Meet SINC library guru, Mary Boone

ROSEMARY: Today's guest blogger is Mary Boone, library liaison for Sisters in Crime.

For the past few years (as long as I've known her) Mary has tackled the difficult job of orchestrating SINC's presence at one of the most valuable shows any mystery writer can attend, ALA's Annual or Summer Conference. Many have likened the task to herding cats.

Mary and right hand woman, Doris Ann Norris (seated right, with Hank, Ro and Cara Black) juggle schedules and make sure thousands of librarians know about SINC and SINC authors.

Hank and I spent two days in DC with the unflappable (and unfortunately camera-shy!)Mary and although she should be home with her feet up, recovering from all her hard work, she's stopped by today to tell JR readers what the experience is like.

MB: It's huge. Immense. Sporting a cast of tens of thousands, it is so large it is not merely enormous or gigantic, it is Gi-normous!

What is it? The American Library Association's Annual Conference & Exhibition.

No one uses the full, formal name, though. Instead, librarians talk about what will be happening at ALA or who is going to Annual come the summer. Going to ALA is a remarkable opportunity to recharge one's batteries, to learn from the best of the best and hear about new trends in the profession, and of course to discover new writers and books.
ALA moves around the country each year, alternating locations between cities like Chicago, Anaheim, CA., and Washington, D.C., attracting approximately 11,000 library workers and another 12,000 exhibitors (from publishers to makers of library cards and book bags to makers of bookmobiles) displaying their goods. This summer ALA found itself in back in Washington, during what has now officially been designated the hottest June for the area since record keeping began in 1871.

ROSEMARY: Here's an update from the ALA website, courtesy of Sheila Connolly

"A grand total of 26,201 librarians and library staff, exhibitors, and library supporters attended ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., June 24–29. Attendance was short of the 28,941 who came to Chicago in 2009, but exceeded the 22,047 attendees in Anaheim in 2008"

Fantastic exposure! Many thanks, Mary!

MB: Since becoming Library Liaison to Sisters in Crime in 2007 I've had the pleasure of organizing an exhibit hall booth for SinC at ALA each summer. Despite the record heat, this was one of the busiest conferences I've seen at our booth. There are always occasional lulls in the traffic that's how one knows an especially popular panel or speaker session is in progress. But once those sessions ended, attendees swarmed back to the exhibit hall, and to our booth.

For many ALA veterans the SinC booth is a must stop destination. There are also plenty of newbies who are drawn to the booth curious about our name (no, we are not nuns with guns) or who, in exploring the exhibit hall, are delighted to discover SinC by happenstance. But once the booth is visited, conference goers return multiple times while the exhibits are open and join the hundreds of librarians who seek it out each year they are able to come to ALA.

What brings those conference goers back to the SinC booth time and again? It's surely a combination of things. First and foremost, I think it's the personal connections they make with our writer members who staff the booth. One librarian said to me, "Every author I've met in your booth is so easy to talk to. They love books and reading as much as I do!"
When a librarian meets a SinC author at ALA and takes one of the author's books back to her library's patrons, she will share the personal connection made at ALA with scores of readers. It's impossible to buy that kind of brand loyalty. Secondly, as librarians come to know more about SinC, becoming members themselves, they understand how much this organization values libraries and their place in the communities they serve.

Going to ALA is many things. I've touched only a few. The very best thing about going to ALA is the people one meets especially the ones who give generously of their time to work in the SinC booth, and the conference goers who stop by the booth.

ROSEMARY: There's nothing like the personal connections you can make at events like these - and going under the auspices of Sisters in Crime helps the librarians find you! I've already got plans to go to San Diego in January and New Orleans for ALA next June - Laissez les bon temps roulez. Check the SINC website for details as the dates approach. http://www.sistersincrime.org/
(Mary tells me SINC National will not exhibit in San Diego, but hopefully one of the local chapters will. )

HANK: I'm there in San Diego! Let's plan something amazing, you all! And in one of those impossible situations, I'm Guest of Honor at Deadly Ink 2011 (hooray! and thank you beyond thank you) which is exactly the same date as New Orleans.

ALA was--phenomenal. Mary and Doris were stellar, of course, and much hilarity ensued. And I heard so many wonderful stories. It's so rewarding to meet so many people who love books. You know? ALA is home.

ROBERTA: Hi Mary! It's so nice to see you here on Jungle Red--I really miss you! (Mary came on as library liaison during my time as VP and president of Sisters in Crime.) Here's a question: if an author can't get to ALA, what's the best way to get the word out to libraries about a new book?

HALLIE: Oh, Roberta - that's a great question. Mary?

Sure she can write...but can she act?

RO: Yes, it's not enough that we write the books. We have to look and sound good on camera. I thought it was just the newbies like me who had to shamelessly flog our work in the hopes that someone will discover our book and feel that it's something they'd like to spend time with, but apparently even an established, bestselling author like Mary Karr has to trod the boards, however reluctantly.

Seems to me I read Karr's first book, although I may be confusing it with another similar memoir, but now that I've seen the book trailer for her latest, Lit, I will probably pick it up this summer (although I'm in the middle of two good books - Story of a Marriage and Hero, the bio of Lawrence of Arabia by Michael Korda...more on them later.)

Lots of friends (including Roberta) raved about Lit when it was first released. I didn't think I needed to read another memoir about recovery and redemption after years of destructive behavior and/or horrendous abuse. I get it. I'm happy for you.

But dang if I didn't change my mind after seeing MK's book trailer on Youtube. I wouldn't have even known about the trailer if there hadn't been an article in the NYTimes about - book trailers.

So was it Mary Karr's personal charm, the book trailer itself, or the power of the New York Times that got me to want the book. At the risk of sounding retro, I think it was the Times...

What does the JR gang think?

PS....Stop by tomorrow when our guest blogger is Mary Boone, Library liaison for Sisters in Crime who'll give us the skinny on exhibiting at ALA, the American Library Association's Annual Conference.

Chapter One - Call me Ishmael

ROSEMARY: Okay, perhaps I shouldn't start my next book with those words, although occcasionally the task of starting a new book can seem as difficult as harpooning the white whale.

In this business we don't get much time to pat ourselves on the backs for delivering a manuscript before we have to get started on another one. That's where I am right now. It's seems the afterglow period gets shorter and shorter with each book. (There's a parallel here with the more traditional use of the word "afterglow" but I'm not going to go there.)

I won't say I'm stumped for an idea - there are a number of stories floating around in my brain - (yet to be harpooned) but the thing hasn't revealed itself yet.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about? The thing - the reason these characters are on the page doing what I want them to do. In some ways writing has gotten easier and in others, it's more challenging - not to keep repeating oneself whether it's language or situations.

Does Sue Grafton think about stuff like this?

HANK: Oh, of course she does. Of course! In fact, name dropping, she told me that she rewrote K is for Knowledge because in the midst of it, she realized what it was really about. (Something like that...as she was talking, I was thinking, don't forget this, don't forget this--when I should have been totally listening.) I've been a reporter for 30 years. After each big story, I think--oh, this is the last one. I'll never be able to think of another one. AND then I always do. And then the pattern starts again.

So, I think it's the same way with books. At least I hope so. NO. It really is.

ROBERTA: Oh yes Ro, and I've heard the very accomplished and talented Nancy Pickard talk about having to throw away 200 pages because she realized it wasn't going in the right direction. Now that would be discouraging!
I keep a file folder called "new ideas" into which I stuff newspaper articles and little snatches of thoughts. Unfortunately, when I leaf through it to mine for a new book idea, there doesn't seem to be much there. Sigh. A lot of real ideas just seem to unfold during the process of writing. Can't be forced or the writing reads exactly that way.

ROSEMARY: My idea file occasionally yields a secondary or tertiary story line but so far not the whole enchilada.

HALLIE: 200 PAGES!?!?
For every novel I keep an "out" file where I save all the lines I cut from the first (and second...and thirty-second) draft, and it usually ends up longer than the final draft of the novel. But that's not the same as, just like that, deep-sixing 200 pages.

I'm with you Ro, right now I'm thinking about the next book that I'll need to start just as soon as I finish revising the one that's due in 3 weeks. I have a few glimmers of ideas, but nothing remotely approaching a plot. A plot is pretty essential for my kind of book. Where, oh where am I going to find the plot. Sadly I find that feeling often persists months into the writing.

ROSEMARY: Et tu, Hallie? Well, I feel a little better now. Something's coming...it just hasn't jelled yet..but it's jellin.'

Ahab beckons.