I went to LCC and all I got was...

By Gayle Carline
Author of Mysteries and Humor - and sometimes together!

I just got home from Left Coast Crime, so perhaps my brain is all muddled from the trip, but dammit, I owe you all a column, and you're going to get it.

LCC was in Sacramento last year. Sacramento is not that horrible of a drive for me, so I went for the first time and had a blast. I met lots of readers, sat on my first panel, and made new friends, including the very funny Elle Lothlorien, who I now trade jokes with on Facebook daily. Maybe hourly.

While in Sacramento, I saw the ads for LCC in Colorado Springs in 2013 and thought, "Um, no. Too far away. Too expensive. Plane trip. No."

Then I released The Hot Mess and realized I needed to go. I may be a legend in my own mind but I need to meet more readers who love quirky characters trying to solve puzzling crimes. (By the way, I've searched the internet looking for these people. Turns out Google and Bing aren't as helpful as they advertise.)

So I checked The Weather Channel a gazillion times, packed a bunch of clothes, crossed my fingers and boarded a plane. How was this convention?

Does this answer your question?

Actually, I met some lovely readers and writers. I got to spend time with most of my Crime Fiction Collective pals, some of whom I had never seen face-to-face. I had met everyone previously except for Jodie Renner and Peg Brantley. Peg and I found ourselves hanging out in the bar and getting to know each other, which was great fun.

Our Crime Fiction Collective panel, Truth is more Violent than Fiction - Or is it?

Me and Michele - she's the cute one.

I also got to spend some quality time with author Michele Scott, who is a good friend of mine. She lives in San Diego, I live in Placentia (about an hour apart), but we had to go to Colorado to meet up. Not many people will put up with us, because within two sentences of meeting, we start talking about our horses. Michele and I both have horse books coming out in late spring, so we made plans for cross-promotion.



Some other highlights for me:

1. I got to audition to be Drew's assistant (as in, Mr. Andrew E. Kaufman). If it wasn't for the hour-and-a-half commute and the fact that I'm already up to my tush in projects, I'd have the job. Totally.

2. Marlyn Beebe (pronounced Bee-Bee, BTW) is going to take me to see her mother-in-law, who owns and operates a lingerie store I've been dying to visit - The Wizard of Bras. Finally! A bra that fits me!

3. The organizers tried out a thing called "Blogs Around the Campfire" where a writer would spend 30 minutes in a small meeting room and people could come in and talk to them about anything. It was mostly a bust, but during my session, I met another author and we discussed ebook marketing. She had a lot of great ideas that I'm going to try out.

4. I met Brad Parks, who won the Lefty Award this year (most humorous mystery) and captured this little gem:

Okay, you know this is a player piano, right? But he does sell it.

5. I drank too much wine on Saturday night, if you define "too much wine" as volunteering to go to the LCC board meeting on Sunday morning (7:30, oy vey!) and agree to submit a bid to host LCC in San Diego in 2016 or 2017. All I meant to do (really!) was to tell them if we had the convention in, say, San Diego, I could write to Dean Koontz and see if he still does this sort of thing and would he come down for the day and be our special guest? By the time I left the room, I had agreed to something completely different.

Oh, well... bring it on.

6. I got to snuggle up in my room on Sunday night, order room service (a buffalo Reuben with sweet potato fries, and salty caramel cheesecake - yum), and watch the snow fall outside. My only regret was that I didn't bring my laptop, and I was in the mood to write. I read instead.

7. I got to spend time with my other good buds, LJ Sellers and Tee Burrell. LJ's up in Eugene, Oregon so I usually only see her at conventions, but Tee is about half-an-hour from me, so we have no excuse.

Usually, I like to end this post with a question, but I'm feeling a little wintry, even if it is officially Spring.



Okay, maybe I do want some answers: What conventions/conferences do you like to attend? Why?

Are you a conferee, a conventioneer, or a little bit of both?

By Gayle Carline

On Monday, Jodie Renner gave us a wonderfully organized list of writers’conferences and conventions, and in the comments, Jeri Westerson pointed out there is a difference between the two.

As well I know, having been to both.

Writers’ conferences are for writers, and by writers, I mean anyone who might even be thinking of writing but is not certain if they are ready to sit in front of a blank screen or sheet of paper and open a vein. All genres are welcomed, discussed, deconstructed and built anew. The nuts and bolts of the writing business are presented, from the craft of writing to the logistics of business. The rooms have tables with their chairs, so you can take notes comfortably.

At least, a good conference should do this. If every evening ends at the bar, telling jokes, swapping bad publishing stories, and juggling swords, well, that’s a bonus. And if there is an impromptu field trip to a porn store, you’re looking at a trifecta.

My first writers’ conference was in Palm Springs and it’s where I got the idea for Freezer Burn. Subsequent conferences taught me how to write a damn good book, how to find a publisher, and ultimately how to publish and promote my damn good books by myself.

Conventions, on the other hand, are where authors meet their readers, both old and new. They are, as a rule, genre-specific. There are several mystery/thriller conventions, from Bouchercon to Love is Murder to Left Coast Crime and beyond. Romance authors have their soirees, as well as sci-fi/fantasy, and I’m guessing YA and/or children’s books.

Conventions are about panels. The chairs are set up in rows and there are no tables, so the taking of notes, while not discouraged, is not expected. There will be no exam later. Four or five authors sit at a table and a moderator asks them questions for most of the 45 minutes, leaving about ten minutes for questions from the audience.

I’m pretty sure this is to keep the audience from telling long-winded tales of their own that don’t really have a question attached. Sometimes it works.

A convention also has an entire room full of booksellers, so if you have never read an author, but see her* on the panel and decide to check out her books, you can buy one and hunt her down for an autograph. (*Or him, but I really like it when it happens to me.)

A really good convention begins with a continental breakfast and ends at the bar, telling jokes and swapping bad publishing stories. (There might be sword juggling, but I’ve never witnessed this.) And even though I’ve been to two conventions and have yet to go on a field trip, it would not be out of the realm of possibility.

This is when it would suck to write literary fiction. No convention, no drinks with people who love your work despite the fact you’re a jackass, and no field trips.

At my first convention, which was Bouchercon, I spent one evening sitting at a table, watching a steady stream of authors and their friends come and go like a tide. LJ Sellers and CJ West sat down. Gary Phillips arrived and LJ left. CJ left and someone else arrived. It was like an entire night of cameo appearances. The high point was when Lee Child sat down next to me. He was so darned sweet and gracious, you wanted to take him home to meet your mother, just to prove to her that you knew someone with a lick of manners.

At my second convention, Left Coast Crime, I didn’t meet Lee Child, although I did get to schmooze with Gary Phillips and LJ and a bunch of fun-fun authors. But the best was Sunday morning, when I was waiting for a seat in the uber-crowded café and a group of readers waved me over to sit with them. Three women who didn’t know me from Adam/Eve and had never read my books, asked me tons of questions, requested my card and bookmarks, and made me feel like an Author. I was as tickled to be with them as they were with me — how cool is that?

Obviously, I find something in both kinds of gatherings that feeds my creative soul. Now that I have described them both to you, which ones do you like to (or wish to) attend, and why?