IN GENERAL, may I suggest and ask:

PLEASE DON’T ARGUE with the program coordinator. If someone says ”no we can’t do that” don’t insist that of course they can. You don’t know the story; you don’t know that a) there are three or six or ten other people who already asked to be on that panel and they all joined months before you did. You don’t know that a panel is set at a specific time or someone is on a panel on a specific day, or in the morning or afternoon because they have a medical or religious reason for needing a program at that time.

ASK DON’T TELL. If you have an idea for program, ASK if the program folks are accepting suggestions. Then ASK if they’d consider a panel on X. DO NOT, please tell them they should or must or need to have a panel on X. Think about your tone, PLEASE. Don’t be ordering people around.

In many cases, you might be right that a panel on X would be a good idea. Maybe there’s a reason it’s not listed. Okay, maybe we forgot and we’ll write and say “oh thank you, how could we have missed that!” Maybe the program folks HATE that topic (that’s never been the case that I know of.) More likely, the program folks just don’t have a hook for the panel and/or decided not to do that one Just This Once. DON’T ASSUME that because something was done once or even twice that of course it’s always done. Remember you’re dealing with different people. THERE ARE NO RULES about what programs have to be offered.

I’ve had great ideas never see the light of day. During planning for LCC 2007, I did not offer some “standards” because I wanted to do them “fresh” and couldn’t find a way. Maybe it was a BUST last time, awful dreadful boring and three people came and they all left early. Or as I’ve noted before, it’s been done fifty times. Not all ideas will see the light of day. BE NICE about it if they don’t.

Which leads me to the next item - DO NOT EVER TELL program organizers that you MUST BE, you are ENTITLED TO BE on a program, I must moderate that program. SEZ WHO? I don’t care if you wrote the damn BOOK on the topic, you do not get to talk that way. It’s just rude. I have had people tell me “I MUST be on that program” or “I’m entitled” in some way. Listen to yourself. Pay attention to how that sounds. Think about how it will sound up against 100 other people saying “please and thank you” – and many many people DO say that. Again, you don’t know the whole story – maybe the person moderating asked six months ago to do it and has a great reputation for doing her research and being wonderful and drawing out shy panelists. Maybe he wrote upcoming 3 volume history on that topic. And aso think about whether this is how you want to be known in the community – as demanding and arrogant, even if you DID write the damn book on it. DO NOT come across this way. It’s not necessary to act like that. Ever. And this is a small world.

Try not to be hurt if you r idea doesn’t make the cut. That in no way means it’s a bad idea. Believe me, it’s baffling when really cool topics don’t generate interest. Often it’s just the mix of attendees and this time it’s not going to work. It’s not that we don’t want it to work, it’s just, well, it’s Chinatown, Jake.

Finally, if you do inquire “why am I not on a panel?” could you be polite, please? Don’t bully, don’t insist, don’t accuse, don’t complain, don’t find fault. Just ask. Could you? I know this is pushing it but as I wrote this part, I was feeling especially…besieged by the weight of letters asking “why am I not on a panel” which tend to insist, blame, demand. It would be so nice if a neutral tone were taken or even if someone said – as some have – did I mess up? It’s POSSIBLE you know, that you did. Yes, it is possible I did too. And I am really sorry. But wow, if you were to receive five, 10, 15 emails all going “why didn’t you?” you might tend to be a little twitchy too. I DID. I put my heart and soul into this task, trying to make this work so well that people would remember it as one of the best conventions they ever attended.

Since the 70s when I got involved in fandom, specifically convention fandom, there have been authors who so got it, who so enjoyed the milieu that it was a huge glowing pleasure to be around them and attend the convention. Some were actors (I started in Star Trek fandom) and some were Really Big Name writers (I’ve mentioned that the first author I ever met was Isaac Asimov and we became friends, not hard to do). I went on to hang with s. f. fans and writers and learned that yeah, prima donnas though some were, most were Real People who had no problem with the concept of hanging with the fans.

The line in mystery is, to use some bad imagery, thicker, between fan and writer. Many mystery authors in this fabulous genre are so down to earth and so aware that “yes, I write and I also put on my pants 2 legs at a….” no wait, that’s me on a bad day. Anyway, MOST writers in both genres are not so self-impressed. HOWEVER, a while back, the editor of the Sisters in Crime newsletter wrote a long piece in her first issue about how pejorative the word “fan” was. Writers who got forms from a Bouchercon a few years ago which had the “fan” box already checked (it’s a message folks!) UNMARKED it to ensure they were not “confused” with fans.

I’ve been on DorothyL when authors came on and lectured about how lucky we were that they existed, because “without them”…..yeah, right. Why would you SAY something like that? Why do you have to condescend? What would be the point of insulting someone, which is what it is, isn’t it? “You are so lucky to have me, I write the books you fill your meager lives with, you poor unfortunates. Why aren’t you out there doing more for me?” By the same token, I’ve had phone calls and emails when I did convention work from people essentially telling me I owed them something I did not owe them.

I started writing this on January 6, taking a break from the estimated SIX hours I spent each day on Left Coast. On January 21 it was taking up to TEN hours a day. Once I went public with the LCC program, I was on the receiving end of a number of attitudes. In some/many cases, it’s clear things went wrong. Some people sent stuff that I did not get. I sent stuff that some people did not get. Crap. It happens and it’s nasty. Last year, the post office lost five, that’s FIVE books that I sold and mailed out. Email does not arrive. We don’t know where it goes. Some damn ISPs refuse to forward email when customers change ISPs, others block it, others forget to tell a convention their email has changed and we don’t have a way to know that. So things have gone awry.

Some people get this and are what, accepting. Some lecture me. Some treat me like crap. It is not polite to lecture the person who, along with a dozen or more other people, has been laboring for free to create an event that you will attend and perhaps profit from. It does not do to be pushy, demanding or bullying to someone who voluntarily is organizing a convention that you are going to. YES, you have paid for it. You have NOT paid her salary. EVERY cent you pay goes into something you will GET from the convention. It’s not right to bully someone who is doing her best. I have made mistakes, god have I. But never intentionally and every time, I raced to correct whatever I can correct. Some of the mistakes made – either side – are based on assumptions which is a bad idea. Some people seem to believe that as a writer, they get to be on program without doing anything. I tried as hard as I could to explain how that isn’t the case THIS TIME. I put stuff on our website, told people when I saw them/took their membership; there’s a box on the form that asks for info about being on program. Not ABOUT program but specifically about BEING ON IT – I wrote it deliberately so it would be read that way, so it wasn’t checked off by several hundred folks wanting to know what panel was when. If the box was NOT checked, I didn’t follow up. I figure this is an adult group, they know what they’re doing and if you don’t want to be on program, you don’t check the box. Some people do NOT wish to be on program and I learned that as far back as the ‘94 Bouchercon, my first time doing convention program. I don’t assume. There is too much to do. I should not have assumed but I wanted to, wanted to really believe people could take care of themselves.

When I got a complaint, I DID start pointing out, because I got tired of being talked to as if I deliberately had set out to hurt someone, that there were well over 175 people wanting to be on program. That I sent out over 200 questionnaires, and at least 50 were not returned. Did they arrive? I don’t know. At first I kept every outgoing email then decided that there was no point to tha.. And now I’m getting “can you prove you sent it?” No, I cannot. I can say it was my absolute intention and mostly my practice that the SECOND I got an email or paper form saying “ I wanna be on program” I sent the email with the questionnaire AND the sample on how to fill it out (because I’m anal and people don’t read everything) AND the letter that said “hey, don’t put this aside please because I really can’t remind you later, when it’s really busy” AND said “there are no guarantees”. I think 175 is a pretty hefty number to juggle

Program planning, as you probably can guess or imagine, is a hugely time consuming job. I did not have time to read notes which were sent with the questionnaires. I got everything from one paragraph “here’s a quick reason I should be on these panels” to one where the individual commented on every single solitary idea on the 12 or so pages. Every panel idea. I didn’t have TIME to read them any more than I have time to read everyone’s book or even WEB PAGE; that’s WHY the questionnaire, It saves TIME. It’s time-SAVING in the long run because it affords a person the chance to say “THIS IS WHAT I AM GOOD AT, this is WHAT I KNOW” and I don’t have to guess, or read the webpage or race around going “Who? Who?” and reading web page promotional tripe (sorry but). The questionnaire it lessens the chance that I’ll put someone on an inappropriate panel (a HUGE pet peeve of mine – panelists on the wrong program item who won’t speak UP before they get up on the friggin’ dais.) I don’t need you to justify your choices, honest. I assume – this is the idea behind the questionnaire – that you will choose what makes you sound smart, talented, intelligent and witty. You’re not going to choose a panel which makes you sound stupid. (and to the panelist I hear about who got up and said “I don’t speak in public” at a recent convention – please don’t do program any more. You wasted the organizers’ time, the moderator’s time, took the place of someone who DOES speak in public and would have been DELIGHTED to be sitting there. AND you sounded like a crank and possibly lost some readers who were upset by your remark and your attitude and wondered at your smarts. Maybe you’re not a crank, but how COULD YOU DO THAT and think it would enhance your reputation?) (no, I’m not making it up but it did not happen at LCC.)