Murder in My Own Backyard

Seattle Times crime-fiction critic Adam Woog has a feature in today’s paper about this weekend’s Left Coast Crime convention in the so-called Emerald City. It makes a bit much of yours truly’s contribution to the event (I’m supposed to interview toastmaster-author Gary Phillips tomorrow morning, in front of enough people to make me sweat blood), and of Phillips’ size (“He has a promising career as a monumental statue if this writing gig doesn’t pan out,” writes Woog), but is otherwise well done. My own appearance aside, I’m looking forward to encountering a few people I have not before, including Peter Spiegelman, Edward Wright, Mark Coggins, David Corbett, Con Lehane, David Skibbins, David Hewson, and Ken Kuhlken. You might think that, after writing about and meeting many crime and mystery novelists over the years, I’d be pretty jaded to the experience by now. But you’d be wrong.

LCC will also give me the chance to shake hands with a couple of Rap Sheet contributors who I know only through our e-mail exchanges and their brilliant posts: Megan Abbott and Stephen Miller. January Magazine editor and Rap Sheet contributor Linda L. Richards will also be attending, so maybe we can arrange a staff get-together.

I’ll do my best to report from the convention as it goes along, though the busy schedule of panels and the multiple offers from authors to buy me a drink this weekend could conspire to inhibit my productiveness. Stay tuned.