Conference Call

I had to make the call. The Book Passage Mystery Writers' Conference pushed their dates back a week. Instead of running June 21-24, it is now running June 28-July 1. Unfortunately, I had already bought tickets for the King Tut exhibition for my family on June 28 in Philadelphia. I had to make the call. And I went with family. I already had the tickets (hard to come by, by the way) and the wife is really looking forward to it. So, Pharaoh, here I come. Jacqueline Winspear, I hope to meet you at Malice Domestic.

I was looking for an event that might be able to replace the Book Passage conference, but I'm having some difficulty. The big annual event for Mystery writers and fans of mysteries of all kinds is Bouchercon, this year being held in Anchorage, Alaska. Unfortunately, I have an event in the ol' hometown that same weekend, the annual conference for the Association of Moving Image Archivists. (I have to think about the first job, too.) There is another conference in June called Deadly Ink, but that is the same weekend I am going to be vacationing. I would love to meet Tony Hillerman at the Tony Hillerman Writers' Conference, but I don't know if I can hang on till November. Friend, cop and writer Trey Barker invited me to Mayhem in the Midlands, but that's in May, when I already have two weekends filled with plans.

There was one very intriguing conference that I found, and has been widely suggested to me, and that is Sleuthfest in Miami Beach. The problem with this conference is that it's...NEXT MONTH. For the people in the back that didn't hear me, that was...NEXT MONTH. I have no idea if I can pull that off, and I will take it one step at a time, but I'll see what comes my way. I should work on my WIP and work toward going to Malice Domestic, the Home of All Things Traditional Mystery. Everything else is gravy.