A Good Time Was Had by All

This is going to be a difficult blog post to write, among the my hardest ever. If all blog posts required this level of gut-wrenching effort to produce, I wouldn’t fool with it. Okay. Enough. Let’s rip this Band-Aid off all at once: I’m going to say nice things about Ed Aymar. Happy?

Ed used his not inconsiderable (and wholly inexplicable) skill at talking people into things to get One More Page Books in Arlington to host an evening of crime fiction last Friday. Ed cobbled together a panel that consisted of Christina Kovac (The Cutaway), Sherry Harris (author of the Sarah Winston Garage Sale series), and Burt Solomon (Killing Willie Lincoln), then risked it all by inviting me.

A crowd of about thirty people showed up anyway and was treated to an evening that showed the uninitiated why crime fiction writers are so often described as the friendliest and most open of all writers: because they are. From Christina’s tales of gruesome dead bodies through Sherry’s cats on her book covers (there are no cats in the books) to Burt’s trials to get the proper Lincoln son on his cover, Ed led an entertaining evening that lasted well past when the good people at One More Page thought they’d be able to go home.

Regardless of who came up with the idea, having a cross-section of crime writers was inspired. Christina writes contemporary thrillers; Sherry does cozies; Burt leverages his non-fiction research skills for historical mysteries; I’m hard-boiled. The audience that appears at such an event is pre-disposed to like crime fiction. Why not give them a taste of what they already like, but in different flavors? The audience questions kept us on our toes and the chats during the signing period were just as good.

So thanks to everyone at One More Page for having me, thanks to everyone who showed up (especially those who bought every book I carried in with me), and special thanks to Christina, Sherry, and Burt for being such great co-panelists.

And, damn it, special special thanks to Ed Aymar, who was directly responsible for 75% of the events on the Resurrection Mall World Tour™. He teed me up for the moderator’s gig at the Gaithersburg Book Festival last month and invited me to read at the Noir at the Bar he set up later that evening, in addition to the event at One More Page. If one is judged by one’s friends, Ed’s can get away with anything.

One thing about him, though. He has like no back hair. None. It’s weird.