Happy, happy.....

What a great time we all had at Bouchercon this weekend. It was wonderful to connect with old friends and meet new ones, to hang out in the bar and talk about books and everything else under the sun, and just flat have fun.

I overheard someone saying that the vibe of the weekend was a happy one, and it's so true. But that kind of atmosphere doesn't happen by accident - it takes a lot of planning and hard work and perseverance. Congratulations to the Indy team for putting on a great event.

For details about the weekend, I love Ruth Jordan's rundown at Crimespree Magazine.

The only downside is that we have to wait a whole year to do it all again.....

Less than a week away......

Oh, boy......

It's the weekend before Bouchercon! That means it's time to start packing....




I don't travel light.

The lovely folks from Bcon 2011 (St. Louis) and I will be hanging out together - check out Jon's blog at http://bouchercon2011.blogspot.com/ for our schedule o'fun.

Hope to see you in Indy!

Music, music, music....

I've been playing around for a while now with music for San Francisco. I love music. I grew up with music in the background, and there are almost always tunes playing in my house.

The right music can really set the mood - think about the soundtrack to some of your favorite movies. The Big Chill and Forrest Gump come immediately to mind, and there are so many other films where the soundtrack was an important part of moving the story forward. And so many of our favorite fictional protagonists love music. Harry Bosch is into jazz, Jack Reacher is a blues lover, and Elvis Cole is all about the rock and roll; knowing what kind of music they listen to makes these characters more real to us, and helps us get to know them better.

So, Bouchercon 2010 is going to have a dance party. At the moment I'm calling it Bouchercon a Go Go, but Club Bouchercon sounds pretty good, too. Not sure yet whether it'll be Friday or Saturday night, but there'll be live music interspersed with a DJ, and we will definitely have some sort of disco ball. Because I like disco balls.

Just for fun, here are two of my very favorite songs about San Francisco. See if you can guess which one makes me think about Bouchercon Opening Ceremonies ;-)