read just cause I love to read mysteries. I want to go to a panel or two where I don't know a single author and think the topic is weird, and find something I love through pure serendipity. I want to open my arms and shriek "Bring it on!"
And a very interesting thing here is that the two days I'm actually working this week, Monday and Tuesday, are pretty slow. Everyone seems to be either getting ready to leave for Baltimore or Frankfort. Fewer calls, fewer fires. It's kind of nice.
I may have to rethink my famous antipathy toward exiting New York if it means this kind of peace and quiet!
So, thank you to everyone who worked hard to make it possible. The conference organizers, the authors who ARE on panels, the booksellers hauling crates in and out of the hotel, all the folks organizing and hosting parties. You're working your ass off. I'm not. I gotta say I really love it that way! Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
Now, Bring It On!
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