Monday, October 12, 2009

Bouchercon - a world of mystery - by Austin Camacho


This year the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention will be in Indianapolis October 15 through 18... And so will I! For me, it's the party of the year. This time, I'll even have my lovely wife Denise along.

The program starts Thursday at 9:00 a.m. and for 3 and a half days there will be four, five or sometimes six different 55-minute sessions running at a time, followed by 25-minute book signing times, leaving 5 minutes to get to the next presentation. There will also be a few sessions with no conflicts, like the Guest of Honor interview with Michael Connelly, and the Anthony Awards Ceremony and Reception.


I’ll be easy to find there. Thursday at 1:30 pm I get to moderate a panel on "TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY PRIVATE EYES." I will discuss current and future trends in the private eye novel with four of the best practitioners of the art: Jack Fredrickson, Greg Herren, Adrian Magson and Michael Wiley.

I'll also have the chance to have lunch with my fellow Echelon Press authors. Echelon publishes a lot of mystery, so we’ll be a large team. Then I’ll gather with a second group of mystery writers – the contributors to this year’s Wolfmont Press holiday anthology, “The Gift of Murder.” As Earl Staggs told you yesterday, all the profits from this book go to the Toys for Tots foundation and if you find our gathering you can get us all to sign your copy.


In addition, I’ll attend the Private eye Writers of America Banquet where this year’s Shamus awards will be handed out. Sadly, I wasn’t nominated but I’ll be there cheering for my favorites anyway. ;-)


I’ll also turn up in the occasional small group discussion, author conversation or lecture. And I hope to be part of the Continuous Conversation, the on-going, roundtable discussion that involves three writers at a time who are replaces, one at a time, at regular intervals all day, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.


At the very end of Bouchercon I’ll be sitting in at the Author’s Bazaar with free copies of one of my Hannibal Jones mysteries. On Sunday morning, fans will come into the room and get free tickets. They can wander through the room, meet and chat with the authors, then turn in a ticket for a free book. How cool is that?


So if you’re a real mystery lover you need to be at Bouchercon. And if you are there, please find me and say hello. If you read this blog I want to know you.

5 comments:

Jean Henry Mead said...

I would love to attend the B'con but I'm snowed in on a mountaintop in Wyoming, working on four WIPs and waiting for a snowplow. I hope to be there next year.

Have a great time!

Anonymous said...

Austin,
Man, thanks for making the rest of us salivate if we can't be at Bouchercon this year!

And thanks much for the promotional mention of THE GIFT OF MURDER. We're on our way to meeting our goal this year, my friends, but we still need to sell a lot of books!

Tony Burton
http://www.wolfmont.com/tgom/tgom.html

Marilyn Meredith a.k.a. F. M. Meredith said...

I'm going to miss this year too. I had to make some choices and skipping Bouchercon was one of them. I do plan to going in 2010 though, it's in San Francisco and easier to get to for me.

Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com

Chester Campbell said...

I'll be there, too, Austin. Indianapolis is only a half-day's drive for me. I'll be on a panel Saturday at 1:00 p.m. titled Geezer Lit Comes of Age, the graying of the genre. I write about two PIs, one gray, the other getting there.

I hope to run into you, although from past experience I've missed people in the crowd. I'll try to make your panel, however. Sounds interesting.

Chester
www.chesterdcampbell.com

Austin S. Camacho said...

I'll look for you too, Chester! One good thing about Bouchercon is that it's not in a fixed orbit - sorta like the Olympics. Which means that eventuallly it will pop up where you can drive to it. My first was last year in Baltimore. So next year I can envy my friends in some other city.