The L.A. Times Festival of Books - Saturday

Well, I planned and I plotted and I made it to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. I attended the festival on Saturday and it was simply amazing.



I have to start off thanking my friend Michael Alatorre because he secured my panel tickets. He sent me an e-mail earlier saying "good news and bad news." The first two panels I wanted to attend he easily got the tickets for, but the panel with Robert Crais sold out immediately. However, he said, I'm not giving up. There are still some chances that we could get in. Well, Michael got us in! He went to the festival first thing Saturday morning and snagged some of the tickets that they hold back from Ticket Master. So as my sister was driving us from Oceanside to L.A., he called to give me the good news. I literally squealed into the phone. Very unbecoming, I know, but I was excited!! Robert Crais is who ignited this who trip for me in the first place. I wanted to see him!! But here is the man who made it all happen, my friend Michael:




So, we arrived on the UCLA campus and parked. Then we headed to Dodd Hall where all three of my panels would take place throughout the day. The very first panel was at 10:30 and it was titled "A Dark and Stormy Night." The moderator was Lee Goldberg (who writes the Monk books based on the TV series) and the panelists were Jan Burke, Stephen J. Cannell, Robert Dugoni and yes, it is so, Craig Johnson! Here are a few pics, but the light wasn't conducive to pictures, so they aren't a great quality:






The panel started by talking about developing a series. All the panelists have series and none of them set out with the idea to create a series. Stephen Cannell had experience with series having written for several television series before starting to write crime novels. Craig Johnson offered up the advice that Tony Hillerman offered him, "don't forget, it's about the characters. That's the A-number-one rule." Robert Dugoni's advice was "every book needs to surprise the reader."

Lee pointed out that Craig Johnson's considered not just a crime fiction writer but also a literary writer. Craig responded by saying he feels that the readers are at a high level and expect a great deal from the books they are reading. One of the elements he values (surprise, surprise) is humor! He shared another tidbit of advice, a tidbit he received from his training officer when he was a police patrolman, "You can lose your badge; you can even lose your gun; as long as you don't lose your sense of humor, you'll be alright." I think he's doing pretty dandy in that arena. Craig said that when he starts a book, he looks for a social issue he wants to address through the novel.

When asked if they felt a need to "break out" or chance losing their jobs in writing, Robert Dugoni pointed out that people in the publishing industry need to remember they aren't competing with each other but rather they're on the same team. As he pointed out, "there are enough great books to go around." And ultimately, you have "write honestly." Stephen reinforced this point by saying it's about the quality of the books. If the quality is there, the rest will take care of itself.

When Lee asked the panel to address the issue of "the audience has seen it all," Craig started to describe the readers as "cheap dates" and then decided, "I think that's all I'm going to say about that." The entire audience was laughing. It was truly a fun panel.

Lee Goldberg did an excellent job as moderator, and the audience enjoyed many laughs throughout the hour.

After this panel, we had a little time to roam and check out the various booths. Of course there were many booths and we didn't see all of them, but I made sure to see the important ones: Mysterious Galaxy Books, Los Angeles Sisters in Crime, and the Mystery Bookstore's booth. The Mystery Bookstore piggy-backed with SoCal's MWA organization, where I bought a GREAT t-shirt. I'm going to have to check and see if more MWA chapters have great t-shirts like this. I say this as though I actually need more t-shirts!






I also especially liked this booth. A better message couldn't be expressed!


I'll finish up the second half of the day with tomorrow's post. Hope you'll check back to hear about my panel with Michael Koryta and of course the final panel with Robert Crais!

Happy Reading!

The Mystery Book Store in L.A.

Back when I was still in the planning stages of my trip to SoCal, Chris Grabenstein said, "you should really go to the Festival Pre-Party at The Mystery Book Store." He told me it was the place to be. So, I checked with my sister, and she said, "sure, I'll take a half day off of work." Me, being the ignorant Mid-Westerner that I am said, "oh, you don't have to take any time off. I don't have to be there right at 5." My sister informed me that the traffic would be horrible on a Friday evening going into L.A. The drive is already about 2 hours without Friday traffic. We left early and were still sitting in this:

But, that allowed me time to snap pictures of street signs. I was SUCH the tourist! But I was so excited to see the places I read about in my novels!

I'm not sure if you can see it in this last picture here, but the Culver Blvd/Culver City sign on the left reads "EXIT XT EXIT." Any L.A. folks who can tell me what an XT EXIT is?

But then when I actually GOT THERE! Wow! If you ever have the chance to experience one of The Mystery Book Store's Festival Pre-Parties, I highly recommend you do so.

I had the exciting pleasure of meeting so many awesome writers! And you know what? They all seemed happy to meet me as well. So, either they really were happy to meet me or they're great performers in addition to great writers! LOL

Two new writers I chatted with were Susan Arnout Smith and James Scott Bell. Very nice folks. I'll be adding their books to my TBR list.

I have been in contact with John Lescroart recently and he was there. So, I introduced myself to he and his wife. Super, super nice folks. And John's wife took this awesome picture. I think she must be experienced at this process! ;)

You'll have to be checking back to see when John shows up again on the blog!

Jeff Parker was in attendance later in the evening. Very cool to meet him as well.

It was exciting to hob nob with Gregg Hurwitz who made time to stop and chat with Michael and I. He's a transplant to L.A. but he definitely loves his adopted city. Still loves his Giants, but he's an Angelean at heart, now. He also shared with us how he met his wife - shamelessly hitting on her in a sushi restaurant. (Shamelessly was his word, not mine.) I also believe he said it was the "worst sushi restaurant"! Too funny. And of course we talked about Gregg's new book TRUST NO ONE that is coming out in a couple months. After THE CRIME WRITER, I'm definitely looking forward to TRUST NO ONE. Gregg's a fun guy and incredibly nice. If you have the chance to meet up with him some time, do it!

Most of you know that my desire to go to the L.A. Times Festival of Books stemmed from the desire to finally have a chance to meet Robert Crais. Well, when I found out the next two authors were going to be in attendance as well, I knew I'd died and gone to heaven! And for both of them to be at the pre-party Friday night, I'd definitely died and gone to heaven!

Chris Grabenstein, as you know, is the creator of my beloved John Ceepak series. In addition, he has been so great to this blog and to me. So, it was an absolute thrill to finally have the chance to meet him! We talked quite a bit throughout the night. And he was telling me that for the MIND SCRAMBLER release party in NYC, they're having a magician. He's done something unique for all of the book releases, and he is a master at unique, isn't he? Blasted I wish I lived closer to NYC. Cool stuff goes on in NYC!

And you have to give credit to someone who is tolerant enough to put up with all my signature requests. I bought two new books that he signed: one for me and one for my precious dog sitter. He also signed a book I brought from home, the page for my scrapbook AND the elephant poo paper bookmark I bought at the zoo. That's not a joke either! :) And he can rest assured that these will NEVER show up on eBay! He was telling Michael and I how some of his autographed books have shown up there. I can't fathom that; books that I have signed are so special to me, but I'm a sentimentalist. I'll never be able to part with them! :)

I was getting a little nervous that I wouldn't have the chance to see this guy because he didn't show up until a little before 8. But, I'm not complaining one bit because when he showed up, I happened to be very close to the entrance and accosted him RIGHT AWAY! And because I did, my copy of THE DARK HORSE was the first copy he signed - ever! (The bookstores received permission to sell THE DARK HORSE early for the festival - it isn't due on bookshelves until the end of May.) Well, I'm sure he signed arcs of the book (which by the way, he gave all of his arcs to librarians this year - is that cool or what?), but for the actual hard cover "hot off the presses" first edition, mine was the first he signed. Oh yeah, did I mention that this is CRAIG JOHNSON!!!!

He told me his hat looked better on me, but I don't know. I think he's a rather dashing fellow with and without the hat! Regardless, this picture just became my Facebook profile picture. I just love this guy. I'll be talking more about him tomorrow, too, since I attended his panel at the Festival. And I'll be talking more about his books after that since I read two more on vacation! Since it was vacation, I made time for books I really wanted to read, not necessarily the ones I NEED to read! ;)

One final note to make about the pre-party on Friday night. I also got to meet my friend and fellow blogger, Michael Alatorre! He's responsible for many of these great photos both today and tomorrow. He hung out with me at the party and at the festival. It was wonderful to meet and talk; as I've mentioned before, he's just a super person and I'm honored to call him my friend! Thank you, Michael, for helping to make this one of the most memorable weekends of my life! You're the best!

I walked out of the Mystery Book Store on Cloud 9. Literally. I don't think my feet were touching the ground. Kudos to the staff at the store for a WONDERFUL evening.

Check back tomorrow for all the skinny on the actual festival Saturday. Happy Reading!

And the Award Goes To...

Hi all! Back on the homefront. Happy to be back with all my critters, but missing my sister and her critters, too.

I have lots to share with you. Friday night at the Mystery Book Store in L.A., Saturday at the L.A. Times Festival of Books and at least seven books to review. Whew! I think I need another week of vacation just to get this done.

But, before I do any of that, I have to wish MICHAEL KORYTA a hearty congratulations for winning the L.A. Times Book Prize in the Mystery/Thriller category for ENVY THE NIGHT! Way to go, Michael! This is a well-deserved award. ENVY THE NIGHT is a top-notch book; if you haven't read it yet, what are you waiting for? It's a must read! I wish I could have been present to see the actual award ceremony (it was a "closed" affair); Robert Crais presented Michael with his award. How cool would THAT ceremony have been?

Anyway, many congratulations to Michael! And keep checkin' back. I'll post my fun stuff as quickly as I can. And we have a lot of great fun coming up in addition to my SoCal trip as well...some new AWESOME interviews, some book giveaways, a new series of posts I'm putting together...maybe I'll even rustle up some new guest bloggers. I might need a rest after all this blogging! ;)

Happy Reading!