Reds: Back in force at Bouchercon!

BREAKING NEWS! Jungle Red Writers win the Anthony Award for Best Online Content!
 
HALLIE EPHRON: Today, Reds are at Bouchercon, the world's premier mystery conference. This year it's at the Vinoy Renaissance St. Petersburg Resort. Very elegant. Literally thousands attend, and if you're there, you might spot one of us wearing a red leopard pashmina. We are, it turns out, quite fashion-forward since animal prints and the color RED have been proclaimed officially IN this year, according to fashion pundits.

Things got off with a bang at opening ceremonies Thursday with our very own Rhys Bowen's In Fairleigh Field winning a Macavity Award for best historical mystery! Other winners are Anthony Horowitz for Magpie Murders (best mystery), Sheena Kamal for The Lost Ones (best first mystery novel), and Paul D. Marks for "Windward" (best mystery short story).

And here's Lucy and Hank at the Sisters in Crime breakfast with Kellye Garrett and Sherry Harris. As SinC's new President, Sherry got the official seal of office.

Here's what we're all up to at Bouchercon.

LUCY BURDETTE: I put the red leopard pashmina in my suitcase first so I wouldn't forget! So looking forward to meeting up with Debs, Hank, Ingrid, and Julia. Our Reds panel is on Saturday at 4 and I bet it will be tons of fun. I am also moderating a great panel of culinary mystery writers on Friday at noon--sadly it's opposite a lunch with Lisa Scottolini, but hopefully we'll get a crowd anyway. And I will meet and chat with people from the Crooked Lane publisher, and participate in author speed dating, and attend the librarians' tea. Phew! It's going to be a very busy couple of days but I'm so looking forward to seeing Red Readers there. Who's here?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Lucy, I put my pashmina in first, too!  I'm so looking forward to seeing the other Reds, and all of our online friends who will be there, too.

I'm on one of the kick-off panels, 10 AM on Thursday morning. It's called Just the Facts and we'll be talking about how we get our police procedural stuff right (at least I hope I get it right.) After the Opening Ceremonies on Thursday night, I'll be signing 50 free books, along with all the other Harper Collins authors who are attending. And then there's our REDs' game show panel on Saturday afternoon at 4! In between, I'll be meeting with friends and fans and folks from my publisher. Maybe I'll even manage to get to a panel or two this year!

INGRID THOFT: Don’t count on getting to any panels, Debs!  There’s always so many people to see and once I start catching up with someone, it’s hard to tear myself away at the appointed time! 

I’m moderating a panel about amateur sleuths on Thursday afternoon, then the Opening Ceremonies, and dinner with my publisher.  Friday is a free day except for a lunch and the Shamus Awards at which I’ll be giving out the award for Best Paperback Original.  The highlight of Saturday will be the Jungle Reds panel, of course.  I may have to call on my fellow Reds when prepping to leave; my hubby helped me pack into a smaller suitcase this year (pashmina included!) and I may need a couple of you to sit on it! (Photo is Ingrid with Reed Farrell Coleman.)

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  My brain is frying! There are so many fabulous panels, but I fear.. well, I cannot wait, anyway.

Opening ceremonies, yay, where everyone will be! And then my publisher dinner that night.  Friday, I'll be signing at the Forge hospitality room at 1:45--what book? Trust me, I'm not sure. And SO MANY meetings! On Saturday, a panel at 11am on how authors turn real life crime into fiction, and then at 3, the Guest of Honor panel, and at 4 the REDS panel! And at 6, I am auctioneer (with Lisa Unger) for the live auction!  (This is gonna be interesting...) .

Then the Anthony's! Where I will not mention that JUNGLE RED is a nominee! YAY!
And yes, only a carry-on. We shall see!

(Photo below is Hank with Charles Salzberg, Reed Farrel Coleman, Krista Faust, Roseanne Coleman, and Linwood Barclay.)

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I'm writing this Friday morning, after attending the opening ceremonies with Lucy and having the great pleasure of seeing Rhys's IN FARLEIGH FIELD win the Macavity Sue Federer Award for best historical novel!

For me, this Bouchercon feels like a coming-out party - it's been over two years since I've done any big mystery world conferences. I'm just grateful when people recognize me!  My only have-to-be-there event is the REDS panel on Saturday - and I had a moment of PANIC while packing when I couldn't find my pashmina. I remember Youngest "borrowing" it and thought, if she's taken it up to university with her... but no, thank heavens, it was hanging in her room.

 I'm looking forward to lunch with my editor, my publisher's cocktail party, and dinner with my dear friend Jeff Cohen, all on Friday. Other than that, I'm just going to be hanging around looking for someone to talk to (and possibly buy me drinks, I'm not too proud.) So if you see me, stop me and say hi!


HALLIE: And now I'm so sad that I'm not there. Rhys is home, too, editing galleys and writing. We'll post more pictures as they come in. And please,

IF YOU SEE A RED LEOPARD PASHMINA, SAY SOMETHING!

 TODAY at Bouchercon 2018:
Annette Dashofy and Liz Milliron

TODAY eager readers lining up for the Librarians' Tea in the Grand Ballroom

Our Fave Mystery Blogs

LUCY BURDETTE: Every year in the fall--the location changes each year--fans and writers of crime fiction flock to Bouchercon, the world mystery convention named after Anthony Boucher, an esteemed critic, writer, and editor of crime fiction. This year the conference is in St. Petersburg, Florida, as you can see above!

There are panels and awards voted on by attendees and parties, lots and lots of parties. I especially love this quote from their website: "You can meet your whole bookshelf at Bouchercon." This year, I noticed a new award for the Best Online Content, ie. Website/Blog focused on mystery/crime fiction.

Dang, I thought, Jungle Red Writers would be eligible for that. We Reds had a discussion behind the scenes about whether we should mention to our friends and fans that JRW would be eligible. But then Julia reminded us about Ross's strategy for promotion, which we really love: "Doing well by doing good." In this case, we thought doing good would mean mentioning the other blogs we love, not just reminding you of ours. So in the great spirit of Ross...may we suggest you take a look at:

Mystery Lovers Kitchen--mystery writers cooking up crime--and recipes   

Wicked Cozy Authors--mysteries with a New England accent

Dru's Book Musings--Reading is a wonderful adventure! 

Cinnamon and Sugar and a little bit of Murder 

BOLO Books--be on the lookout for these books    

Carstairs Considers
 
Reds, where else do you read about crime fiction?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Oh, gosh, what would we do without blogs?  All of the ones you picked, Lucy, are terrific!

You know I'm part of Career Authors  Which is a fabulous place for writers who want make a career of it--any genre!

Lesa' Holstine's blog for Poisoned Pen Bookstore

CrimeReads of course, the new and newsy and literate blog from the Lit Hub people

Criminal Element  the tuned in and terrific  blog from Macmillan

and

Tall Poppies, who also do their blog via Facebook. A marvelous and powerful community for readers.  And there's always something to talk about on the Bloom page--all your fave books!

Highly recommend all of them!

There are so many more--Kathy Reel! Jane Friedman!  but I'll let you all have the fun of listing them!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING; Alas, one of my absolute favorites, HEY, THERE'S A DEAD GUY IN THE LIVING ROOM, closed up shop after over a decade of great blogging. They had a unique combination of writers, publishers, publicists and booksellers, and had the most well-rounded view of the business that I've ever seen. If you didn't follow it, I encourage you to head over - it's all archived! - and dive in. It's like a masterclass in publishing, interspersed with Jeff Cohen's delirious ramblings about the NY Yankees (the team America loves to hate.)

Another site I like for news in the crime fiction world is The Rap Sheet, which always has the latest goings-on and links to items of interest around the web. Do we still say that? The web? And for an unusual offering from a wonderful crime fiction writer, Denise Hamilton collects her monthly LA Times columns on perfumes at her website. Yes, perfumes, some of which she links to mysteries, all of which are riveting reading. 

HALLIE EPHRON: So many of my favorites have been mentioned. I'm a big fan of Dru's Book Musings. Dru is a brilliant reader who won the Raven Award for her musings. To repeat, Jane Friedman -- both her personal blog  and her subscription newsletter on the publishing business HOTSHEET. Though her posts are about writing and publishing, not mystery.

INGRID THOFT: So many blogs and so little time!  I’m a fan of “Mystery Fanfare” by Janet Rudolph because of the content, but also because it gives me an excuse to visit Janet’s other blog, “Dying for Chocolate” .  If you’re looking for an international flavor in your mystery blog, look no further than “Murder is Everywhere”.  Featuring ten crime writers from different parts of the world, it’s a wonderful resource for branching out when you’re choosing what to read next.  Although it’s not strictly focused on mysteries, I’m a fan of  “Writer’s Bone” .  Their interviews (in podcasts and print) with writers from all genres are inspiring and never fail to entertain.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Oh, so much fun reading here! I love Mystery Lover's Kitchen, and the new CrimeReads is fabulous, and of course I love Dru and Lesa and Kathy Reel!! And I do read Denise Hamilton's LA Times column on perfume. But one of my personal favorites not yet mentioned is Femmes Fatales. Terrific female crime writers (obviously) and always funny and personal and interesting.

JENN McKINLAY: Okay, any blogs I would have mentioned have already been named. So many brilliant blogs out there, it's a wonder we can get anything done at all! Now, it's true confession time, I'm not a blog reader. When you write four-five books/year you really only get to hit the highlights, so I read blogs when a person hands me a brilliant blog post and says, "Read this." With, of course, one great big exception - Jungle Red Writers. If anyone had told me a year and a half ago, that my day would go sideways if I didn't log into JRW to see who was visiting or what the day's convo was about, I would have said they were cracked. But now, after the sisterhood and fellowship I have found among the Reds, readers, and guest bloggers here, I truly can't imagine starting my day any other way!

RHYS BOWEN: I think you've already mentioned my favorites. Janet Rudolph, Lesa Holstine, Criminal Element, Career Authors, oh and don't forget Femmes Fatales, with Charlaine Harris, Donna Andrews and I believe our own Hank is still a member. My real problem is time. Who had time to read more than one blog a day and our Jungle Red blog is so entertaining. I love that you ever know what is coming next,from true crime to recipes. It's like a good women's magazine without the tips on losing weight!

READERS, tell us your favorite crime blogs!

Congratulations, Hank Phillippi Ryan!

BREAKING REDS NEWS: 

CONGRATULATIONS HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN ON WINNING THE 

MACAVITY AND ANTHONY AWARDS!

Hank won both awards for Best Mystery-Related Nonfiction, as the editor of Writes of Passage: Adventures on the Writer’s Journey (Henery Press). Brava!

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Hello from Bouchercon '15 in Raleigh, NC! It's been a great week, full of new friends, old friends, great panels, awards (CONGRATULATIONS HANK!), parties, dinners, and lots and lots of coffee. (And, er, wine.)

Since I wrote about comfy shoes, I wanted to show mine in action. I've decided Vans are the solution to all my (sartorial, at least) issues and plan to get some in glitter for formal events....

Happy Sunday, everyone! Hope to see you next year in New Orleans!

Confronting the Past

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Whodunnit? Is a classic question in crime fiction. It’s so classic that our books are often called whodunnits. But every mystery author will tell you—it’s not only the who. It’s the—all together now: Why. We write whydunnits, right? Because that’s what’s interesting and compelling. And in exploring the whydunnit for his new book—the talented/hilarious/adorable/surprising Simon Wood found out something about himself.

I Thought I was Fine

                  by Simon Wood

The emotional fuel that stokes my new book, THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY, is survivor guilt, which is one symptom of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). For my research into this topic, I had a series of long meetings with a psychologist at the VA.  Like all my research projects, I entered the room with a bunch of preconceptions about a subject that got thoroughly turned on their head after a couple of minutes.

One symptom of survivor guilt is the desire to recreate the circumstances of the original trauma—either directly or indirectly.  The reasons for this behavior are two-fold.  One part is to get a second crack at that traumatic moment and hope for a better outcome.  The second part is more self-destructive.  Guilt is caused by surviving something others did not, so the survivor puts themselves back in the firing line with the subconscious hope that they won’t survive – since losing is the only penance they can make. 

Listening to the psychologist illustrate his points, a sense of unease washed over me.  It was all starting to sound eerily familiar.  Rather than stay quiet, I decided to share something personal.

Twenty years ago, I’d been in an incident where I’d walked away unscathed while someone else didn’t.  The event changed me, and my life.  I quit my steady job and took a less stable one, I bought a racecar, I learned to fly, I traveled to unsafe countries and I skydived—all in the space of a few months. 

In some ways, if it hadn’t been for that incident, I wouldn’t be in the US today and I never would have become a writer.  I explained all this to the psychologist and he asked me to explain the character change.  The incident had taught me a couple of lessons.  One, I was living a stressful life that I wasn’t particularly enjoying.  Two, life could end at any moment and I didn’t want regret not doing the things I wanted to do.  Essentially, I started living life like it was my last day.

It all seemed reasonable at the time, but as the psychologist pointed out, all the life changes I made were dangerous—the racecars, the flying, the skydiving, the travel, the job, etc.  Every one of them put me in harm’s way. In most cases, I involved myself in endeavors that could cost me my life at the very worst or ruin my financial stability at the very least.

That was a wakeup call, because I hadn’t ever thought of my behavior in those terms.  To me, everything I had done at the time had been justified.  I was following my dreams and passions and nothing else mattered.  I believed in what I was doing wholeheartedly, regardless of whether it met everyone else's norms. The psychologist asked me if I ever thought of what I was doing as dangerous and reckless.  I said no.  

Truly, I didn’t.  I was on a quest to discover what life held in store for me.  I was conscious of what had happened and that it was driving me, but I thought I was on a heroic journey–not a self-destructive one.  Looking back on it now, it was reckless and self-absorbed behavior.  Another aspect of PTSD.

This was quite a telling moment for me and the development of the book.  I had believed what I was doing after my incident was normal and justified.  I really felt that there was nothing wrong with me on a conscious level.    If that was true of me, then it was also true of my heroine, Zoë Sutton, and my villain, Marshal Beck.  Their behaviors are damaged.  The world sees it, but they don’t.  Both of them feel what they're doing is just. For me, that’s when the story took on a life of its own as I knew how to treat these characters.  We might not agree with their methods but hopefully we can see their struggles and understand them.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  It’s how our past creates our future, right? Who’s had PTSD experiences—on any level?  Simon’s in California, so he’ll be here when the time zone allows!

*****************

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

Graduate students Zoë and Holli only mean to blow off some steam on their road trip to Las Vegas. But something goes terribly wrong on their way home, and the last time Zoë sees her, Holli is in the clutches of a sadistic killer. Zoë flees with her life, changed forever.

A year later and still tortured with guilt, Zoë latches on to a police investigation where the crime eerily resembles her abduction. Along with a zealous detective, she retraces the steps of that fateful night in the desert, hoping that her memory will return and help them find justice for Holli. Her abductor—labeled the “Tally Man” by a fascinated media—lies in wait for Zoë. For him, she is not a survivor but simply the one that got away.

Simon Wood is a California transplant from England. He's a former competitive racecar driver, a licensed pilot, an endurance cyclist and an occasional PI. He shares his world with his American wife, Julie. Their lives are dominated by a longhaired dachshund and four cats. He's the Anthony Award winning author of Working Stiffs, Accidents Waiting to Happen, Paying the Piper, Terminated, Asking For Trouble, We All Fall Down and the Aidy Westlake series. His latest thriller is THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY due out March '15. He also writes horror under the pen name of Simon Janus. Curious people can learn more at http://www.simonwood.net.

"A Magpie’s Treasures": Guest Blog by Hilary Davidson and Book Giveaway!

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: I'm delighted to introduce you one of my favorite novelists, Hilary Davidson.  

Hilary won the 2011 Anthony Award for Best First Novel and a Crimespree Award for THE DAMAGE DONE. That book launched the Lily Moore series that continues with THE NEXT ONE TO FALL—set in Peru—and EVIL IN ALL ITS DISGUISES, about a missing journalist in Acapulco. 

Hilary’s first standalone novel, BLOOD ALWAYS TELLS, will be published by Forge in April 2014. She’s also the author of a short story collection, THE BLACK WIDOW CLUB. Her short fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen, Thuglit, Needle, and Beat to a Pulp, earning her a Spinetingler Award, a Derringer nomination, and two StorySouth special mentions. 

Hilary's one of my favorite novelists for many reasons (strong female protagonist, exotic settings, unexpected plot twists), but one thing I really love about her books is that in THE DAMAGE DONE, is that she chose Caron's 1919 perfume, Tabac Blond, for character Lily Moore. The absolutely perfect detail. From that moment I knew I could read and enjoy, knowing I was in hands of a gifted writer. And I loved reading this essay, about Lily's silver bracelet.

HILARY DAVIDSON: I like to say that the main character in my series, Lily Moore, and I have a lot in common professionally — careers as travel writers — but very little in common personally. After all, Lily’s got a painful family background and a penchant for untrustworthy men, neither of which I can claim for my own. But the truth is that there are some personal traits we have in common, and one of those is a superstitious attachment to certain treasured items.

Lily has a silver bracelet that was the last Christmas gift her father gave her before he passed away. It has an engraved inscription, and just touching the Irish scrollwork on it is comforting to her. It’s Lily’s most treasured possession, and it’s something you’ll find on her wrist almost all the time. (It went missing for a while after her sister sold it for drug money, but that’s another story.) I have a couple of treasured objects that I’m positive bring me good fortune. They’re not quite like Lily’s bracelet, but they’re important in their own way.

The first one is a silver ring I stole from my mother. I know, I’m a terrible person. If I were a bird, I’d

be a magpie (they’ve been known to fly off with shiny objects). My mother made the mistake of letting me borrow the ring when I was nineteen and traveling to France on my own. Its design is simple — two intertwined bands of silver — and it fit on my ring finger, so I thought it would do a fine job doubling as a fake wedding band. (You know that common bit of advice given to women traveling solo about wearing a wedding band to avoid harassment, right?)

In any case, I wore the ring day and night while I was away, and by the time I came home, I’d pretty much decided it was mine. I gave it back to my mother, but quickly borrowed it again and again. Any time I took a trip, even a weekend away, I wore the ring. When I moved into my own apartment, it hitched a ride with me. Even after I got married and had a real wedding band, I transferred it to my right hand. I bought my mother a more expensive ring as a replacement — a silver cocktail ring with rose-quartz insets — but I still feel guilty. That doesn’t keep me from wearing the ring when I travel, of course.

I have a second talisman that I acquired more honestly. It’s a British half-crown coin from 1950 that my

great-uncle Jim gave me. Jim was my grandfather’s youngest brother, and I didn’t meet him for the first time until September of 1999. Both of my grandparents had passed away earlier that year, and I missed them terribly. I convinced my mother that we should visit Northern Ireland, where my grandparents were born, and meet our relatives there. The highlight of that trip was meeting my great-uncle Jim and his wife, Molly. We connected so quickly and easily that it felt as if I’d known them all my life.

After I returned home, Jim and I kept in touch, writing letters to each other and occasionally talking on the phone. After I got married, I took my husband over to meet the family as well. Not long before Jim passed away, he sent me an envelope

with an old coin in it. He explained that he’d set it aside when the half-crowns were taken out of circulation, and that it had become something he carried when he felt he needed luck. He added that he couldn’t think who else to give it to but his best friend. That made me tear up then, and it still does now. As you can imagine, that coin is close by whenever I need a guardian angel in my corner.

Do you have a lucky object that you bring with you when you travel, or carry with you when you need a special kind of help? 

Let me know in the comments. 

I’ll be drawing a name from the comments to win a copy of my latest Lily Moore novel, Evil in All Its Disguises. 

My thanks to Susan Elia MacNeal and all of the Jungle Reds for having me visit!

Visit Hilary online at www.hilarydavidson.com.
Follow her on Twitter here.
Friend her on Facebook here.