bouchercon wrap

Whew! Crazy week. I'm busy busy busy writing fiction and haven't had time to update here. Plus, Hubster is gone to Denver all week for this class or something.  He keeps having late "dinners" and "drinks" with "clients."  Kinda makes you wonder who's the client, eh?

Note to teachers: I sucked at school and so now I suck at parenting kids in school and making them get their stuff done. When the successful student, Hubster, is around, we get shit done. Sorry.

Anyway, what was I talking about? Ah yeah, Bouchercon.

Tre cool, that. First impression from the bar (under sparkly snowy lights - weird freaking hotel, man) I heard more industry/sales talk than I do at SF cons. Maybe it's why thriller writers tend to make more money? Or maybe they just have more sales to talk about?  It's a chicken and the egg thing, but I found it interesting cuz it feels almost a taboo topic among SF writers. Anyway, I find that stuff a yawn, so I just wandered off to find others to talk to whenever it happened. We did have cool talks about the future of ePublishing (Stuart and I mildly disagree there, though we could both be right) and some politics, which didn't really count cuz it was with foreigners, and writing in general, including erotica. People actually (well, to my face) thought it was cool that I write erotica. Having the world's coolest cover for my next book helps.

I met awesome folks. Stuart, of course, who I just sort of seem to fall back in with whenever we hang. It's almost like we're family, like we never were apart or something. And I met the soon to be Mrs. Stuart over Skype, only I was drunk so I'm sure I made a delightful impression. Not.

Gary Corby!!!!!!! The world's nicest Australian author who gave me a signed ARC and I LOVE YOUR BOOK AND ALSO YOU, Mr. Corby! I'm a total fangrrl over him. I also met MC Funk (no, seriously, that's his name--and we recognized each other cuz he'd listed me or Electric Spec once in an old project of his.)  I met Lisa Brackmann, author of ROCK PAPER TIGER. Oooo, she and I have the potential to be dangerous together. She does the world's best imitation of THE GIRL WITH A DRAGON TATTOO and you can tell she loves to write and entertain and doesn't take herself seriously one bit even though she's getting rave reviews and is repped by the sterling Nathan Bransford. Can't wait to pick up her book.  Lee Child had a party, which I crashed (Lee, I owe you a couple of beers sometime) and we got to admire the 3 hunky booty-meats he brought along. There was this contest, see, where they voted on the one who looks like Jack Reacher and they were all smokin' and HUGE. I avoided them, of course--y'all know how I feel about tall people. But whew! easy on the eyes. The girlies were admiring, anyway; the boys were a bit...intimidated. Boys seem to be all about the biggest guy in the room. It was like the cover models at the Romance cons and I laughed about that with several people who'd never been to a romance con or ever even heard about them. The only thing that would have made it better is if they'd all started making out with each other...

I caught back up with Joseph Finder (who's name I always say wrong, sorry Joe, love your books, have your people call my people, we'll do lunch), Midnight Ink editor Terri Bischoff, who I like more every time I talk to her, and a brief hello to Ben Leroy, all courtesy of my friend Linda Hull, a local writer. Oh,  and I shook hands with a whole big set of SOHO writers and promotions folks whose names are now gone into the ether. And I had coffee with writer Peter Dudley, who I'm attending a super-secret event with in a couple of weeks. I did see Janet Reid, but she doesn't rep my genres and she's so bright and whip-crack smart she kinda scares me. Actually, she's very very nice. But too smart for school.


Anyway, I'd mention programming but I didn't go to any. I actually crashed Bcon this year in lieu of playing with the family on the banks of the Bay. Sea lion, sour dough bread, and clam chowder anyone?

OH! And I got Hubster this cool Affliction leather jacket beforehand and he wore it the whole time we were there and looked like a freaking rock star except we were sharing a room with the kids...

It's just now occurring to me that this might not be your most typical Bouchercon post ever.

Um, so. More name dropping. John Connolly, who I very much liked cuz he's a proper height--crime writers are a tall bunch. J A Konrath, who needs to update his online pics, he's good-looking in person. As an aside, I think a lot of people are annoyed with him for going on and on about ePublishing. I don't resent his success a bit, and my impression is that's the crime writing scene: talking about how much money you're making and how well your publisher treats you or doesn't.  Had a delightful dinner with Ruth Dudley Edwards.  She is so smart and nice and clever and she likes Stuart, so nuff said. And there was some apparently famous writer I brought back an Alcatraz harmonica for. Can't recall his name.

Ya. Good fun.

5 comments:

Les Edgerton said...

Wow, Betsy! Sounds like you did Bouchercon right. I went last year when it was close by in Indy and it's one of the best, if not the best, there is. I'm so jealous!

ssas said...

I heard great things about the programming too, Les. Everyone kept telling me to come next year. That'd be fun, but it's technically not my genre, though the next story I write will be a mystery... hmm.

Michelle said...

Well... another M Funk... didn't I already introduce you to Matt Funk before? He lives in the neighborhood... ohhh... you mean the writer - well we will have to get them together sometime just for the "Funkness" of it! Glad you had a great time and the teachers will get over it - they won't let you forget it though!

Sex said...

I think you did introduce us sometime. MC is his real name,also for Matthew. But he's MC forever to me.

Gary Corby said...

Hey Betsy, it was so cool to meet you et familia. Why don't you write a mystery with lots of erotica, and get the best of both worlds?

Well done on closing the bar, btw.