Bouchercon 2008
Oct 28, 2008
For those who aren’t familiar with it, Bouchercon is the world’s biggest mystery convention. It’s named after the late Anthony Boucher (rhymes with voucher), one of the first literary critics to take mysteries seriously, and not just as genre fiction.
It’s held in a different city each year, moving from east coast to west and in between. Toronto has been fortunate to host it twice, in 1992 and again in 2004.
I attended both of those, as well as the 2005 edition in Chicago, but 2008 in Baltimore was my first as a published author, and it was absolutely fantastic. Many of the world’s leading writers were there, including established masters like Lee Child, Mark Billingham, Ken Bruen, Peter Robinson, Harlan Coben, hometown girl Laura Lippman (a.k.a. The Belle of Baltimore) and John Harvey, as well as emerging stars such as Marcus Sakey and Sean Chercover.
There were panels galore--five or six per hour--on every subject imaginable, and most were not only informative but howlingly entertaining. I was featured on the First Authors panel on the Sunday morning, moderated by Chris Grabenstein. My luck, of course, I was just introducing myself when fire bells went off and we had to clear the hotel. But order was restored fairly quickly and we were able to return to complete the session.
Some of the highlights: I got to share beers with Irish writer Ken Bruen, his lovely girlfriend Lisa Dill, and John Harvey, the international guest of honour. Out on the sun-drenched patio (it was nearly 85 and sunny all weekend) I got to know writers like Lee Child, Jason Goodwin, Toronto’s own John McFetridge, Philadelphia blogger Peter Rozovsky--who by weird coincidence went to the same Montreal high school as me--and Icelandic writers Arnuldur Indridasson and Yrsa Siggurdsdottir, who famously kept their cool (no pun intended) even as news broke of their country’s banking crisis.
All in all, a fabulous time, and I’m already registered for next year’s conference in Indianapolis. Fortunately, it doesn’t clash with the Jewish High Holidays like this year, which started on the evening of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year. Thank God I’m an atheist.