Noir at the Bar - Washington DC

Last Saturday night Ed Aymar hosted Noir at the Bar at the Wonderland Ballroom in Washington. Ed picked a great line-up (plus me), and no one disappointed. (My established standards are such that I rarely disappoint anyone.)

First, kudos to Ed and everyone connected with the venue. The weather was crappy, parking is difficult in that part of DC, and yet the room was SRO. Events such as this sometimes come down to writers reading for their peers on the bill. Not this time. A large and enthusiastic audience was there. This was such a good crowd, I sold a book. Can’t get much better than that.

Lest you think my sale skewed my thinking, here’s who else was there:

Peter Rozovsky (his excellent noir photos of the event are at his blog, Detectives Beyond Borders.)

David Swinson

Ed (E.A.) Aymar

Nik Korpon

Sarah Weinman

Art Taylor

Austin Camacho

Jen Conley

There were a few raffles sprinkled in, with books and booze distributed free gratis to several lucky winners. I was one, scoring an ARC of Davis Swinson’s The Second Girl, scheduled for a June release by Mulholland.

I’m not going to try to sum up the stories. First, I couldn’t do them justice in summary, and, B.) you didn’t go, so it sucks to be you. Suffice to say the standard of writing was high, the atmosphere was perfect, and it’s safe to say a good time was had by all.

Noirs at Bars are popping up faster than Republican presidential candidates all over the country, and gaining a foothold in Europe. If you hear of one near you and are into excellent noir-ish fiction, by all means, go. Admittance is free (of course food and beverage are on you; literally, if you’re not careful around the bar) and you’ll be in the company of others who not only take their crime fiction seriously, but know how to have fun with it.

Ed hopes to make a pre-Bouchercon DC event a regular thing. I know I’ll be there. Whether I get a reading slot, or not.

Why Bouchercon?

My first Bouchercon was 2008 in Baltimore. I’d heard of it—no avoiding it if one follows crime fiction at all—but I’m a solitary sort who doesn’t care for crowds (read: anti-social), so I never took much interest. Living halfway between DC and Baltimore, it seemed tis would be the one to try, if I were ever going to. Now I love conferences, and would go to half a dozen a year if I didn’t have that damn “real job” that pays the mortgage, electricity, gas, car, food, clothing; you know how that goes. My affection for conferences in general stems from that first year at Bouchercon, which is the gold standard for its ability to bring together a critical mass of readers and authors.

My favorite Bouchercon stories still belong to Baltimore. As noted above, I’m a bit anti-social awkward meeting new people, don’t care much for crowds, and found myself that first morning overwhelmed by hundreds of people, only one of whom I’d ever met in the flesh. (Austin Camacho, who was a great comfort that first day, taking the time to chat with me while I was still making up my mind whether to stick around.) I was supposed to get together with some people I’d met online, but that was only half a step removed. In my mind, they were writers and I was (at that time) but a reader (in my mind), and felt an implied chasm between us.

Among those was Irish author Declan Hughes, creator of the outstanding Ed Loy series. I’d interviewed him for New Mystery Reader several months earlier, and he’d invited me to say hello. So there I was in the men’s room, standing at a urinal, still undecided about how long before I’d go home, and I look to my left and see a familiar face three stalls over. The conversation went like this:

Me: You’re Declan Hughes, aren’t you?

Him: Aye.

Me: I’m Dana King.

Him: Dana! Great to see you.

Me: Finish up. We’ll shake later.

We then made of great show of washing our hands before shaking. On the way out we had to pass through the line for the ladies’ room. One woman recognized Declan and said, “I never meet anyone like that in the rest room.” To which I replied, “You’re not hanging out in the right places.”

That was great fun, but even someone of my limited social skills knew not to attach myself like a barnacle to Declan for the rest of the day. By mid-afternoon my enthusiasm was waning again, until I happened onto Peter Rozovsky on the skyway between hotels. Peter and I became acquainted through his outstanding blog Detectives Beyond Borders, and had met in person earlier that day. (Peter’s fame is now beyond borders itself, thanks to his coming up with the idea for Noir at the Bar.) (Note to those in the DC region: E.A. Aymar is hosting a N@B event at the Wonderland Ballroom, Saturday, October 3 at 7:00. The stalwart lineup includes Austin Camacho, Jen Conley, Nik Korpon, Peter Rozovsky (the Godfather himself), David Swinson, Art Taylor, and Sarah Weinman. And me, but don;t let that stop you. You can always go to the bathroom when it's my turn.) Our chat went like this:

Peter: How are you enjoying yourself?

Me: It’s okay, but I don’t really know but a handful of people.

Peter: Well, just introduce yourself. (Looks around.) Do you know Scott Phillips?

Me: No.

Peter: Scott! Come here, I have someone for you to meet. (Scott Phillips comes over.) Scott, this is Dana King, Dana, Scott wrote The Ice Harvest.

Me (in fan boy mode, having seen the movie and read the book): I know.

We shook hands and chatted for five minutes before Scott had to leave for a panel. My comfort level increased exponentially and I was hooked on the conference experience.

(Epilog to that story: The next year, in Indianapolis, I was hanging on the periphery of the bar, having lost some of my hard-won confidence over the past twelvemonth. I saw Scott with some people and was deciding whether to re-introduce myself when he spotted me. “Hey, Dana. We’re about to go to get something to eat. Do you want to come?” Bouchercon doubts cured forever. Scott Phillips is a true humanitarian.)

I had to miss San Francisco and St. Louis for reasons beyond my control. (Still bummed about St. Louis, which is one of my favorite towns.) Sat on my first panel in Cleveland, my second in Albany (moderated by Peter Rozovsky, thus completing that whole Bouchercon Circle of Life™ thing), went to the Shamus banquet as a nominee in Long Beach, and have a panel next month in Raleigh. (As well as Author Speed Dating, which shows how much I’ve come around on that whole talking to strangers thing.) Lord willing and the creeks don’t rise, I’ll be in New Orleans, Toronto, and St. Petersburg. Bouchercon is my primary social/creative event of the year, and I work budgets and vacations around it.

I still remember Baltimore vividly. So, if anyone who reads this is going to their first—or second, or third, or…--Bouchercon and feels at all uncomfortable abut speaking to an author (or at least someone who thinks of himself as one), please say hello if you see me. I’ll be happy to talk, and will have a few books on hand to dispense free gratis (as Al Swearengen would say) if you mention this blog post. If you don’t see me, or I’m otherwise occupied, say hello to The Beloved Spouse, who will talk to anybody. She has no standards at all. She married me, didn’t she?

Potpourri

I was going to promote The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of today, but, frankly, I’m tired of treading the line between promotion and bloviating. I don’t much like telling people how good my book is and how they really, really ought to read it if they want to be happier/have nicer hair/better sex/live longer. I think it’s a good book, but I’m prejudiced, not to mention a writer (read: introvert) and not a marketer (read: extrovert). It’s not only awkward for me, it’s exhausting. So, not today. If you think you might like Stuff, or any of my books, I’d be delighted if you bought or downloaded a copy, and will sign a paper copy any time you want. If not, buy someone else’s book. There are a metric shit tonne of excellent writers out there, as even a brief perusal of posts here will prove. Read any the authors mentioned. You’ll thank me for it.

So what am I going to post about, if not as an act of shameless and blatant self-promotion? Well, there are a few things:

McFly Day 2. The original box of books for The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of

had some errors I hadn’t caught. Friend of this blog and blogger extraordinaire himself Peter Rozovsky pointed them out and I corrected them. While the errors

weren’t major—not as bad as some professionally edited and printed books I’ve read recently—the books didn’t meet the standard I like to set, and I appreciate Peter’s pointing them out. That was the last book I’ll self-publish without first availing myself of his professional services. It’s nice to think the original versions with the errors will be worth something someday, but I’m pretty sure the only five copies ever printed are in my office, so you missed your chance. That ought to learn you.

(Editor’s Note: I thought you weren’t going to promote the book.)

(Author’s Note: That’s just a mention, not promotion. They don’t want to buy the fucking book, they don’t have to.)

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The Center for Fiction’s Crime Fiction Academy posts interviews and talks from noted crime writers. I’ve seen the interview with Elmore Leonard (Part Two is here) and the talk given by Dennis Lehane (also in two parts). Both are educational, engaging, and funny, well worth the time. Other authors in the series include Michael Connelly, Laura Lippman, and George Pelecanos, though I’ve not had a chance to check theirs out.

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I have long considered Ed McBain’s work to be the apotheosis of crime fiction, so it was better than good news to learn last week Hard Case Crime will re-release two early (as in pre-87^th Precinct) McBain novels, both out of print for over sixty years. So Nude, So Dead will launch in July, with Cut Me In to follow in January of 2016. Details and samples of each can be found by following the links. Congratulations and thanks are due Charles Ardai, one of the good guys in publishing, for bringing these back.

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Every parent worries if they’re doing it right. Rarely is the correctness of an approach brought home as well as was done for me last week, when The Sole Heir told me a brief anecdote that took place between her and The Beau. They were cooking, and he didn’t think she used enough non-stick coating on the pan. She acknowledged she might have used more, but had recently received a

“Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?” from me in a similar situation. The look he gave her made it obvious he had no idea what she was talking about. Understanding references to movies released 22 years (and more) before her birth was a bit of a project we undertook when she was about eleven years old, so she’d understand cultural references derived from those films. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Jaws, The Bridge Over the River Kwai, Animal House, Lawrence of Arabia, The Big Lebowski, both Godfathers, Alien, Aliens, The Terminator, Terminator 2, and probably fifty more over the years are familiar to her when they might not otherwise have been. We’ve all seen Internet lists of the “Ten/Fifteen/Twenty Greatest Movies Ever For [some quality],” that include only movies made in the past fifteen years or so, or since the writer first started paying attention. The Sole Heir knows better, and I’m happy to have played some small part in that. Our educational and entertaining screening room is available to her and The Beau on request.