I spent most of Friday evening lying through my teeth.
I was in Boston/Dedham for Crime Bake, and people were wondering why I came all the way from Texas for a New England conference for crime writers and readers. I dissembled. I deflected. I told them I’d been offered free pizza if I came (which was true, but so was everyone else).
The real reason I was there was because I was the winner of the 2010 Al Blanchard Award, which was to be announced the following morning. I had known about this for a long time, some number of months, but I wasn’t to say anything until it was announced at the conference. I didn’t get a chance to say anything during the presentation, but if I had, I would have apologized to all the people I’d misled the previous evening!
My short story, “The Bank Job,” was selected as the winner out of some 160 submissions to the contest, so I’m quite pleased by the achievement. I’ve been entering the competition for a number of years now, and some of my stories have made top-10 lists before, but that’s the best I’ve done. One of my submissions was ultimately published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, which gave me an idea of how strong the competition was.
Level Best Books has been publishing an anthology of New England crime fiction in conjunction with Crime Bake for eight years, and they always include the Al Blanchard Award winner, so that’s where you can find “The Bank Job” if you’re interested in reading it. This year’s antho is called Thin Ice. My story is a humorous caper about five schmucks who plan a bank job to help one of them get out of trouble with a loan shark. I know it’s humorous because I read it to my wife last night and she laughed. Level Best is also doing interviews with the Thin Ice contributors. Mine should appear in a day or two or three.
Crime Bake was a very good conference. Charlaine Harris (Sookie Stackhouse series, adapted as True Blood on HBO) was the guest of honor and Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Shutter Island, Gone Baby Gone) was also present. In fact, getting Lehane to sign Moonlight Mile only to have him congratulate me was one of those surreal moments that seem to crop up in my life from time to time.
Getting to Boston wasn’t bad. I used a mobile boarding pass for the first time, on Continental, which worked out just fine. I caught the Silver Line bus from Logan into South Station and climbed the stairs and crossed the station in time to see that the next Franklin Line train to Dedham left at 4:20. It was 4:19. I ran out to the train and got on just as it was about to leave, otherwise I would have had to wait an hour.
After the free pizza, there was a screening of an episode of True Blood, which I’d never seen before. It’s hard not to like something that has Anna Paquin frolicking around naked for large chunks of time, but beyond that I wasn’t really hooked. Michelle Forbes, who played Ensign Ro Laren on Star Trek: The Next Generation, is also on the show. There was nothing in that particular episode that would have told me Sookie Stackhouse was telepathic, which I only learned the next day. I’ve never seen or read Twilight, but I understand that it shares some of the same traits as Harris’s series. Not planning to subscribe to HBO any time soon, anyway.
Saturday started with my moment in the spotlight, the Al Blanchard Award presentation, and then went into panels and signings. There was a very energetic young guy who was an expert on lock picking. His love of his topic was infectious. They had a large group of editors and agents who sat for pitches and Q&A sessions, and quite a few series authors and regionally published authors. It was a great group. Everyone was so friendly—even though they classified themselves as reserved New Englanders. The fact that I came from New Brunswick gained me admission as an honorary New Englander by extension! One great idea they had as an ice breaker was a scavenger hunt. You got a card (sort of like a bingo card) that had a different type of person in each slot. You had to find someone to sign your card that applied. Has written about werewolves. Published by Level Best. Derringer Award winner. Has edited books. Someone you don’t know, etc. People had most of the weekend to fill out the card, and there were prizes, so that was an incentive. It got people talking to each other right off the bat.
We had a signing for Thin Ice after lunch that was very well attended. Many contributors and the editors were present. We all sat in a line like wallflowers at the school dance and people passed along in front of us as we signed. There wasn’t a break in the entire 30 minute time slot. I don’t know how many copies I signed, but it was a considerable number. If you’re on Facebook, you can see some photos of the award presentation and the signing on my page there. Lehane was on an afternoon panel about thriller writing that gave him the opportunity to utter some bon mots about writing, some of which I tweeted. My favorite two: “The first job of storytelling: When in doubt, tell the effing story.” (yes, he actually said “effing”) and “I came out of a literary tradition, an MFA, and it took years to scrape it off.”
Saturday night was the Vampire Ball, which I skipped since I was there by myself. I’m not much of a dancer at the best of times. I need two ingredients: alcohol (which was not in short supply) and my wife (who wasn’t with me). I did go to the pre-ball cocktail party to see everyone in costume. I spent the rest of the evening in the bar talking to another writer. On Sunday I went to the breakfast, praying I wouldn’t win one of the book baskets from the raffle because I had no idea how I would get it home if I did. I was traveling very light, just a handbag, and that would have derailed my plans. I had to take a taxi to the airport since the trains don’t run on Sunday mornings. I got there in plenty of time, went through security and heard them issuing last call for an earlier flight to Houston. I went to the gate and discovered that they had one open seat—someone had just been canceled for not checking in on time—and they waived the usual $50 fee and waved me on the plane, so I got home a couple of hours early which was nice.
All in all a terrific weekend, and if you are ever in the New England area in November and you’re at all interested in crime writing, you should check out Crime Bake.
