How Many Books Do You Read a Month?

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Love is Murder Writers Conference 2013

Today was the second day of LIM's three-day marathon of mystery author panels and seminars featuring everything from writing and producing TV detectives shows +Lee Goldberg  to New Normal: Paranormal! +Honora Finkelstein+Ted Krever, +Susan Smily, and A.J. Hartley.

Usually I can't sit for more than an hour without getting fidgety, but the speakers at +Love is Murder are so fascinating, I'm sitting at the edge of my seat waiting to hear the next author's words of wisdom. The Editors and agents I pitched to at the Conference: +Christine Witthohn from +Book Cents Literary Agency, +Marlene Stringer from +Stringer Literary Agency, +Marcia Markland from +St. Martins Press, +Emily Clark from +Allium Press of Chicago, +L.Sue Eggerton from +Weaving Dreams Publishing, and +Deni Dietz from +Fiver Star Mysteries, say Fatal Reaction, my third mystery, is soft-boiled or a cozy. Since this is the first time one of my novels has been described as such, I found the How Many Murders Tip the Scale; Keeping Amateurs Plausible panel with +Helen Osterman, +Maris Soule, +Kent Krueger, and +Judy Knauer to be most helpful.

And when we finally got to Ingredients for Success - a Touch of Humor, I was totally ready for +Abbey Sparkle+Allan Ansorge+Judy Cobb Dailey, et al to share their funniest lines! It was actually a joy to explore how humor could be infused into mysteries. With +Deadly Choices, my award-winning suspense thriller, +Jennie Spallone, I wrongly assumed suspense had to be all serious. Not!

Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!