What a difference a coast makes…

 

HALLIE EPHRON: Last weekend I had the great pleasure of being guest of honor (along with William Kent Krueger) at the California Crime Writers Conference. Culver City where planes are landing at LAX just outside your window.

At Logan (we got off 30 minutes early, arrived an hour early: how bizarre is that?) I was the only one who cracked up at the announcement from TSA on the loudspeaker: "Please return to security if you left an I-Pad and  eyeglasses..." which of course I heard as I-glasses... A writer's joke.

As the plane landed, the sun was shining and I could see ocean one way and mountains the other. Mountains I never knew were so close by, growing up there because the air was so much more polluted. Back in the 60s your plane descended into an impenetrable brown haze.

 

The fun started when I got picked up at the airport by TammyKaehler (now blond!). Not in a race car, sadly. Driving utterly sanely if a bit, um, fast.

What a conference! Two hundred and fifty authors, editors, agents, publicists, rubbing shoulders and sharing tips. They pull it off magnificently every other year. All overseen by an incredible board headed by the indomitable and uber-competent Rochelle Staab. From one control freak to another, I tip my hat.

The conference opened Friday night with a twist: an event dubbed MISCAST, held in the only appropriate place, a dark wood-paneled bar that needed smoke to feel authentic. Authors switched places and read each other’s work. Hardboiled writers read softboiled excerpts and vice versa. Glen ErikHamilton, Harley Jane Kozak, Matt Coyle, Elaine Ash, Jeri Westerson, KateCarlisle, SW Lauden, and Daryl Wood Gerber. It was a hoot!

I'm not sure if these guys were photographed before or after: John Edward Mullen, Dave Putnam, Matt Coyle, Beth Yarnall. In the bar.

I knew we weren’t in Kansas any more when (Matt Coyle, maybe... someone correct me if I've misremembered) read an excerpt from Foxe Tail (by Jerri Westerson writing as Haley Walsh), a bawdy mystery starring a gorgeous young gay man (think Tab Hunter) on the make in old timey Hollywood. To say it was blue would be an understatement. Got me thinking: Do we even write sex in New England?

Saturday and Sunday were packed with outstanding writing, marketing, and forensics panels and there was a crime scene room with an FBI expert. I came away determined to create my own podcasts (thanks Laura Brennan – dialing into DestinationMystery to hear some), and a new appreciation of swag (Thanks, Ellen Byron, Cajun Country Mysteries).

A real pleasure of this conference was the many screenwriters who are now writing crime novels. They are SO SMART about plot! Ellen Byron, Craig Faustus Buck, Wendall Thomas, and more… I could listen to you guys talk the ins and outs of the 3-act structure all day long.

All of which is to say once again, I pinch myself. Crime fiction writers are the best, most generous, hilarious, and smart people you could ever hang out with. I am so lucky!

Morning after the conference I went out to breakfast… don’t you love this place, Dinah’s Diner? (Me cracking up because here in Boston, the way we say Diner is Dinah.) A relic of the 60s. I could have hung out here with my high school friends, drinking coffee and, yes, smoking cigarettes. And the hash browns with my eggs were the kind I grew up with, shredded and crisp. Yum.

So when you think Los Angeles, do 60's diners or crispy hash browns, mountains or beaches, noir or California cozies come to mind?