Left Coast Crime (A Little Tardy)

I sincerely apologize for my tardiness in getting this post written for you. Left Coast Crime was such a wonderful time this year (except for transportation back to the airport, but we'll not go there--I might cry). I think I said this last year, but in case you weren't around then or I am mistaken, this is such a great conference and if you enjoy mystery and crime fiction, you need to attend at least once. It's the perfect size, the programming is wonderful, you have great opportunities to interact with others. It is really a gem in the crime fiction world. I hear say that Hawaii is the destination in a few years. I might be starting to save up for that one! Anyway...let's talk about Monterey.

If you follow the Facebook page, you may have already seen the video of Toastmaster Brad Parks introducing Guest of Honor Sue Grafton for her interview. For those who did not see it, I give you, "Keep Away from Alphabet Sue":



Throughout the course of the interview Sue Grafton shared many fun stories. She was animated and engaged. She talked about her frustrations writing in Hollywood--and not selling the rights to Kinsey Milhone, the books that came before A is for Alibi, the trouble she's having with her present novel (X), and the great support she gets from her publisher. She spoke about "Shadow" and the "death cookie" and how she knows someone is the child of an alcoholic. Sue wowed the crowd and Brad did a stellar job giving her the platform to do so. An exceptional interview indeed!

Brad didn't get much of a break on that Thursday as he had to turn around and MC opening night. Here he put on his liturgical robes and led the convention in the crime fiction reader's prayer.  You can see the prayer in its entirety here and pray it yourself tonight.

As always, opening night was a nice chance to mingle and chat. A very special treat this year was getting to meet my online friend Sarah RH.  I've made some of the best friendships online but getting to meet the people in person is always the ultimate treat.

In an effort to keep from writing a mile long blog post, I won't detail all the panels I attended. It's kind of late for that and I'm sure you'd get bored anyway. So I'm going to give you a Top 10 list of things I took away from Left Coast Crime panels:

10.  There's now a frozen yogurt shop in Buffalo, Wyoming called THE COLD DISH. I want to visit it!

9. Tim Hallinan was motivated to be a writer after he wrote his teacher a love poem.

8. There is a humor ghetto in crime fiction. Did you know that? I love humor in my books...topic for another blog post later, so tune in again on that topic.

7.  Lou Berney used Trip Advisor as a weapon in his novel Whiplash River. A lot of readers like to use Goodreads or Amazon that way, don't they? Wielding the powerful review!

6. Tim Hallinan, David Morrell and Sophie Littlefield all agreed that bad sex writing is worse than any other bad writing. Amen to that!

5. Lisa Brackmann, in a discussion on gender in crime fiction, said PTSD is PTSD regardless of gender. The difference comes in the additional obstacles women have to overcome in the military.

4. In a screenwriting panel, I learned there's a saying in Hollywood: "It's the only place on Earth you can die of encouragement."

3. Kent Krueger said he never understood winter until he moved to Minnesota--through his books, he wanted to help anyone anywhere understand that winter. (I'm sure that's especially true after this winter, right?)

2. One of Marcia Clark's goals in writing the Rachel Knight series is to depict the reality of female relationships.

1. And the top item goes to Kent Krueger who gave kudos to mystery readers saying they love to do a lot of the work in the reading process. So the writers only have to provide them a snippet and they take it from there.

A special award must be noted for Johnny Shaw. He made Brad Parks swear in front of his mother during their panel.

As a teacher I assured my students there is no such thing as a stupid question. As a panel attendee, I've learned how very untrue that really is. *sigh*

The programming was truly outstanding at this convention and I enjoyed every panel I attended, as well as the panel I moderated. We had standing room only--wow! So thanks to everyone who attended and to the great panelists with me: Janet Rudolph, Maddee James, August McLaughlin and Chantelle Osman. We had a great time talking about social media, but we could have talked MUCH longer.

The panels are always fun and I always take away interesting tidbits from them, but the true gems of these conventions come in the most unexpected encounters. I loved talking with Johnny Shaw and Erica Ruth before the awards banquet. I had the opportunity to meet several spouses--and parents--at this conference. So nice to meet people I hear about but haven't ever seen. I got to talk about dogs--and Harry Connick, Jr.!--with Lou Berney. Having dinner with Sophie Littlefield, Juliet Blackwell, Gigi Pandian and Maddee James was another highlight. I didn't have near enough time with my dear friend Lesa Holstine, but even if I had spent every minute with her, it wouldn't have been enough time. :-)

So, when you make your plans for your next convention, attend the panels--they're definitely great fun. But make sure you snatch up your own little gems as well!

Happy Reading, my friends!

Left Coast Crime - The End??

O.k. I'm going to make every effort to wrap up the Left Coast Crime recap today. Next week you'll be bombarded with reviews!

On Tuesday I left off after the panels during the day on Saturday. Saturday night involved the Awards Dinner and the Craig Johnson interview.

The dinner was lovely and the food was great, and poor Lou Diamond Phillips arrived in the middle of the meal. The man had been stuck in the airport ALL. DAY. LONG. But he was determined to come. He worked some kind of magic and made it to Colorado Springs. I think that says a lot. He could have easily said, "Hey y'all, my plane is grounded, I'm going home." But he didn't. He persevered and made it!!

Lou Diamond Phillips (center) with Craig and Judy Johnson

Following the dinner, the guests of honor were recognized. Laura Lippman made a very gracious speech and then ended with, "a reader emailed me and asked me to hug Lou Diamond Phillips for her, but I said that would probably be awkward since he doesn't even know me." And like a flash, LDP jumped up from his seat, darted up onto the stage, off the other side--because Laura was walking off--and wrapped her in a big bear hug. The audience was in stitches!

Parnell Hall ended the guest of honor portion of the dinner with a song called "Murder is the Last Resort" a la the theme of the conference. There was a CD copy of the song in our book bags, so if you know someone who attended you can hear it for yourselves.

Parnell Hall sings "Murder is the Last Resort."

Next they conducted the auction with the awards announcements still to come--for future event planners, this is NOT a good idea, especially if your auctioneer is rather luke warm. The auction was slow going until the next to the last item. Craig Johnson had a proof copy of the short story collection that he has coming out from ASAP publishing. The proof copy included signatures from Craig and the various contributors, including Margaret Coel, Lou Diamond Phillips and William Kent Krueger. There are illustrations and photographs and of course the shorts, plus some non-fiction pieces from Craig. I ordered one of the finished copies, but they had a proof that was being auctioned off. And bidding started but it was ho hum until Lou Diamond Phillips jumped up and took on the role of auctioneer for this article.

What'll ya give Lou Diamond Phillips for this book?

Ham that he is, he rubbed the book all over his body and cracked jokes, enticing the bidding all the way up to $775. Auctioneering requires an entertainer! The audience was enthralled. And here we thought we were only getting an interview from the man!

So now it was time for the awards! If you haven't already heard, the winners included:

Brad Parks and Catriona McPherson proudly represent Minotaur

Bruce Alexander Memorial Award for historical fiction: Catriona McPherson
Watson Award for best sidekick: Rochelle Staab
Lefty Award for humor: Brad Parks
Rocky Award for book set in the LCC geographic area: Craig Johnson

Rochelle Staab and her stunning Watson Award!

I know I've met Catriona before, but as with almost everyone at the Left Coast Crime Conference, I was able to actually talk to her a bit and she's just a lovely woman. And her speech was lovely as well. I do know Rochelle Staab--she's a xuni author--and she's a doll, so I was very excited for her.

I must point out that when Brad won his award, he lived up to the award. Humor does not stop at the man's books. First he walked up on stage and asked Lou Diamond Phillips if he could have a hug as well. LDP obliged.

Sorry for the blur--Brad gets his hug from Lou Diamond Phillips

THEN after he thanked Hilary Davidson and I for stuffing the ballot box, he did what Brad does best...he sang...a song...to Laura Lippman, to the tune of "You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin'." Laura got up and danced with him and the crowd loved it.

With the wrap of the awards there was a short break so they could rearrange things in the room for the interview. I took the opportunity to snag a seat front and center. Had I known I would have such a great seat, I probably would have taken my video camera along. Alas, I did not. But I have some good pictures to share. AND I do have some audio from the session, so I'm going to include a snippet here. And boy was this an ordeal. I had always edited my audio on my PC, and this time I had to do it on my Mac...I like to learn, but not late at night when I'd just like to get done...anyway, the audio is about 9 minutes and hopefully it'll give you a good sense of the wonderfulness that was the Craig Johnson interview.

I know that my headline says this is the end for my Left Coast Crime recap, and it is, but there will be one more fun little post this weekend that is kind of my highlight moments and pictures. Yes, I have even more pictures. Don't ask how many I took in the Craig Johnson interview alone....

I know you're going to be thrilled with tomorrow's Five on Friday guest, so I'll meet you back here you then! Happy Reading!

Left Coast Crime - Part 2

Saturday was just an all-around spectacular day at Left Coast Crime. I started out at a panel called "You Say Teepee, I Say Hogan." All the panelists dealt with Native American tribes in one way or another in their books. It was rather fascinating to see the array of tribes that these authors illustrated through their writing.

Margaret Coel's fascination with the Arapahoe started through research she was doing primarily through books, but through the course of her 16-book series featuring Father John and Vicky she came to know the Arapahoe personally and interacts with them regularly. But her own position as an outsider made her want to write her books around someone with a similar situation, thus Father John.

Craig Johnson, of course, has the Cheyenne in his Walt Longmire series. He feels that it's important to reflect the Indian culture honestly in his books. And he emphasized their rich sense of humor. All of the panelists agreed that the Indians have a wonderful sense of humor. Craig says if you don't pick up on it, you will quickly become the butt of it.

Shannon Baker writes about the Hopi and her interest was sparked by a controversy involving piping sewage water to a mountain for the creation of snow to ski.

Following the Indian culture panel, I headed off to an all-woman panel on the forensics behind the books. This panel included J.T. Ellison, Robin Burcell, and L.J. Sellers, moderated by Jan Burke.

Robin, having been in law enforcement herself had some first-hand experience with the real life forensics. J.T. and L.J. have both made great efforts to learn about those aspects of law enforcement. J.T. has observed autopsies and fared far better than she thought she would. L.J. has been at the scene of the crime for evidence gathering.

Robin's advice for how to get the inside scoop on this information if you're writing a book, offer law enforcement free food! Offer to take them to lunch or dinner and pick their brains. While certain practices like ride-alongs aren't as common as they once were, there are other opportunities to learn, such as citizens' academies.

Of course the question came up in this panel about how much is too much when you're writing about the forensics. There's an obvious "ick" factor, but where do you draw the line?

Robin says she's always followed her grandmother's advice on painting, "when you're painting a brick wall, you don't paint ever brick. You paint enough so the viewer knows it's a brick wall and you let their brain fill in the rest." L.J. says anything she puts in the book has to move the plot along. Anything used strictly for reaction is excessive.

This was just a full day of great content. The next on my list was Laura Lippman's interview with Twist Phalen. It was a wonderful interview and I walked away feeling like I knew Laura better than before, so that's a definite plus.

Laura spoke to the fact that she doesn't care about the number of female writers vs male writers, who is being reviewed where, etc., etc. Instead she cares about the number of stories about women vs the number of stories about men. She hopes that her body of work will be a reflection of the "woman" through her time.

Laura believes that crime fiction has no limitations and she hates the phrase "transcends genre." She's always been proud to be a crime novelist and believes people need to stop using euphemisms for what they do. Own it, and be proud of it.

Her next book will be called After I'm Gone and the idea for the story came from her husband. She says it is the first time she's allowed someone to give her an idea for a book.

The final panel I attended for Saturday (I missed a panel I wanted to see because lunch took too long, what can you do) was the panel featuring the Rocky Award nominees: Chuck Greaves, Craig Johnson, Margaret Coel, Beth Groundwater and Darrell James.

The panel started with a question for Craig: are you Walt Longmire. And Craig responded with his wife, Judy's regular response to this question, "Walt is who Craig wants to be in 10 years, but he's getting a slow start." Craig also says that the tv show has not affected how he writes his characters at all.

Chuck Greaves says he chose Pasadena for the setting of his books because LA has been done by many and better. He was looking for something new and different.

The approach to writing varies widely on this panel. Chuck heads into uncharted territory without a map. Craig takes a map but doesn't necessarily always refer to it, and as a former engineer, Beth Groundwater "engineers" her plots with a lot of planning and preparation.

The tidbit I found most fascinating in this panel was learning Craig had done some mountaineering in the past and that the Chapter 12 scene of The Cold Dish is derived from an experience he had while climbing in Russia. It's little things like this that make panels, book events, etc., so fun for me.

O.k. in the interest of not making this post any longer than it already is, I'll save the rest of Saturday for tomorrow's post. There is still plenty to come! As you can see, I thoroughly enjoyed Left Coast Crime and would highly recommend it to any crime fiction fan. I've already signed up to attend Monterey in 2014.

Then tomorrow we'll talk Left Coast Crime awards and an amazing Guest of Honor interview between Craig Johnson and Lou Diamond Phillips.

Left Coast Crime - Part I

Rabbit, rabbit! Right? Kind of funny saying that the day AFTER Easter. I hope you all had a great weekend.

So, you know I traveled to Colorado to attend my first Left Coast Crime. And I have to say, it was a great experience. I liked the size of the conference and the resort was absolutely lovely. I personally would have preferred it in the summer, but some left-coasters who don't get to see snow very often enjoyed it. Here's a view of the scenery Friday morning:

This was the same view Saturday morning:

This was also the reason Lou Diamond Phillips had a difficult time getting to Colorado Springs, but more on that later. Despite the weather, we had a grand time.

Thursday was our panel on social media. I video taped the panel, but unfortunately the view wasn't wide enough to get everyone. So, it's only a partial view. When I have that available on YouTube, I'll let you all know. But we touched on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads (too bad we didn't have the Amazon topic to throw in), Pinterest and Google Plus. Time prevented us from addressing blogs, websites and newsletters, though. Our panelists were so wonderful and all had unique perspectives, so the conversation was great and we received many compliments. The greatest thing I heard from people was that they learned something something from the panel. Yay!

The next day started off with a panel about literary influences, followed by a panel on the anti-hero. The discussion on the anti-hero was rather fascinating and revealing. Questions such as "is there a line your anti-hero can't cross" and "should the reader judge the anti-hero" came up. I think readers are going to judge all characters no matter but whether they're justified in doing so is the real question. This brings to mind for me the idea that readers should first and foremost ask themselves if the author is doing what he/she set out to do. John Gilstrap says the problems arise when you have the anti-hero step outside his/her own code.

The panel was all male and I wonder what direction some of the questions would have taken if there had been a female on the panel. It was pointed out later in the panel that Zoe Sharp writes a female anti-hero. That may very well have changed the climate of this panel, but it was insightful nonetheless.

One of my favorite panels of the weekend was the "Lighter Side of Death and Dismemberment" featuring Deb Coonts, Harley Jane Kozak, Rochelle Staab, Brad Parks and Chuck Greaves. These folks know how to avoid taking life too seriously. While I had a hard time believing that Brad Parks is the shy quiet one in his family, the fact that Deb has made it her life's mission to embarrass her son sounded like a parental truth.

The idea of humor in the darker books of crime fiction came up and humor as a defense mechanism was discussed. Most professions that encounter regular horrors like law enforcement, the medical professions, etc. have a way of dealing with what they witness every day. To people on the outside that may come across as sick, but for those in the trenches, it's the only way to remain healthy. So humor is true to life for these people.

I have some video from this panel as well. I need to do some editing with it, but will hopefully have that done soon so I can share. I think you'll enjoy a little tidbit from this panel.

Following this humor panel, I attended another absolutely hilarious event and that was the Truth or Dare panel. The folks subjecting themselves to this were Brad Parks, Toast master David Corbett, Guest of Honor Laura Lippman and Parnell Hall.

The questions and dares were posed by Rhys Bowen. At first everyone was willing to respond to the truths: what non-living writer doesn't deserve their fame? What's your birth name? What's the worst thing anyone's ever said or written about you? But when the question of "What LIVING author doesn't deserve their wealth or fame" no one was willing to answer and the dares started. 

Several of the dares dealt with singing, but when they arrived at Brad, he was given a blind fold and then Jan Burke came to the stage and stood next to him. He had to determine who Jan was without looking. And yes, we were all a little concerned about this! No lives or limbs were lost, however.

To top off this night, Brad Parks and I went to dinner at a dive called The Hatch Cover. Brad had been in the "Concealed Weapons Fashion Show" as James Bond and was decked out in a tuxedo. I fit in much better in my jeans and sweatshirt. As Brad describes it, when we walked in the record scratched and everyone turned to look at the first tuxedo to grace the Hatch Cover. The tuxedo may also have been the reason the waitress carded Brad when he ordered a beer. He was astonished and had to brag to everyone that night about being carded. A success Friday at Left Coast Crime I would say!

I'll have more on Saturday tomorrow, so stay tuned!