Crimelandia in Portlandia

I recently attended a convention here in Portland, Oregon called Crimelandia held by the Left Coast Crime.  They hold a convention every year in a different city in Western North American. It's put on by mystery fans for mystery fans. Workshops are given by the authors in the various sub-genres of mystery and the audience is made up of both writers and readers, mostly readers.

It was very interesting for this romance writer. Though I write suspense, my books are at their core still romances. I try to keep the balance between suspense and romance even so that neither one takes over the book, but conversely neither the romance or the suspense plot could stand up without the other.  So I felt a little bit like a fish out of water when I arrived but thankfully for me, I connected with several people I knew from the romance community. Here I am with authors Wendy Warren, Jessica Smith and Carolyn Zane and the one behind the camera was Nancy Brophy.

I had a fabulous time learning from the masters of the genre and found new to me authors whose books I will be seeking to read.

Here the panelist, John Burley, Richard Van Anderson, H.S. Clark, D.P.(Doug) Lyle, and Liz Osborne, played a fun game during their talk titled, Pass the Scalpel: Getting the Medicine and Science Right.  They held up words that may or may not have been real and the audience had to guess for prizes.  It was hilarious.

This panel was talking about cliche`s in writing. David Corbett, Lisa Alber,
Blake Crouch, Bill Fitzhugh and James Ziskin. This was a fun panel and for asking a question I got a book and a T-shirt from author James Ziskin

Here author Phillip Margolin is being interviewed by Jay Margulies

The next two Left Coast Crime conventions: 

2016: (February 25-28): Phoenix, AZ
2017: (March 16-19): Hawaii

If you're a mystery, crime or thriller reader or writer, you should consider attending this convention. For me it was well worth it and I hope to go to one of the upcoming ones.