Bouchercon 2008 — Sunday, Oct 12th.
We overslept a bit after the late night. By the time we got back from dinner and into our room it was not that late but by the time we caught up on email, finished the afternoon blog post, did some work stuff that had to get done — well, it was late. So, the upshot is we’ve missed the 8:30 panel. There were only two of them today.
However, we’ve got everything packed and the first load is headed out to the car. Once we get the rest of our stuff into the car and check out we’ll be headed to the American Guest of Honor (Laura Lippman) Interview. She’ll be interviewed by Michael Koryta and I’m looking forward to it. There is one panel running opposite the interview — but I figured you’d rather hear about the interview. We’ve missed the other interviews this weekend. That’s one of the problems with conventions, you’re always making choices. There’s usually three or four great things to do during each time period so you’re always having to evaluate what you want to get out of a convention and then picking the one thing you can do per time slot.
After the convention, since all the electronics will be packed we’ll be finishing up this post when we get home. That means we might not have it in until much later — or much, much, much later — this evening. But we will get it in today.
I also wanted to mention because I’ve totally forgotten that in case you didn’t notice, all the panels are song titles. Each of the panels in the program book are listed along with the band that played it. For example, today’s morning panels were: Call Me When You’re Sober (Buddha Lounge Ensemble) and
Beginnings (Chicago). The panel opposite the Laura Lippman interview is A Town called Malice by The Jam. It was an interesting thing to do and got me to try to remember the songs.
Okay, back to write up the Laura Lippman interview.
10:00 a.m. American Guest of Honor Interview — Laura Lippman
First up the room was packed. Just about every seat was taken. There were people lined up along the walls and at the back of the room. I got standing space in the back and when I couldn’t take standing anymore, I sat on the floor. At least, I had the wall as back support — other people were not as lucky. So, for most of the interview I could hear fine but didn’t see anything/anyone except right around the well I was sitting in.
Laura Lippman first talked about her childhood. She said when she was 13, she had the body of an 18 year old. Since she was a very naive 13, she didn’t understand when men were hitting on here or what it was they wanted — but it did make her very uncomfortable. She talked of being propositioned from cars on her walk home from school and how it got her upset.
In talking about books and reading, she mentioned that her mother was a children’s librarian so of course, Laura read all the Newbury winners. She remembers she learned about banned books when she found Valley of the Dolls hidden in the linen closet. She said that if more people told young readers that they absolutely couldn’t read books and locked them away then those books would be the ones they went after to read. She says some books that are classics, she never read because people kept telling her they were good for her. She heard that Lolita was a dirty book. She managed to score a copy and read it but couldn’t figure out what made it so bad. She said later she found it that it was bad because of the sex. She read it again every few years until she finally found the sex. The interviewer asked how old she was then and she quipped “35”. She said that she learned a lot from Lolita because of the writing style of saying a lot without telling you explicitly what you’re being told.
Moving on, she talked about her love for Baltimore. The chance she had to be on the Official Poe Watch on Poe’s birthday. The watch looks for the person who leaves the three roses and the half bottle of Cognac on his grave each year. One of the things she learned is that the watch is not so much there to find out who the person is but to make sure no one interferes with that person. (I think this is great because it would take the magic out of it to know exactly who it is that does this each year.) Laura said that by now this is the third person who has taken on the responsibility to deliver the roses and cognac. This delivery will be in one of her books but only tangentially to the story and not as a central element.
She talked of the differences between city and suburban life and their apparent and real safety. She believes that the suburbs are much scarier than the city. Both have crime but you expect it in the city and there is the illusion of safety in the suburbs.
She talked about life as a journalist and reporter. Her experiences and some of the stories she worked on. She seems to have worked on a lot of stories dealing with young people who have committed crimes. She talked about young criminals and the justice system. She’s happier as a writer than as a journalists — and says she learned more writing skills in creative writing classes than in journalism classes.
All too soon the time was up. We headed to our car and home. Others went on to the awards ceremony. Hopefully, the Anthony Award Winners will be on line soon. But I put in the link so you can find them easily.
We had a wonderful time at Bouchercon. Indianappolis, Indiana will be the site of Bouchercon 2009.