I'm here for Bouchercon, which, for those of you who don't know about it, is the World Mystery Convention: an annual gathering of crime writing readers and writers, critics, editors, agents and booksellers. It's a 4-day conference with panels, interviews, and awards ceremonies. It's a great place to get exposure, meet your readers, and talk to the independent booksellers who are the people who will be hand-selling your book if they like it. I had a panel yesterday morning on "The Tarnished Hero," which went well and resulted in some interesting discussion, because of the skill of the moderator (Jonathon King) and good questions from the audience. Some panels aren't particularly meaty, and some are dull and some spectacularly funny; this one was pretty serious, and I thought went well. I also did a "20-minutes-of-fame" event, where I had 20 minutes in one of the meeting rooms to read, talk, do whatever I wanted for whatever audience showed up. The room was full (about 75 people), which was gratifying. I read from ABSENT FRIENDS and answered people's questions about the process of writing it and about my work in general. Then I cleared out fast because it's way rude to eat into someone else's time.

Review news: The Toronto Globe and Mail reviewed 6 new books by writers at the convention; ABSENT FRIENDS was one, and they loved it. And People Magazine will apparently do it next week, in the issue dated Oct. 18. (My publicist tells me it's the "plastic surgery issue." Can this be a good thing?)