The Author Bond

After Bouchercon, it was the birthday boy himself, my “brother” who blogged
In a larger sense, the thing I take away from Bouchercon is a growing sense of place. Brett Battles made a comment that encapsulates the event well. “I feel like I’m with my tribe.”
And what is the tribe? A bunch of writers? The writers are an important part of it, certainly. But it’s bigger than that. Every time I turned around I met someone new with whom I could sit and talk about this thing we love so much. Readers, like me.
Writers or not, we were all readers. A tribe. A family.

Yesterday, I got to recapture a bit of that feeling.

Last month I was happy to have a chance to hang out with Mark Billingham. I made a point of traveling to Calgary to see Michael Connelly although I don’t really know him, I’ve just met him in passing twice.

Yesterday, I got to hang out and interview one of my Canadian friends, author Anthony Bidulka. I met Anthony at Bouchercon, and we made plans to link up when touring brought him to Calgary. It’s so nice to have a chance to connect with other authors and hear about their work, what they’re doing.

Like a mini reunion. And we’ll repeat the process at Left Coast Crime in a few months.

I know that it might not always make sense to others, why I love hanging out with writers, but so much of this work is solitary, done in isolation, and I miss the interaction.

Like I said to Tony, you can’t really have a staff Christmas party. (Or winter holiday party or whatever they call them now.)

Nope – this is about as much conversation as I have on a regular basis with fellow authors, here on the blogs. With a few via email. With most people it’s exceptionally sporadic. Everyone’s busy.

I guess that’s why we look forward to the conventions. A chance to reconnect and catch up.

Speaking of catching up, you probably all know by now that there’s a new issue of Demolition up. This issue includes work by Dave White, Jordan Harper, Tom Wohlforth, Patricia Abbott, David Terrenoire, Chris Everheart, John Weagly, Colin C. Conway and Russel D. McLean. I posted that news elsewhere earlier in the week, but I’m still not going “official” about that alternate blog. So, you’ll have to wait for more news on that, still to come in the next week or two.

And I wanted to post about Demolition on a different day, in case anyone missed the news.

Speaking of Bouchercon and great authors I’ve met this year, Elaine Flinn has interviewed Robert Fate, author of Baby Shark, over at Murderati. If you haven’t dropped by yet be sure you do – this is one of the hottest debut authors of 2006. I had the pleasure of having dinner with him in Madison and he is one of the people I most look forward to seeing at Left Coast Crime. If you haven’t read Baby Shark yet, I suggest you do – I predict it will make a lot of top 10 lists this year.

In Other News…

Kevin has updated the front page of my website. However, it still doesn’t have all my big news.

Should I share some more now?

Well…. Okay. Maybe one more thing.

Check this out and you’ll see Yours Truly listed. I am excited to be part of this. It marks my first booked author event in Calgary, and I get to spend the day hanging out with my niece and all her friends. So the kids can’t even get away with anything, because I know them, and in some cases, their parents.

Plus it’s a paying gig. I get to read from my own work. I also get to do writing exercises. I’m planning to use a short story by Ian Rankin and one other source, tbd. Has to be someone who doesn’t have perpetual potty mouth.

Sort of begs the question, how did you end up getting invited, Sandra? Ah, sources. I did my practicum under the principal of this school. He’s participated in the Oxford educational think-tank thing they do every year, which is invite only. He’s a fantastic principal, and this is a revolutionary school, the only arts charter school in Calgary.
And since I haven’t shown you an update in ages, we have photos of the kittens!


Russel and Simon



Russel and Rebus



Simon and Stuart



Rebus and Russel