Some of the Reasons I Love Bouchercon

Daniel Woodrell, Lisa Lutz

Katie Estill, Rosanne Coleman

Katie Estill

David Hayward, Lisa Lutz

David Hayward, Lisa Lutz

Daniel Woodrell, me, Reed Farrel Coleman (C McCann photo)

Christine McCann, Ben LeRoy, me

Simon Toyne, me

Katie Estill, Daniel Woodrell, me

me, Simon Toyne, Ryan David Jahn, Taylor Stevens (C McCann photo)

Photos by yours truly, except where noted - and of course the photo booth ones. (You can register now for next year's Bouchercon.)

And PS, all the author folk pictured here write superb books you can go find. (Rosanne and Christine read books, and Ben publishes them.)

Why Grownups Don't Cry

I loved this post so much I'm reposting the entire thing, from Australian novelist Penni Russon:

Why don't grownups cry?

Recently you said to me "Why don't grown ups cry? Why don't you ever cry?"

Amazed, I said "I cry! You've seen me cry."

You said, "Have I?" And again, incredulous, "Have I?"

I have sat down on the floor beside you and sobbed, from tiredness or grief or anger or hunger or because my blood burned with sugar. I have cried from hopelessness, because I am terrible at motherhood, because loving you hurts. Because I used to be one thing, and then when you were born there was a tearing, a splitting, like antarctica calving an iceberg, you split from the continent and I lost a part of myself and I must bear that loss over and over. You have borne witness to two pregnancies, and overfilled I leaked tears. You have seen me cry in public, in cities all over the world, in Paris by the Seine, in London as we crossed the street, in Helsinki, in Hong Kong. I have cried because you have used up all my oxygen with your hunger and your need and your love. I have cried because you would not sleep, would not eat, would not leave, would not stay. I have cried reading you sad stories and watching movies with you on my lap. From love and from pride, from exhaustion of feelings, I have cried.

It is a strange trick of your memory that you have forgotten all this. For the first time I wonder if you have repressed these memories, if you have actively chosen to forget. Or perhaps the mind cannot hold what it cannot process, the impossibility of a mother who melts like snow. Perhaps this is why grown ups don't cry.

Here's Penni's lovely blog and here's her website.

Never Underestimate a Photo Booth

The two high school scientist friends I rendezvoused with in St. Louis this weekend after the wonderful/astounding mystery convention that is Bouchercon tried to suggest there's not much difference between science conferences and writers conferences.

Then I said, Bet you don't have photo booths.

That they conceded. 

Three writers, a reader, a publisher, and yours truly

I Am Loving This Review of My Book

Okay, okay, this is the automatic translation from the original Polish, but I like it! Maybe because "not painted, not doing the shopping, and not wear dress" is such a great description - of me AND my main character. And I love this: "Stimulation of maternal instinct, rapid thread crime and a pinch of awakening is a timid romance elements that guarantee the success of the book." Never mind being compared to Harlan Coben. This reviewer did seem to nail what I was trying to do here.

Troy Chance, the main heroine of the novel, "Learning to swim" never imagined that in an instant her stable, but in fact, boring life, tip over upside down. When Troy observes a child falling from flowing next to the ship, does not hesitate to approach the side and dive for help. The child is wearing a shirt much too large intricately zasupłaną shoulder - proof that it wanted to drown them.

Troy manages to save the boy and the exact time when he holds it for the first time in the arms of not a lot of thinking about the future and sportswomen journalist becomes a lioness fighting for a better life for low-Find the.

"Learning to swim" is the debut novel of an American journalist and writer Sara J. Henry. Although at the beginning of the book bears record that the story has nothing to do with real characters and events can not fail to notice that the main character Troy Chance inherited several features of its originator.

Troy lives with a big dog and a few roommates, active athletes. Like the author, Troy writes sports articles for several local newspapers, bikes and loves computers and both of these first and second knows almost everything. Troy does not like intimate knowledge and keeps a distance from everything for others is a determinant of true womanhood. Not painted, not doing the shopping and do not wear dresses

Boy drops landed on her like a thunderclap. French-speaking bundle from moment to moment Troy opens his eyes to the fact that there is another life beyond this, which wrapped together with each other in tight cocoon. Troy does not decide to donate the police case and on your own starts to look for criminals who wanted to get rid of the boy. Troy gets his own stubbornness to his father's first child, for which he is willing to give his life, and then the ball of thread to the next delves into the dark secrets of the past, his family, on the occasion of becoming a part of it somehow.

Sara J. Henry is a champion of deceiving the reader. Slowly, the novel shows many faces, so that everybody can find something in it for themselves. Troy is easily manipulated in a way to show her as a fearless, liberated woman, and for once embroiled in a passionate affair that finally prove that Troy is an extremely sensitive person, open to sacrifice everything for the good of others.

Reading the novel came to the conclusion that the author has devoted much time to carefully construct the characters of individual heroes. Each of them is a clear, consistent, with a hint of mystery, but never boring. Troy is nice, both weak and extremely strong, which makes it just a few pages it becomes an ally of the reader, and we become as it were its trustees. I can safely say that 'made friends' with the main character and I can not wait to continue the story of Troy, which is slated to in the spring.

The book hooked me from the first pages. The story is very intriguing, and the author does not reveal the truth, until the last few pages, still confusing the reader with clues leading to nowhere. Action is very dynamic - the way the book does not get bored. The chapters are short, allowing the constant moving from place to place, from Ottawa through Montreal, up to Vermont.

Also, the language of the author deserves praise. Sentences are short, efficient expression of heroes, and their language is usually very informal, which captures the atmosphere prevailing in an apartment in Troy, and the nature of the heroine. In the book there is no room for lengthy descriptions of nature and the different places, and yet I felt literally frigidity water or wind hulający stabbing me on board the vessel.

Certainly, "Learning to swim" into the hearts trafiłaby Polish readers. Stimulation of maternal instinct, rapid thread crime and a pinch of awakening is a timid romance elements that guarantee the success of the book.

Henry has created a work that meticulously matched kryminałom usnutą intrigue written by such masters of genre as Coben or kava, and the interweaving of the scenes showing the warmth of the home and those of human callousness, the blood and balancing between life and death, make the novel goes to the recipients of both sexes.

-to read this review in the original Polish, go here.

And Now I'm Heading off to Bouchercon

Which is just about the most incredible event ever - this year it's in St. Louis, where somehow three of my high school classmates ended up, so I'll get to see them as well as my Bouchercon buddies. If you're anywhere thereabouts, come visit - you can get a day pass to the conference or one for the entire thing on site. Lots of phenomenal panels; lots of great writers milling about. And books for sale.

Hope to see you there.

PS I'm on a panel Friday morning at 8:30, but will be around - please come say hello.

Apparently, I Like Reading the New York Times

Just saw my "stats" for the last month for the New York Times, which I start my day with. Guess I'll be at a loss when my free online subscription runs out at the end of the year - because the Times only allows 20 free articles a month. Clearly, I read more than that. Alas.

Things I'm Grateful for (in No Particular Order)

• That there's a nice market two miles from my house, where the people working always smile at me
• That even though it's raining again, my river did not overflow, and my road did not wash out, and my house did not wash away like the ones I saw yesterday
• That there is a vet five minutes from my house, where I can rush my oldest dog when she is mysteriously and suddenly covered in blood (which turns out to be from a broken toenail)
• That entering the writing world has brought me in contact with a group of big-hearted, talented, funny, bright, wonderful people ... it's a new family, with members are scattered around the planet
• That I somehow seem to be making a living for now (however scanty) writing books ... which shows that things you never quite dare dream of sometimes come true