Christa Faust + Me
Q: Bouchercon San Diego is in the rearview mirror. What is your favorite Bouchercon memory, past or present, and what advice would you give to writers interested in attending Bouchercon, so they could get the most out of their experience?
A: Fuck Bouchercon.
Really Josh? Damn, you definitely know how to win friends and influence board members.
Okay, not really, this is not entirely how I feel. It’s more complicated and nuanced. To figure out how I feel about it, I need to make a pros and cons list…
PROS:
1. Friends. Where else do I find myself chatting with Christa Faust and Jordan Harper about what color bandana in which pocket signifies your personal sexual proclivities?Spoiler alert - it’s much more complicated than I imagined. Where else do I get into a deep dive conversation with Gary Phillips about LA in the 1980’s, Central LA vs ELA experiences? I had lunch with Gabriel Valjan and chatted about our lives growing up as us. Laughed with Mike McCrary and Kevin Burton Smith. Ate vegan ceviche with Holly West, Curtis Ippolito and a whole table of wonderful folks I’m leaving out for lack of brains, mine not theirs. Chatted too briefly with Lou Berney and Chris Holm. Met an internet friend Beau Johnson, and a very cool horror writer, Johnny Compton. Hung out with many more old and new friends from the crime writing communities.
2. I got to see an old friend who might become my next editor, (hush hush very secret until it is not.)
3. I met readers I didn’t know who love my books and that felt great.
CONS:
1. Over $2000 in fees, hotel, over priced hotel food, and travel. Would this be better spent taking a vacation to say, anywhere other than a convention hotel? Would it be better spent on a couch surfing research trip to Denmark or the UK? Maybe. Back when I was making Hollywood money I’d say “do both.” But novel money has a very different scale to it.
2. The ding to my ego when the only panel I’m put on is Sunday morning improv, which was fun as hell, but didn’t help me feel like I had much to share as a writer. And didn’t help bring any new readers to my books. Panel selection can be both a ding to the ego and hard on the business of selling books.
(Ego ding sounds small and petty, and it may be. But the thing about writing is it takes a ton of ego to face down the blank page. So having folks you don’t know make you feel less than, only feeds the negative voice in your head.)
3. Most of the panels were the same people talking about the same subjects. A couple were brilliant mostly because the writers on them rose well above the same old standard questions and answers. I would have loved the Ann Cleaves interview if I could have heard it. The PA systems were spotty at best, and the set up in that big room delivered on a low mumble.
4. It was a COVID super spreader. The Bouchercon’s tweety account said a few people got sick. Bullshit. Out of those attendants that I’m in contact with I’m one of the very few that DIDN’T contract COVID. Some mild cases, some very dire cases. This isn’t BCon’s fault, it’s a fact of life now, and it’s definitely a con to going to cons.
***
Laying it out like this I see that BCon is unjustifiable as a business expense. It also feels like there are a lot more writers than readers these days. If it’s a writer’s conference maybe it needs more workshops and interactive elements. If it is for readers and fans it needs to find ways to attract younger readers or it will die out.
I won’t be going to BCon 2024, after that we’ll have to see. I will miss seeing all my wonderfully bright and talented friends. They really are my people. Maybe we can get together under a different umbrella. A writer’s twenty-four hour flash mob? Marathon weekend Noir Bar crawl? Campout writer's fest in Idyllwild?
Here's a rogues' gallery chocked full of reasons to get together with writers...
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Beau Johnson |
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| Mike McCrary |
| Chris Holm |
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Curtis Ippolito |
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Gabriel Valjan |
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Gabriel Valjan and Sheryl A Head |
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Johnny Compton |
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Kevin Burton Smith |
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Lou Berney and Alexa Donne |
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S.A. Cosby |
***
Unrelated but equally important - If you haven’t watched Lou Berney’s Good Morning America interview from last week, please check it out. He is humble and honest about his work life, “Maybe failure is part of my process.” If he needs to fail to write his books, maybe we’re all doing better than we think.
Absolutely inarguable, Josh. A hard read though. God, if I thought about Bcon in terms of justifiable expenses . . .
ReplyDeleteC, most of our writers life almost never fits comfortably on a balance sheet, little in our lives do though. And in many ways that’s the way it should be.
ReplyDeleteExcluding the picture of Christa and me, and Curtis and me, all the other pictures were taken by me… maybe I need a side hustle taking author photos,
ReplyDeleteJosh, You nailed a couple of really significant issues about this large convention. I had to miss it a couple years in a row (wildfires near me, family stuff) and when I went gain, I began to notice these things too. Spending time with other writers is great, especially because we aren't all neighbors and only get to see each other at major gathering times. Cost? Whew. The Bouchercon fee is small and reasonable, thanks to heroic volunteers, but the rest, a big outlay. And you talk about something that's become clearer to me over time. I appreciate being on panels and being asked to moderate others, and I know that a convention, rather than a conference, is supposed to be for fans, but it does seem to get stale for us, who have heard and been asked the same questions over and over. I think the readers love meeting and getting to know authors, and the sparkling stars - Catriona, Ann Cleeves, Val McDermott, Lou Berney, Sean Cosby, etc - do a lot to keep it fresh. I dream of a small writers retreat, perhaps 6-8 of us in a house somewhere for a week, writing and talking like crazy!
ReplyDeleteTrue, it wasn’t cheap. Sorry your panel didn’t live up to expectations. Hope the new editor thing works out. That might end up being big. Maybe it could be … really great? Better than sending an email? Let us all known
ReplyDeleteSusan, I now share your dream of the small writers retreat. I need a bigger house in the woods or a couple of yurts, never been in a yurt, but I love the word.
ReplyDeleteJeff, we shall see what we shall see.
There is much to what you say.
ReplyDeletePeter, I left out you and I at bar plotting our take over of the world. We really needed a stenographer that evening, I’m sure it was earth shatteringly brilliant.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry you couldn't hear the Ann Cleeves interview. It was great. Of course I think that because I did half of it (Catriona the other half).
ReplyDeleteFuck Josh Stallings.
ReplyDeleteNo, really, Josh, you’re pooping on my parade. Just that quickie, too much coffee, man improvised chat with you in the lobby was one of the highlights for me (No, I’m not paying you two grand for the next one). Yes, Bouchercon was crazy expensive, which is why I rarely go, but PROS #1 is why I do go: friends!
It’s why some of us crawl out of the desert (or come down from the mountain). And I found enough great panels to keep myself amused.
A PRO you didn’t mention: the Dealer’s Room. I’m no big time collector, but I found some relatively affordable little treasures and gifts for the Girl Detective (Dell Mapbacks!), and met a few new authors flogging their wares I’ll be investigating further.
Also: although it was inconveniently off-site and poorly attended, the PWA’s Shamus Awards Dinner was a chance to once again rub shoulders with some old friends and make a few new ones.
As to the CONS:
CON #1: Yes. Forget Hollywood money or even novel money. Try spending web monkey money. Bouchercon's way too expensive, and at this point way too big. And expanding it to give more people a spot on panels? Seems more based on the convention’s bottom line than anything.
CON #2,3: I was lucky enough to moderate a well-attended (and hopefully entertaining) panel in a small room on the Thursday; one that folks seemed to really like. I’m thinking most of my panelists might have seen an uptick in sales. Being smart and interesting as a panelist is a great gift for an author.
The problem is that too many panels are filled with wannabes who aren’t smart or interesting. Or have anything interesting to say about books, writing, the genre or much of anything else except “Buy my book.” And if their books aren’t interesting either…
I may be mistaken, but it seemed that Bouchercons used to attract more fans than writers—the problem is that now everyone thinks they’re a writer. Alas, thinking you’re a writer and being a writer are two very different things.
CON #4: I didn’t get COVID. I’d heard the rumours of this “outbreak," but nobody I knew came down with it. Maybe the vaccine, washing hands and wearing a mask works. And was it any worse than any other large gathering (Football games? Concerts?).
I don’t know. Maybe if I felt obliged to attend, I’d feel differently, but for me, it was a highlight of my year. I love this stuff, under whatever umbrella I can find (and afford). A writer’s twenty-four hour flash mob? Marathon weekend Noir Bar crawl? Campout writer's fest in Idyllwild? Sure.
Even a sandwich and a beer with a couple of friends would do it.
I’m not going to next year’s Bouchercon either. But maybe I’ll attend a few more local signings and Noirs at the Bar (if I can ever figure out when they are). And smaller regional cons. Left Coast in Seattle is a possibility. I wonder how much the Greyhound would be…
So, yeah, fuck you, Josh. But with love.
Thank you for starting this honest discussion, Josh. Look how much got said here! I am personally glad that it happened at all, but I was not there as a writer. And I did think it was expensive, all told. I had a bit of a sag a day or so in, but I found it got better. Some good things happened, and that's enough for me.
ReplyDeleteI did really enjoy the writers' spotlight talks, which were super interesting.
I don't know if I'll make it to Nashville, but it would be a great opportunity to visit a city I've never been to.