Last Frontier, First Thoughts

Like many, if not most of you, I won’t be attending this year’s Bouchercon, which begins tomorrow in Anchorage, Alaska. For me, living in Seattle, it’s not really that distant a destination. But I have already enjoyed one crime-fiction convocation this year, and don’t want to push my luck. Besides, my strongest memory of Anchorage is a bit weird. I’ve been to a number of places in Alaska, from the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes (in Katmai National Park) and Denali, to whale-song-filled Glacier Bay and once-rowdy Skagway. And I have fond recollections of all those spots. But Anchorage is the only place I’ve visited in the world where, within the first 10 minutes of my cab ride downtown, I was offered the services of a prostitute. Experiences like that stick in your mind.

Still, I like to glance at the panel discussions and other events on the “Bearly Alive” Bouchercon program. Were I attending this week, I’d certainly find a seat for Thursday morning’s “Reviewers” discussion, which includes The Rap Sheet/January Magazine’s own Anthony Rainone. I’d follow that with “The Politics of Murder,” which includes among its speakers the ever-comical G.M. “Jerry” Ford. And it might well be a hoot to see Declan Hughes, Thomas Perry, and the comely Harley Jane Kozak talk about the employment of sex in fiction. I’d also want to sit in for Sean Doolittle, Vicky Hendricks, Bill Cameron (Lost Dog), and Julia Spencer-Fleming discussing “how societal shifts and marketing forces have stretched and twisted the very definition of what noir is.” Friday, I might be tempted to watch while Lefty Award-winner Donna Moore, Lori Avocato, Nancy Bush, and Michelle Gagnon talk about “love and the modern P.I.” And considering my longstanding attraction to crime fiction with a past, I’d want to be among the spectators as Sharon Rowse, Ken Kuhlken (The Do-Re-Mi), Robert McCammon, and Claire Langley-Hawthorne discuss “why everyone loves a history mystery.”

Gatherings like this provide great opportunities to mingle and meddle with distinguished novelists. There will be several in Anchorage who I’d like to see again (Stephen Booth, David Corbett, S.J. Rozan, and the aforementioned Mr. Ford among them), but even more I would relish meeting for the first time (including Laura Lippman, Michael Koryta, Denise Hamilton, Declan Hughes, Jonathan King, Alaska author/politician Mike Doogan, James Sallis, John Straley, critic-anthologist Otto Penzler, and the pseudonymous Anne Argula).

Alas, I shall have to wait for another occasion. (Maybe next year; I’m toying with the idea of attending the 2008 Bouchercon in Baltimore, Maryland.) Meanwhile, The Rap Sheet will be keeping its not-so-private eyes on the various awards to be handed ’round during Bouchercon: the Anthonys, the Barrys, the Macavitys, and the Shamuses (which should include the first-ever bestowal of a Hammer Award). And Mr. Rainone has promised to post some of his thoughts on Bouchercon and traveling through America’s Pacific Northwest.

Watch this space.

READ MORE: “Mystery Writers Convene in Alaska with CSI Experts, Judges, and Cadaver Dogs,” by Steve Quinn (AP); “Ex-Alaska Crime Lab Chief Helps Mystery Writers Hone Their Plots,” by George Bryson (Anchorage Daily News).