Bouchercon Part 1 & A Facebook Giveaway

Well, I may get the record for latest Bouchercon post, but here it is finally. Prepare for photos and fun!

Bouchercon was, of course, in my back yard this year. And as always I had a fantastic time meeting up with friends from all over the country who all share a love of crime fiction.

My good friend and fellow blogger, Lesa Holstine, flew in Wednesday and I picked her up from the airport. Do you think I thought to get a picture of us together? Jen, fail #1. But we were roommates for this - her first - Bouchercon. I'm so thrilled I could share her first Bouchercon with her.

Thursday kicked off the official festivities. I only attended one panel, and that was the "What an author will do for a story" panel with Sean Chercover, A.C. (Andre) Frieden, Jamie Freveletti, and Sam Reaves. The panel was moderated by PR rep extraordinaire Dana Kaye. These authors have traveled all over the world in search of their stories.

Jamie Freveletti and Andre Frieden

Sean Chercover says his lack of focus ignited his travel and various forms of employment and that ultimately resulted in his stories. His big piece of advice for sparking ideas, though, was to indulge in a "shath." For those who are not familiar with a "shath" it is when you sit in the bath tub and run the shower over you...thus, a "shath."

Sean "argh, matey" Chercover and Sam Reaves

While Sam Reaves has a strong background in languages, which was helpful with interviews abroad, he says, you can't write a travel log. The research is interesting, but that alone doesn't make for a great crime novel.

Sam Reaves and Jamie Freveletti

My other adventures Thursday included interviewing Sophie Littlefield and Juliet Blackwell, which hopefully you watched on Thursday. I also picked up xuni.com's fearless leader, Maddee James from the airport, attended the St. Martin's cocktail reception - and was able to chat with Steve Ulfelder, who is absolutely wonderful - and had dinner with Brad Parks. I decided to forego the opening ceremonies at the Rock Hall. As I mentioned, this is my backyard, the Rock Hall wasn't a big sell for me.

Friday kicked off with the Mary Higgins Clark breakfast. It was geared toward librarians, but some reviewers and bloggers were invited as well. Mary Higgins Clark is a charming, humorous, vivacious lady. Whether you're a fan of her work or not, she was a super fun guest of honor for this breakfast.

Mary Higgins Clark

Criminal Element's fearless leader, Clare Toohey and Tracy Kiely

Following the breakfast was my first panel as moderator. It was the "Old Friends/New Friends" panel with Parnell Hall, Mary Jane Maffini, Jeff Cohen/E.J. Copperman, and Libby Fischer Hellmann. We had a full house and I thank everyone who came out. Several people stopped by to say "hi" and I want you to know that meant the world to me. So thank you!

We had a great conversation about series characters. I was fascinated by Jeff and Libby's differing views on writing characters of the opposite sex. Jeff has taken his experience with the women in his "real" life and build on those to create his female protagonist, while Libby learned early she thinks too much like a female to write a male protagonist.

Mary Jane Maffini is absolutely delightful and shared experiences with us about making friends as a librarian and bookseller as well as writing with one of her best friends, her daughter. Parnell Hall talked mostly about how his books don't sell, but he would be willing to play the role of the Puzzle Lady in a movie if the offer ever presented itself.

The panel I attended after mine was called "Eve of Destruction." The panelists were all interesting, spirited and fun, however, the moderator spoke for the first 22 minutes of the panel and pitched her sister's memoir coming out later. Epic Fail!

Sophie Littlefield and Tracy Kiely

When the panelists were given the floor, a discussion ensued about female characters. Sophie Littlefield pointed out that we're more accepting of relateable characters now - characters with foibles; characters who aren't perfect. And Rochelle Staab pointed out that she feels there's an expected vulnerability for female characters that doesn't exist for males.

Tracy Kiely and Rochelle Staab

This was my first experience hearing Deborah Coonts on a panel and now I'm determined to read one of her books! She had me laughing when she told a story about her male fans writing her to ask for less feminine book covers. They have to take the covers off the books so people don't make fun of them reading! Gotta love it!

Sorry, I wasn't able to get a great pic of Deborah Coonts because of the champagne bottle. Bummer!

Whew! Friday was my busy panel day. A lot of great people to see and listen to. The next panel was the Ex Libris panel (a.k.a. the xuni.com panel). I wasn't able to do any tweeting from this panel because it was a dead zone for my cell phone, which was a real bummer because it was such a fun panel: Jan Burke, Marcia Clark, Jim Conway and Carter Wilson and moderated by Maddee James. They are a blast, let me tell you. They were creating fake first sentences for books - both their own and others. The one thing we all definitely took away from this panel: they like to drink. I think every book covered included a first line about some alcoholic drink!

Jan Burke and Marcia Clark...Jan looks like she's up to something!

Two of the nicest people you could meet: Marcia Clark and Jim Conway

Marica, Jim and Carter....looks like that line was especially funny!

Debut author Carter Wilson

The other thing that was abundantly clear was that they are all extremely talented writers.

All the panelists hard at work on their first lines!

Not done with Friday yet! Are you still hanging with me?

I attended the "Morally Challenged Characters" panel next. This panel included Lou Berney, Elizabeth Hand, Seth Harwood, and Chris Holm. It was moderated by Ali Karim. Again, it's fascinating for me to hear about how writers approach their stories.

Ali Karim, Lou Berney, Elizabeth Hand and a sliver of Seth Harwood

Lou indicated that he prefers to have a jumble of characters without any set designated roles for them. However, he also pointed out that if you have an unlikeable protagonist, you need to make sure the antagonists are sufficiently unlikeable to still make the protag look better.

Elizabeth likes to push her character to the border of where she'll go and what she'll do. While Chris Holm likes to discover the line his character won't cross and then put him in a situation that gives him no choice but to have to cross it.

Sorry about the lack of photos on this panel. The room was HORRIBLE for taking pictures. There were big pillars directly in front of where I was sitting. I moved to take this photo, but had to go over to the right side to be able to get anything at all...Jen fail #2.

So that was my crazy Friday line-up of panels. I'll save my final two days for tomorrow's post because I want to make you aware of a giveaway I'm doing on the Facebook page if you haven't seen it already. I do giveaways over here regularly and have some new ones coming up, but this is a FB page exclusive this time.

I took a Jen's Book Thoughts tote bag to Bouchercon and collected signatures from many authors. The bag has signatures on both sides. Some of the authors who signed it include: Lee Child, John Connolly, Karin Slaughter, Kelli Stanley, Alafair Burke, Marcia Clark, Michael Koryta, Steve Ulfelder, Brad Parks, Sean Chercover...whew, you get the idea. I'll include a card for the lucky follower with the names of everyone who signed the bag. To be in the drawing for the bag, you just need to be following the Jen's Book Thoughts page by Sunday, October 21st. I'll do a drawing and pick a name to win the bag and goodies from Bouchercon.

Just as I do periodic giveaways here on the blog, I'm going to start doing periodic giveaways over on the Facebook page as well. This is just the kick off.

Five on Friday - Jamie Freveletti

Wow! It's September. Where is this year going? I was a little shaken earlier doing some work and having to look up books with 2013 pub dates. Doesn't it seem like 2012 just started? Well, anyway, before anymore of the year flies past, let me take care of this week's housekeeping.

Big contest at Criminal Element this week folks. You can enter to win the ENTIRE Walt Longmire series. So, if you've listened to me rave about these books but you haven't picked up your own copies yet, this is the perfect opportunity to try to win them. There are actually two sets they're giving away, so go enter and then pop back over here!

Lesa Holstine has her weekly giveaway and this week one of the books you could win is a signed copy of Louise Penny's THE BEAUTIFUL MYSTERY. You should be hearing about the audio of that book very soon here, but I can tell you it is a "beautiful" book, so if you don't already have it, go enter...don't forget to come back, though! 

Things were kind of quiet here at the blog this week, but I was yappin' my gums...or rather my keyboard...elsewhere this week. If you care to read about my four-legged children, you can check out my post at the Crimespree Blog from Sunday.

Then my friend and fellow blogger, Pop Culture Nerd, asked me to join up as a Nerd and make a monthly crime fiction recommendation. Each month I'll share my recommendation of my favorite book (that I've read) that comes out that month. It's called the Nerdy Special List. PCN was inspired by the Indie Next List where independent book stores make recommendations. So this is bloggers making recommendations. The first list of recommendations can be found here.

And last I've added another panel to my schedule at Bouchercon. This one is called Mystery Made in the Midwest and it will take place Saturday at 9am. So if you can make it, we shall talk about murders amidst the corn stalks! :-)

Now on to our featured guest. Jamie Freveletti is an energetic, fun, smart woman. When she's not writing award-winning thrillers, she's kickin' butt. She has a black belt in aikido. And bless her heart, she's also a runner.

This is an especially exciting year for Jamie as she has a new Emma Caldridge novel AND she's written the newest installment in the Robert Ludlum Covert One series. THE JANUS REPRISAL will be released on Tuesday. I find that series fascinating, so I'm looking forward to reading it. Now let me quit running on and let Jamie take over with her five on Friday!

Jamie and C.J. Box at Murder & Mayhem in Muskego

1. My favorite place to read is: In my living room. It has a plush chair and ottoman, great light, a fireplace to my left, and no electronic devices anywhere.

2. The most famous person I ever met was: Richard Harris. We met at a Casino in the Bahamas many years ago. I had no idea who he was, but it was clear that he was someone because he lit up the room with his incandescent personality. He struck up a conversation and we strolled from game to game for a couple of hours, just chatting and laughing. I noticed that the people around us were snapping photos on the sly. He finally said “you have absolutely no idea who I am, do you?” I admitted as much and when he told me I said, “You’re not Richard Harris, because I would know you. He’s in one of my favorite movies about a man mauled by a bear and left for dead.” He laughed and said, “Ah, that explains it, I had scars all over my face for that one.” He named the director and the movie and showed me his identification. He was charming, funny and exuberant. What a nice man.

3. If I had to be stranded on a desert island with only one other person it would be  My husband, because he’s my best friend, always able to have an interesting conversation, and not a whiner at all.

4. My favorite brand of athletic shoe is: I’m an avid runner and a shoe junkie! I have every brand you can imagine. Currently my trainers are New Balance and my race shoes are Nike Lunar Glides.

5. The #1 item on my bucket list right now is: Everyone’s going to think I’m crazy, but I don’t have a bucket list! Clearly that says something about my ability to plan.

Many thanks to Jamie and wishing her a super wonderful release week. Wishing you all a great weekend filled with fun reading and sunshine!

World Book Night, Theme Week Round-up & More

There so much to share right now I'm almost not sure where to start, but let's start with my experience as a "book giver" for World Book Night.

Monday was World Book Night, and this was, of course, the first year that the United States participated. I was so honored to be chosen to be a book giver and I hope I was a good representative.

I was fortunate enough to get my first choice of book titles to give out, which was THE BOOK THIEF. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend doing so. It's classified as a young adult novel but it's powerful no matter what your age.

Being that I opted for a young adult novel and I use to teach young adults, I wanted to go to a school to hand out my books. In my school district many of the children come from families with low socioeconomic backgrounds, poor reading skills (for many English is not their native language), and homes with no books.

I spoke to a few teachers and the principal before starting my distribution. No one knew about World Book Night before this, so I was happy to be sharing the information with them. After I explained the celebration to one teacher, she just beamed and said, "that book is PERFECT for this." I also took a bag of my own books to leave in their teachers' lounge, free for the taking.

I stationed myself outside the school as the day was ending and the dismissal bell ringing. It was windy and chilly but that didn't dampen the mood.

At first a few kids were timid about accepting a book. One asked, "is it a Bible or something?" Valid question considering how many people come to my front door wanting to sell their religious beliefs. When they found out I wanted to give them a best-selling novel and they could keep it for themselves, they were a bit overwhelmed. Their smiles and excitement were so rewarding. I could have handed out books for hours like that.

I loved one young boy who said, "hey! Get your read on, y'all!" My hope now is that the book makes a difference for at least one person who took the coveted prize home on Monday. This is an experience I will be able to cherish forever. My thanks to the World Book Night USA committee for allowing me to be a part.

And of course we need to wrap up the Heroes & Villains theme week from last week. We, as readers, definitely favor our great heroes over the great villains. That may be why we love crime fiction so much...we're looking for the heroes to take care of the crime around us. Anyway, once again, Harry Bosch took the tournament beating out Professor Moriarty almost 3 to 1.

Congrats to Naomi from The Drowning Machine whose bracket submission was almost perfect all the way through. She is the grand prize winner of the bracket contest.

In the "Who Am I" Contest, we had perfect score submissions and the drawing for the prizes resulted in  Juli S. and Kim R. taking home the prizes. I'm compiling their winner packs to ship off to them.

The correct answers for that contest were:
1. Jonathan Grave
2. Dick Moby
3. Jonathan Grave
4. Lucas Davenport
5. Aimee Leduc
6. Napoleon Bonapart "Bony"
7. Hector Lassiter

Thanks to everyone who participated in that contest! I have a couple more winners to notify from drawings based on comments left throughout the week. I'll be getting in touch with those winners as soon as I take care of the two bigger contests.

My hearty thanks go out to the bloggers who particpated:

Naomi at The Drowning Machine
Les at Classic Mysteries
SuziQ at Whimpulsive
David at The Paley Center

I know obligations can get in the way of making commitments to things like this, so their participation really means a lot. I hope you were able to take some time to stop by their respective blogs.

Also, many, many thanks to the authors who contributed to this week:

Craig McDonald
Brad Parks
Steven Forman

Their fun, creative posts really added a special something to the celebration of heroes and villains. Also thanks to all the authors who participated by giving their characters' theme songs.

So this post is growing crazy out of control, so I'll add just one more part and then call it quits for today. Last Friday I went to get my hair cut - no don't run away, this really is book related. The salon was having a big Earth Day celebration, so I thought it the perfect time to leave my Emma book. What am I talking about? Well the "Where is Emma" promotion of course.

Dana Kaye of Kaye Publicity and Jamie Freveletti came up with this great promotional idea for Jamie's book, RUNNING FROM THE DEVIL. A slew of books were released to people across the country to "leave" somewhere. There's a sticker on the book that says, "if you find Emma, post to her Facebook page." And there's a community page "Where is Emma" where people are posting where they left Emma and where they found Emma. If you find her and post to the page, you can win prizes. Such brilliance! I love it.

So, I left Emma at the salon. I hope someone finds her, reports her and READS her!

Happy Reading to you all!

The Pokey Little Bouchercon Post

Yes, I'm still blogging about Bouchercon. Yes, it is a little sad on my part. In my defense I had three other planned posts for last week, and the last two posts I have are totally worth waiting for. Why you ask? Well let's take a look at Friday in St. Louis!

The morning started bright and early with a very nice breakfast co-sponsored by the Midwest chapter of Mystery Writers of America and CriminalElement.com. The breakfast was held for librarians, bloggers, booksellers and other related conference attendees. Guests of Honor Charlaine Harris and Colin Cotterill spoke, while additional Minotaur authors hosted individual tables.

Brad Parks and Sabrina Ogden

Charlaine Harris

Colin Cotterill deep in thought about Charlaine's speech?

Ali is tweeting? Or Facebooking maybe?

Once we had full tummies, we could move on to the programming of the day. For me that started with a panel called "Shake and Finger Pop." It's a bit of a misleading title as the panel dealt with fight sports in crime fiction. The panelists included Jamie Freveletti, Tom Schreck, Christa Faust, and Frank Bill all moderated by Eric Beetner. It's fascinating to hear the way each of the panelists views fighting in relation to plotting and their characters. Tom Schreck and Frank Bill have more of a boxing background and Jamie Freveletti is a martial artist with a black belt in aikido. Christa Faust's character is a former porn star, and Christa pointed out parallels between the porn industry and professional fighting.

Jamie Freveletti and Christa Faust

Jamie Freveletti

Christa Faust and Tom Schreck

Tom Shreck and Frank Bill

The next session I attended was Ridley Pearson's interview by Jeff Abbott. I know from my own experiences interviewing Ridley, that he's a wonderful interviewee. Add to that Jeff Abbott is a fabulous interviewer and this session was outstanding! Jeff rocked the house with his self-deprecating sense of humor, his knowledge of his subject and his appreciation for Bouchercon as a fan conference. Sometimes participants forget that. This isn't a writer's conference. The fans come to know the writers more than the writing. The unfortunate part of this interview was its time slot. The charity bowling tournament was going on at the same time. I'm sad more people couldn't have enjoyed this wonderful interview. And sadly, I arrived a few minutes late, so I didn't get to record it. That was my biggest regret of the conference. But here are some pictures from the fun:

Jeff made Ridley really think on this question.

This picture says so much about the entire interview.

 

Ooooh, I think Ridley is telling a secret!

I just love this shot! Doesn't Ridley look like an excited little kid? So much fun!

Following Ridley's interview I opted to see Dark Angel: Morally Challenged Heroes. This was an extra special panel for me because two people I've gotten to know and really like through social media were teamed up here. Chris Holm was the moderator and Bill Cameron was one of the panelists. And I can attest that they are super great people and it was wonderful to get to meet them in person. Also on this panel were Blake Crouch, Theresa Schwegel, Michael Wiley and Leighton Gage. After a little unforeseen informercial, the panel was off and running and quite entertaining. The interesting outcome was that none of the authors really viewed their heroes as morally challenged.

Chris Holm and Bill Cameron

Theresa Schwegel and Michael Wiley

The programming element of the day ended with one of my highlights for the conference: Gregg Hurwitz interviewed Robert Crais. I'm not going to say a lot about this interview because I have it recorded for you to see yourself. If you didn't get to attend, here's your chance to see it. If you did attend and just want to relive it...here you go. What I will say is that Gregg Hurwitz did an exceptional job. He understood the idea of the fan convention and created an environment where the fans could know the man behind the writing. It was fun, humorous and enlightening. Gregg has given me much to aspire to in the realm of interviewing. And that's enough from me. Here's the video:










Finally, I'll wrap with our gift to Robert Crais. The Craisies did a little brainstorming and with the initiative of Naomi Johnson (The Drowning Machine) we got jersey's that said "The Craisies" across the front. Then we each picked an RC character and had the name put on the back. He was gifted the #1 shirt:

A Slew of Wonderful Events

As most of you who read the blog regularly know, I kinda like author events. Oh, alright, alright! I have a bit of an addiction. I admit it. :-)

One of the goals I set for myself was to average one event a month this year - I'm ahead of schedule for this year. Not only do I find them fun and informative, I also find that they add to my reading experience after. On a very rare occasion one has turned me off of an author, but the good experiences far outweigh the bad. I also like to support the authors I read and admire; attending their events is a great way to do that.

Well, June was a busy month for events and I have lots of fun to share with you from those events, starting with Chicago's Printers Row event that was held the first weekend in June.

This was my second year attending Printers Row and I really enjoy the event. Seems to rain at least a little every time, but that's o.k. I was none too happy when they outlawed the taking of pictures during the sessions, but I found a way to get a few pictures anyway.

First, I had the chance to meet Lesley Kagen after her wonderful panel. She is so passionate about writing and that comes through in everything she says. Lesley is one of our xuni authors, which is how I found out about her. Listening to her read from her book resulted in me being very excited to hear she will be reading her own audiobooks. I don't usually get excited about an author reading his/her own audiobooks, but I have a feeling Lesley is going to be the best choice for these!

Later that day, Judy Bobalik and I attended a conversation with Sean Chercover and Marcus Sakey. How much fun! First, I know many of you will be excited to hear that Sean has finished his third book and we'll be hearing more about publication of that soon. But the basis of the story is a revivalist, con-man preacher who begins to spew predictions that are coming true. The root of the idea came to Sean in 1996 when he was having to take numerous pain killers and was also drinking whiskey. - See, you always wondered where authors get their ideas. Now you know!

Marcus also revealed where the seed for THE TWO DEATHS OF DANIEL HAYES came from.  Sean had actually shared a story about Satchel Paige who didn't know his age but was asked at one point by a reporter, so his response was, "How old would ya be if ya didn't know how old ya was?" That question led Marcus to the question, "WHO would ya be if ya didn't know who ya was?"

There was a fun early-release party for Marcus' THE TWO DEATHS OF DANIEL HAYES afterward. I was really excited to be able to celebrate the release of this book with him.

The next day at Printers Row, Judy and I attended a panel with Andrew Gross, Kevin Guilfoile, Keir Graff and Jamie Freveletti.

Andrew talked about his upcoming novel EYES WIDE OPEN. He explained that he typically works around ideas that come from news headlines, but this book deals with two events a bit more personal to him. The first being the death of his nephew from suicide and the other being the time he met Charles Manson when he was 12. The revelation of this meeting elicited quite a startled response from Jamie who was moderating the panel.

The week after Printers Row was just as busy. It started with Craig Johnson's event in Oakmont at Mystery Lovers Bookshop on Tuesday. There was a full house for Craig, which is fitting because he's so entertaining and fun!

Craig spoke about the fact that he does indeed plan story elements well in advance of the actual book he's working on. When he created Virgil in ANOTHER MAN'S MOCCASINS he had intentions of using him with another storyline later (a.k.a. HELL IS EMPTY).

HELL IS EMPTY was challenging for Craig to write in that he was relaying on another book's structure to put his own together, since HELL IS EMPTY ties in allegorically with DANTE'S INFERNO.

Craig also addressed the pilot of LONGMIRE and how much involvement he had in the process. When he saw the auditions for the role of Henry, Lou Diamond Phillips was the only actor who didn't instinctively create contractions out of Henry's speech.

Craig charmed the audience and it was a wonderful evening!

The following night was Michael Koryta's event. Luckily that one was in Westlake, about 20 minutes from my house. And this was an event that was originally scheduled for the CYPRESS HOUSE release but had to be canceled twice because of weather. The weather was cooperative this time around and all went as planned.

Michael shared a few fun tidbits about THE RIDGE, including the fact that his mother use to take Michael and his sister to see lighthouses whenever they traveled. According to Michael, she dragged them to every lighthouse she possibly could. So having the lighthouse in THE RIDGE was a bit of payback to Mom for those excursions.

Michael also gave some advice to anyone visiting a feline rescue like the one in the book. "Don't wear perfume." Micael's publicist wanted to visit the rescue facility that influenced the writing of THE RIDGE, and when she did she wore nice clothes and perfume, which attracted the cats to...well...mark her. Once one cat had left its mark, many more decided they needed to as well. YIKES!

The next book Michael's working on is going back to traditional crime fiction. It may be out as early as 2012 or may be later into 2013.

I had a short break after Michael's event, which gave me time to take my dogs to the vet for their overdue vaccinations and celebrate my mom's birthday and Father's Day. The family was appreciative of that.

This past week brought Karin Slaughter to the Cleveland area. Aside from the nasty woman who sat next me, this was a tremendous event. Karin Slaughter is fun, humorous and energetic. You can see how much she loves what she does. I think that's one of the most amazing things to experience. She takes nothing for granted and is appreciative of every fan and every circumstance that got her to where she is.

This event was held at the North Olmsted library, which is part of the Cuyahoga County library system. Many of you are probably familiar with the work Karin has done on behalf of libraries; many of her events for this tour are taking place in libraries, and I was thrilled that one of those libraries was near me.

Karin talked about the role libraries played in her childhood and her road to publication. She acknowledged the role her father played. His hard work provided her with a life that allowed her to go to the library and read books instead of having to work to support their family. He also taught her how to do more than "be pretty."

I think anyone who has ever had a chance to listen to Karin Slaughter speak knows without any doubt that she is a born story-teller. Her abilities go beyond the written word to the spoken word as well. She's absolutely amazing and I encourage you to see her if you have the chance. I assure you, she's worth going out of your way, driving a longer distance than usual, whatever. It is a fabulous experience.

So that's been my June of author/book events. Who have you all seen recently that you really enjoyed? Did they do anything special or unique that made the experience extra special? I really encourage all of you to check out an author event at a local bookstore or library. Show some support to those folks who provide you with hours and hours of entertainment.

Now for a little down time when I can catch up on the reviews of books I've been reading, plot some fun project ideas, and update this darned blog. Have you been wondering when in the heck I'm going to get on the ball? Holy cow I need to update. Thanks for being patient with me and for coming back to visit regularly.

Happy reading everyone!