Sweet Homicide Chicago

Greetings from frozen Chicago, Illinois, where it’s a balmy 3°F and windy this afternoon. I’m here at the O’Hare Wyndham for the 2007 Love Is Murder/Dark and Stormy Nights Conference. I have locked myself in my hotel room this afternoon to get some work done--among other things, a conference report for The Rap Sheet.

So how is Love Is Murder compared to Left Coast Crime, the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival, and Bouchercon?

Small and intimate. In some of the panel rooms, that can be a disadvantage, but in terms of the overall atmosphere, it makes for a more relaxed event. At the welcoming banquet on Friday night, Crimespree Magazine editor Jon Jordan introduced the weekend’s guests of honor, among them Anne Perry, Ken Bruen, Raymond Benson, and Max Allan Collins. Jon’s most touching moment on stage was his deft handling of the conference’s one glaring absence. Up to the day she died, Barbara Seranella had planned to come to Chicago. Sadly, we lost Barbara last week, but her presence is definitely felt by everyone here who’d met her.

Ken Bruen delivered the welcoming speech, describing his recent altercation at a book launch (an irate fan broke his jaw and, as Ken put it, “It wasn’t even my book!”) and how his 14-year-old daughter, Grace, is even more no-nonsense than he is. Strangely enough, Ken’s speech included mentions of everyone who’d been at the bar with him the previous night. Yes, most of us who were there the night before squirmed.

Saturday morning brought crowded panels, but they were worth standing through for an hour apiece. Max Allan Collins, Tim Broderick, and Mort Castle provided an in-depth look behind the scenes of graphic novels. Collins and Castle discussed how difficult it is to be a writer working with an artist, including an amusing story about an artist who missed his deadline because he’d just bought a new video game. An extreme example, it illustrated the differing mindsets of writers and artists. Broderick, on the other hand, described how being both an artist and writer makes producing a graphic novel a different experience. “I know where the artist lives, and I can get him out of bed if I have to,” he quipped.

For me, the morning’s high point came during the Violence in Fiction panel discussion. Anne Perry, currently writing a well-received series set during World War I, painted a rather stark picture of how combat violence differs from criminal violence. She played well off of Bruen, whose American Skin is among the scariest novels of the past year. Perry’s cultured nature meshed quite well with Irishman Bruen’s earthy sense of humor. Marcus Sakey, Todd Stone (who also hosted this conference’s Novelist’s Boot Camp), and Libby Fischer Hellmann rounded out the panel, which was moderated by Henry Perez.

A good time so far. I’ll report on this evening’s dinner event, hosted by Anne Perry, tomorrow.