Crossposted on 4MA:
Wednesday’s dinner was very good. We walked and the evening was pleasant after being so hot. The prices were really reasonable and the service excellent. We were at two tables and everyone was talking at once.
Thursday the panels began. At 10, I went to “Most Likely to Succeed” with Ali Karim as moderator and Chris Adrich, Sarah Byrne, Janet Rudolph and Andi Schecter talking about their favorite books. This kind of topic can go on for hours. Names and more names. Fortunately, I was familiar with the majority and got away Scot free.
At 11:30, I attended … nothing. I don’t have anything marked and nothing looks familiar. I think we had a long lunch break.
I didn’t attend Toastmaster Eddie Muller being interviewed by Jacqueline Winspear at 1:30. Again, I think lunch was going long. I remember having a slice a pizza that day in the mall-like space next door.
At 3, I attended “The Year of the Locusts” Books to Screen. Ken Bruen wasn’t able to attend Bcon. Kelli Stanley was moderator with Derek Haas, Paul Levine, replacement Alexandra Sokoloff and Val McDermid. Let me say, I’ve always liked McDermid’s books. After hearing her Scottish accent and her wit, I’m in love. She is awesome.
At 4:30 was Maddy’s Fan Guest of Honor interview with Barfly (Barbara Fister). Word was that Maddy was nervous of all the attention but she was fabulous. The room was full of her friends so there was nothing to be nervous about. It turned into a fun give and take with the audience answering questions about our favorite book of the year or with whom we’d have dinner.
At 6:30 was the opening ceremonies and reception. The Guests of Honor were introduced. A free copy of James Rollins’ book was on all the chairs. There was a cool video montage of films featuring San Francisco as setting. The reception had food but the lines were long so Barfly found an Asian restaurant nearby called The Unicorn. That was a nifty place with the new Star Trek film projected on one of the walls. I ordered trout which came with its head attached and a sprig of parsley sticking out of its mouth. I should have taken a picture because it was funny and startling at the same time. Tasted good (no, I didn’t eat the head, yuck).
Thursday the panels began. At 10, I went to “Most Likely to Succeed” with Ali Karim as moderator and Chris Adrich, Sarah Byrne, Janet Rudolph and Andi Schecter talking about their favorite books. This kind of topic can go on for hours. Names and more names. Fortunately, I was familiar with the majority and got away Scot free.
At 11:30, I attended … nothing. I don’t have anything marked and nothing looks familiar. I think we had a long lunch break.
I didn’t attend Toastmaster Eddie Muller being interviewed by Jacqueline Winspear at 1:30. Again, I think lunch was going long. I remember having a slice a pizza that day in the mall-like space next door.
At 3, I attended “The Year of the Locusts” Books to Screen. Ken Bruen wasn’t able to attend Bcon. Kelli Stanley was moderator with Derek Haas, Paul Levine, replacement Alexandra Sokoloff and Val McDermid. Let me say, I’ve always liked McDermid’s books. After hearing her Scottish accent and her wit, I’m in love. She is awesome.
At 4:30 was Maddy’s Fan Guest of Honor interview with Barfly (Barbara Fister). Word was that Maddy was nervous of all the attention but she was fabulous. The room was full of her friends so there was nothing to be nervous about. It turned into a fun give and take with the audience answering questions about our favorite book of the year or with whom we’d have dinner.
At 6:30 was the opening ceremonies and reception. The Guests of Honor were introduced. A free copy of James Rollins’ book was on all the chairs. There was a cool video montage of films featuring San Francisco as setting. The reception had food but the lines were long so Barfly found an Asian restaurant nearby called The Unicorn. That was a nifty place with the new Star Trek film projected on one of the walls. I ordered trout which came with its head attached and a sprig of parsley sticking out of its mouth. I should have taken a picture because it was funny and startling at the same time. Tasted good (no, I didn’t eat the head, yuck).
Then I think we hung around the bar/lobby/restaurant area. Maddy chided a couple of us (me) for not staying up until dawn.
Friday.
The first panel was at 8am. Kim from Minnesota and I by this time had established we were on the same wake-up-early schedule and had had breakfast. I attended “Endgame” which was about endings of books. Hank Phillippi Ryan was moderator with Bryan Gruley, Kevin Guilfoyle, Sam Reaves, and John Shannon. Hank is a fabulous moderator – you can tell she really listens to the panelists and asked questions in response.
At 10, it was “A String of Puppets” for me which was about graphic novels. This was moderated by Jon Jordan with Gary Phillips, Jason Starr, Megan Abbott and Alison Gaylin. My husband, Steve-the-Nonreader will read graphic novels so I was looking for some ideas. A lot of graphics are gritty and urban therefore crime writers are drifting into this genre. There was an annoying guy in the front who seemed to think he knew everything. I called him “comic book guy” from then on because he showed up in other panels I attended.
At 11:30, I was at “Death and the Favored Few” (titles by the way were from episodes of The Streets of San Francisco we were told) which was one of two historical mystery panels and I had volunteered to be monitor. This was moderated by Keith Kahla with Lindsey Davis, Steven Saylor, John Maddox Roberts and Gary Corby. This was played as the three “Romes” versus the lone “Greece” guy. This was a nice panel, disturbed at the end by another author in the audience standing up to announce that Corby’s wasn’t the only book set in Greece because *his* was, etc., etc. Ugh.
I was going to attend the bonus session at 12:30 with Declan Hughs and John Connelly talking about the 10 crime novels you have to read before you die but it was too crowded.
Lunch back at the mall. Asian place this time. Didn’t see US Guest of Honor Laurie R. King being interviewed by Dana Stabenow at 1:30 but I probably should have.
At 3:00, the second historical mystery panel, “Bitter Wine” with Oline Cogdill as moderator and Rebecca Cantrell, Candace Robb, Caroline/Charles Todd, and Roger Hudson. I volunteered as monitor in that one too. This was standing room only. Interesting.
Kim and I skipped the 4:00 panel to begin walking to the pier for the Sunset Cruise. And the adventure begins. DJ, Kim, her daughter Erin and her roommate, Stina, Lesley, Ann, and Jane were on this cruise.
Okay, about the Sunset Cruise: first off, despite what others say, I wasn’t “lost.” **I** knew where I was. More on that later. The Cruise was around the Bay, past Alcatraz and Angel Island and under the Golden Gate Bridge. Did you ever see the movie “The Fog”? I always scoffed at how the fog was depicted, rolling in so fast and menacingly. Well, the fog really does that there. And it got cold quickly. I have a problem with motion sickness but I really wanted to do this cruise. The boat departed and immediately we were in heavy rocking and I darted outside to the prow for air and looking forward. It was a toss up (if you’ll forgive the phrase): get embarrassingly sick or be really cold outside. I opted for cold. So I had on my black fleece with the hood up so I think I looked like the Unabomber (he was from Montana, too). I was chatting away with some people up there when my name was announced over the speaker to check in with my friends. I guess they didn’t know where I had gone, didn’t know to be looking for the Unabomber, and were afraid I had fallen overboard. I checked in and then went back on the deck. **I wasn’t lost.** Approaching Alcatraz, the boat had music over the loudspeaker so now I’ll forever associate The Rock with Bread’s I Want To Make It With You. Somehow, not a fitting soundtrack. It was bizarre that the wind would blow so hard before the islands, calm as you passed them and then get blown away again when you got by it. By the time we got to the Golden Gate Bridge it was dark and foggy so the pictures that people took were a dark blur of red lights. Riiiight, that’s the Golden Gate Bridge. Actually, Kim has the best ones I saw. Plus taking photos on a moving boat didn’t help. It was a really neat experience and I didn’t get sick. Yay! So off the boat and the plan was to catch a cable car back to the hotel, about a mile, a mile and a half away. We waited. And waited. Then it sort of became an episode of Survivor. Two peeled off right away, so we were down to seven people. Three decided to stay at that cable stop; four took off on foot for the hotel. Halfway there, another two decided to wait for the cable stop at that point. Two continued walking. Ultimately, as I hear it, cable cars didn’t stop for anyone and everyone had to walk back to the hotel and we all had aching feet. Okay, that’s not true. Throbbing feet of complete pain from which you never recovered the rest of the weekend. But you only do this once, right?
Lee Child was holding his Reacher Creature party, open to everyone. We just wanted to sit down. But we had a good time. I actually stayed up until midnight, Maddy, and you missed it. We just couldn’t find you.
End of Day Two. Friday.
The first panel was at 8am. Kim from Minnesota and I by this time had established we were on the same wake-up-early schedule and had had breakfast. I attended “Endgame” which was about endings of books. Hank Phillippi Ryan was moderator with Bryan Gruley, Kevin Guilfoyle, Sam Reaves, and John Shannon. Hank is a fabulous moderator – you can tell she really listens to the panelists and asked questions in response.
At 10, it was “A String of Puppets” for me which was about graphic novels. This was moderated by Jon Jordan with Gary Phillips, Jason Starr, Megan Abbott and Alison Gaylin. My husband, Steve-the-Nonreader will read graphic novels so I was looking for some ideas. A lot of graphics are gritty and urban therefore crime writers are drifting into this genre. There was an annoying guy in the front who seemed to think he knew everything. I called him “comic book guy” from then on because he showed up in other panels I attended.
At 11:30, I was at “Death and the Favored Few” (titles by the way were from episodes of The Streets of San Francisco we were told) which was one of two historical mystery panels and I had volunteered to be monitor. This was moderated by Keith Kahla with Lindsey Davis, Steven Saylor, John Maddox Roberts and Gary Corby. This was played as the three “Romes” versus the lone “Greece” guy. This was a nice panel, disturbed at the end by another author in the audience standing up to announce that Corby’s wasn’t the only book set in Greece because *his* was, etc., etc. Ugh.
I was going to attend the bonus session at 12:30 with Declan Hughs and John Connelly talking about the 10 crime novels you have to read before you die but it was too crowded.
Lunch back at the mall. Asian place this time. Didn’t see US Guest of Honor Laurie R. King being interviewed by Dana Stabenow at 1:30 but I probably should have.
At 3:00, the second historical mystery panel, “Bitter Wine” with Oline Cogdill as moderator and Rebecca Cantrell, Candace Robb, Caroline/Charles Todd, and Roger Hudson. I volunteered as monitor in that one too. This was standing room only. Interesting.
Kim and I skipped the 4:00 panel to begin walking to the pier for the Sunset Cruise. And the adventure begins. DJ, Kim, her daughter Erin and her roommate, Stina, Lesley, Ann, and Jane were on this cruise.
Okay, about the Sunset Cruise: first off, despite what others say, I wasn’t “lost.” **I** knew where I was. More on that later. The Cruise was around the Bay, past Alcatraz and Angel Island and under the Golden Gate Bridge. Did you ever see the movie “The Fog”? I always scoffed at how the fog was depicted, rolling in so fast and menacingly. Well, the fog really does that there. And it got cold quickly. I have a problem with motion sickness but I really wanted to do this cruise. The boat departed and immediately we were in heavy rocking and I darted outside to the prow for air and looking forward. It was a toss up (if you’ll forgive the phrase): get embarrassingly sick or be really cold outside. I opted for cold. So I had on my black fleece with the hood up so I think I looked like the Unabomber (he was from Montana, too). I was chatting away with some people up there when my name was announced over the speaker to check in with my friends. I guess they didn’t know where I had gone, didn’t know to be looking for the Unabomber, and were afraid I had fallen overboard. I checked in and then went back on the deck. **I wasn’t lost.** Approaching Alcatraz, the boat had music over the loudspeaker so now I’ll forever associate The Rock with Bread’s I Want To Make It With You. Somehow, not a fitting soundtrack. It was bizarre that the wind would blow so hard before the islands, calm as you passed them and then get blown away again when you got by it. By the time we got to the Golden Gate Bridge it was dark and foggy so the pictures that people took were a dark blur of red lights. Riiiight, that’s the Golden Gate Bridge. Actually, Kim has the best ones I saw. Plus taking photos on a moving boat didn’t help. It was a really neat experience and I didn’t get sick. Yay! So off the boat and the plan was to catch a cable car back to the hotel, about a mile, a mile and a half away. We waited. And waited. Then it sort of became an episode of Survivor. Two peeled off right away, so we were down to seven people. Three decided to stay at that cable stop; four took off on foot for the hotel. Halfway there, another two decided to wait for the cable stop at that point. Two continued walking. Ultimately, as I hear it, cable cars didn’t stop for anyone and everyone had to walk back to the hotel and we all had aching feet. Okay, that’s not true. Throbbing feet of complete pain from which you never recovered the rest of the weekend. But you only do this once, right?
Lee Child was holding his Reacher Creature party, open to everyone. We just wanted to sit down. But we had a good time. I actually stayed up until midnight, Maddy, and you missed it. We just couldn’t find you.
End of Day Two. Friday.
Saturday
Ah, a good day for panels. First up at 8:30 were the Goddesses: Rhys Bowen, Deborah Crombie and Louise Penny. They had re-arranged the front so that they weren’t behind tables but just sitting together for a discussion. I much prefer the discussion format. It was like listening in on friends. I’ve liked Louise Penny’s books and now I’m very impressed with her in person. Just a wow.
Next at 10 was the interview of International Guest of Honor Denise Mina (pronounced with a long “I”) by Val McDermid. TWO Scottish accents and strong wits. I was in heaven! Val did very well in covering Denise’s life/history. I just wanted to stay there and listen all day.
At 11:30 I attended The Drop – The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Mark Billingham was moderator with John Connolly, Denise Mina, Karin Slaughter and Martyn Waites. Talk about intelligent banter! Whoa. Zing, zing back and forth. Loved it. Mostly they talked about experiences out on the road. Interesting discussion at the end between Connolly, Slaughter and Mina debating fiction and crime fiction. That really felt like overhearing a conversation and we were all bystanders. Very well done.
I didn’t attend the interview of Guest of Honor Lee Child. Robert Crais was supposed to be the interviewer but couldn’t attend. I think I heard that Jacqueline Winspear stepped in. We went to lunch across the street at the Pier. We walked around the Farmer’s Market a bit, got split up, and wound up eating at a place called Sinbad’s where I had fish and chips. And got made fun of for having milk. I had been guzzling pop all day trying to stay awake, I needed something healthier! It was nice to sit down in a quiet place.
At 3, I attended Monkey is Back. Reed Farrel Coleman was moderator with Daniel Woodrell, Michael Wiley, Steve Hamilton and my beloved Val McDermid (told you I’d follow her anywhere). Reed started out saying that David Thompson was supposed to have been moderator and Maddy wasn’t lying when she said Val got teary. I don’t know if that affected everyone, but the panel’s pace was off. It was ok. At the Q&A part at the end, a woman stood up and asked why there weren’t more teachers in mystery novels and why with such talented writers up there, why did they have to use such bad language that she couldn’t use their books for her students who were aged 14-16. Steve Hamilton offered to kill her off in his next book which got a laugh. Reed said he had finished reading THE HUNGER GAMES trilogy and rhetorically asked why such violence was okay for that age group but not the language that they all use anyway. Interesting.
At 4:30, Kim and I attended a reading of a play written by Declan Hughes and read by him, Clair Lamb, Megan Abbot, Brett Battles, Mark Billingham, Christa Faust, Alison Gaylin, and Martin Waits. They said it was going to go a little long, like around 90 minutes to two hours. We stayed for about a half hour or so before moving along. The play incorporated the lives of Dashiel Hammett and Lillian Hellman and the story Hammett was writing, THE RED HARVEST. Enjoyable to an extent, but would probably be better performed rather than read and done by actors.
Dinner, dinner, what did we do? Oh, ate at the hotel. I just didn’t want to walk anywhere anymore. There was a short live auction that I didn’t attend and then a disco dance thing (Bookeemonsters don’t dance). So I think we just hung around the bar and chatted. I didn’t make it to midnight. I think it was 11.
End of day three.
Ah, a good day for panels. First up at 8:30 were the Goddesses: Rhys Bowen, Deborah Crombie and Louise Penny. They had re-arranged the front so that they weren’t behind tables but just sitting together for a discussion. I much prefer the discussion format. It was like listening in on friends. I’ve liked Louise Penny’s books and now I’m very impressed with her in person. Just a wow.
Next at 10 was the interview of International Guest of Honor Denise Mina (pronounced with a long “I”) by Val McDermid. TWO Scottish accents and strong wits. I was in heaven! Val did very well in covering Denise’s life/history. I just wanted to stay there and listen all day.
At 11:30 I attended The Drop – The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Mark Billingham was moderator with John Connolly, Denise Mina, Karin Slaughter and Martyn Waites. Talk about intelligent banter! Whoa. Zing, zing back and forth. Loved it. Mostly they talked about experiences out on the road. Interesting discussion at the end between Connolly, Slaughter and Mina debating fiction and crime fiction. That really felt like overhearing a conversation and we were all bystanders. Very well done.
I didn’t attend the interview of Guest of Honor Lee Child. Robert Crais was supposed to be the interviewer but couldn’t attend. I think I heard that Jacqueline Winspear stepped in. We went to lunch across the street at the Pier. We walked around the Farmer’s Market a bit, got split up, and wound up eating at a place called Sinbad’s where I had fish and chips. And got made fun of for having milk. I had been guzzling pop all day trying to stay awake, I needed something healthier! It was nice to sit down in a quiet place.
At 3, I attended Monkey is Back. Reed Farrel Coleman was moderator with Daniel Woodrell, Michael Wiley, Steve Hamilton and my beloved Val McDermid (told you I’d follow her anywhere). Reed started out saying that David Thompson was supposed to have been moderator and Maddy wasn’t lying when she said Val got teary. I don’t know if that affected everyone, but the panel’s pace was off. It was ok. At the Q&A part at the end, a woman stood up and asked why there weren’t more teachers in mystery novels and why with such talented writers up there, why did they have to use such bad language that she couldn’t use their books for her students who were aged 14-16. Steve Hamilton offered to kill her off in his next book which got a laugh. Reed said he had finished reading THE HUNGER GAMES trilogy and rhetorically asked why such violence was okay for that age group but not the language that they all use anyway. Interesting.
At 4:30, Kim and I attended a reading of a play written by Declan Hughes and read by him, Clair Lamb, Megan Abbot, Brett Battles, Mark Billingham, Christa Faust, Alison Gaylin, and Martin Waits. They said it was going to go a little long, like around 90 minutes to two hours. We stayed for about a half hour or so before moving along. The play incorporated the lives of Dashiel Hammett and Lillian Hellman and the story Hammett was writing, THE RED HARVEST. Enjoyable to an extent, but would probably be better performed rather than read and done by actors.
Dinner, dinner, what did we do? Oh, ate at the hotel. I just didn’t want to walk anywhere anymore. There was a short live auction that I didn’t attend and then a disco dance thing (Bookeemonsters don’t dance). So I think we just hung around the bar and chatted. I didn’t make it to midnight. I think it was 11.
End of day three.
Day four, Sunday. Not much to tell. I started in on a panel but decided that I had too much to do. I dealt with shipping two full boxes of my newsletter ($110 later....) and checked out of the hotel and all that jazz. Took a shuttle to the airport. And then all the delays and stuff.
Today, not feeling so great, some kind of stomach thing which will probably go away by tomorrow. I'll watch Rehab: Party at the Hard Rock and maybe cuddle with Steve.
Much love,
PK the Bookeemonster
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