COVID-19 Is Already Ruining 2021

If you were hoping to attend next year’s Left Coast Crime convention, this is going to put a kink in your plans. From Mystery Fanfare:

Due to the uncertainty of holding large gatherings in the spring of 2021, the Left Coast Crime 2021 convention in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has been rescheduled for April 7–10, 2022—same place, same week in April, just a year later.

The Left Coast Crime national committee is making this decision now because we cannot count on having favorable government policies and the hotel’s ability to provide necessary services by next spring, as well as the willingness of our Left Coast Crime community to travel with confidence. We’ve been in continual conversations with hotel personnel and sought assurances from the State of New Mexico, but no one can say when conventions can resume, even in 2021.

Registration for Left Coast Crime 2022 is currently open.

Although next year’s gathering won’t happen, LCC organizers say the 2021 Lefty Awards will still go ahead, with the results to be announced online. “Registrants for the Left Coast Crime Conventions in San Diego and Albuquerque will be able to nominate three titles in each category,” according to Mystery Fanfare. “Nomination forms will be e-mailed to all eligible LCC registrants by January 1, 2021. The Lefty Award categories are: Best Mystery Novel, Best Debut Mystery Novel, Best Humorous Mystery Novel, Best Historical Mystery Novel (the Bruce Alexander Memorial).” More info on these prizes is available here.