UPdated  |
| photo (at Bcon) by Peter Rozovsky |
When I wrote recently about the World Science Fiction Convention I talked about the controversy over the Hugo Award. What follows could be considered my attempt to gin up a kerfuffle at Bouchercon. But I think it is worth mentioning.
Ready for the controversy? They gave away too many free books.
Yeah, I know. Too many free books sounds like a contradiction. But hear me out.
Those of us who write books are supposedly trying to sell the damned things. If everyone is handing them out for free like campaign brochures, who's going to buy them?
Every registrant found six or so books in their bag. The several hundred people who attended the librarian's tea each collected seven more. And
At some point, enough is too much, and the Tragedy of the Commons takes over. I understand that the people working on next year's Bouchercon in New Orleans are already thinking about this issue. I wish them luck.
Finally, and if you read this blog at all you knew it was coming, here it is: my quotation file from Bouchercon. All of these were jotted down on the fly so apologies for any misattributions or misquotations. And as for context, sorry. I left it in my other suit.
"The amateur sleuth restores the social order." -Leslie Butewitz
"You are everybody in your book." -Don Bruns
"I'm the most Jewish atheist you'll ever meet." -Reed Farrel Coleman
"I dream about Philip Marlowe. That's really embarrassing, which is why I'm telling this large group of people." -Megan Abbott
"The best experience for someone who wants to write is not reading the masters but reading works by amateur, inferior writers." -Lawrence Block
"If I have one skill as a writer it is that I am really good at thinking of bad stuff." Diane Chamberlain.
"Second person narrator isn't modern. It's radio." - Bill Crider
"Getting a thesis on Agatha Christie past the people at Harvard is not simple." -Julianne Holmes
"Always invite dead authors to dinner parties. They have no allergies or other dietary problems." -Lawrence Block
"The best characters could go good or bad depending on the circumstances." -Rhys Bowen
"I still haven't finished reading Orlando, and a teacher in college is waiting for the assignment." -Karin Slaughter
"In hardboiled fiction you have the psycho ex machina." -Reed Farrel Coleman
"When I started writing all the southern books were southern gothics, and the pigs ate mama." - Margaret Maron
"Don't steal the reader's crayons."- Chantelle Aimee Osman.
"It took me about five minutes to sell out." - Bill Crider
"I'm reaching the age where I can read a book again for the first time." -Lawrence Block
"Diehard is an example you can use for almost anything in life."- Chantelle Aimee Osman.
"Some short stories make the mistake of thinking a short story is just a novel, but shorter." -Sean Doolittle
"While writing my novel in the library I felt a strange kinship to the man at the next desk who was talking to fictional characters." -John Hart
"I got a letter a long time ago complaining that I put a period after the Dr in Dr Pepper." - Bill Crider
"Mysteries are worried about the past. Thrillers are worried about the future." -Alexandra Sokoloff
"Quebec is not in the south? Maybe you can draw me a little map." -Hank Philippi Ryan
"The woman I interviewed called herself a sociopath, rather than a psychopath, because it sounded less stabby." -Mark Pryor
"I write fantasy because I like doing the research."- Karen McCullough
"The author who started creating antagonists as rich and colorful characters was Ian Fleming." - Don Bruns
"This is the third panel at this conference on pace. Are we not writing fast enough for you?" -Alexandra Sokoloff
"I usually have a dead body in my books, but they've usually been dead for a few thousand of years." - Elly Griffiths
"I'm trying to find a properly smart-ass way to answer that." -Lawrence Block
