This year’s Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity conference took place in Columbia MD September 10 – 12 and may have been the best ever, despite several obstacles. Part of this success was, I’m sure, the result of people just wanting to get back with their tribe. Columbia and Howard County are among the most-vaccinated and least-infected locations in the country, and the hotel and organizers did well with their safety and masking policies. I felt secure the entire weekend.
A few weeks ago I laid out what past C3 experiences have
been like, and what to expect this year. Today I’ll look back.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10
12:00 Old
home week commenced with Austin and Denise Camacho welcoming everyone. C3 feels
more like a family reunion than a conference, and no one is more responsible
for that than those two.
12:45 “Secrets
to Snappy Dialog.” Not the most auspicious start, as the moderator forgot his
notes and had to wing much of the session. His panelists were up to the
challenge and the end result was solid.
1:45 “Pitfalls
to Avoid When Writing a Series.” I was a member of this panel, and happy to be
there. Norwood Holland touched all the bases the title implied, and everyone on
the panel (Karen Neary Smithson, Kelli Peacock, Ilene Schneider) had slightly
different perspectives on series writing.
2:45 “Living
With a Professional Liar.” This was the spouses’ panel, and The Beloved Spouse™
acquitted herself well. This has become an annual event and is always
entertaining. I’ve seen several and can’t help but think how these better
halves (regardless of gender) keep the writers on their toes, while supporting
their (our) often unusual needs.
3:45 “Adapting
the Written Word to Screen.” Christopher Chambers piloted James Grady and John Wren
through a fascinating 45 minutes of advice, war stories, and tales of horror. A
couple are worth recounting, but this is not the place.
4:30 Cash bar
and book signings. Basically a social hour. Given those who attend C3, it’s
always a damn fine social hour.
6:00 Dinner,
followed by keynote speech by Hank Phillippi Ryan. Hank’s new book dropped that
week, and she was busy doing promotional work, but she carved out time to join
the conference virtually on a couple of occasions. She also worked out a
virtual book signing to prove what a class act she is.
7:30 Noir at
the Bar. I hosted this year, and got an outstanding group of authors to work
with, including Lanny Larcinese, Kelli Peacock, Mark Bergin, D.W. Maroney, Ef
Deal, Bruce Robert Coffin, Maria Kelson, and Jeff Markowitz. (Listed in reading
order.) All not only wrote excellent and varied stories, they read them well
(not something one can assume at most N@Bs), and were all good sports when I
took liberties with their bios.
Then I closed the bar, with assistance from The Beloved
Spouse™, Bruce Coffin, and Lanny Larcinese.
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 11
9:00 “Espionage
for Everyone.” Outstanding panel that explored fictional espionage vs. the real
thing. Made me want to consider shifting genres, if I weren’t already booked
solid. (See what I did there? “Booked” solid? You know, a writer? Booked? I
crack myself up sometimes.)
10:00 “Just
the Facts, Ma’am.” It is no slight toward Noir at the Bar when I say this was
my highlight of the conference. I moderated a panel of three retired law
enforcement professionals discussing where fictional cops get it right and
wrong. This is a favorite topic of mine and Mark Bergin, Bruce Coffin, and
Jeffery Higgins were perfect as the panel. Maybe the best panel I’ve ever been
involved in, regardless of conference.
11:00 “Write
Drunk, Edit Sober.” I was a panelist this time as Ellen Geib Butler led three
of us (Rick Pullen, Lane Stone) through a discussion of writing techniques,
with and without alcohol.
12:00 Lunch,
followed by Hank Phillippi Ryan interviewing Kathleen Barber, neither of whom
was actually in the room. Hank was still on tour, and Kathleen, who has two
small children, wisely chose not to risk exposing herself to the virus.
1:15 “Murder
is Everywhere.” Once again, I was a panelist (thank God for lunch; they were
working me to death) as Austin Camacho, D.W. Moroney, and I followed Jeff
Markowitz through an exploration of the effects of location on our writing.
2:15 “Mixing
Fact With Fiction: Does Historical Fiction Need More Than Just a Time Frame?” I
haven’t given up on ever writing a Western (not yet) and was happy for John
Wren to help Serg Koren, Ellen Butler, Frank Hopkins, and Bill Rapp show me
what to beware of when writing of periods I have no direct connection to.
4:30 Cash bar
and book signings. There were panels at 3:15, but I was exhausted. Nap time.
6:00 Dinner
and keynote by Sherrilyn Kenyon. Any time
you think you had it rough as a kid, check out her story, then shut up.
I closed the bar once more, with the able assistance of
Bruce Coffin (again), Kelli Peacock, and a very nice gentleman who didn’t wear
his name tag so I have no idea who he was.
“It’s a Small World” Award to Sherrilyn Kenyon, whose father
was post sergeant major at Fort McPherson GA when the Army stationed me there
in the early 80s.
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 12
8:00 Breakfast,
and Austin Camacho interviewed James Grady. As one would expect from those two,
funny and informative.
9:15 CLASS:
James Grady – Mastering Your Writing. A true master class, as Grady is a master
with enormous class. I’ve been writing for quite a while and sessions like
these are why I keep going to conferences.
10:15 “Journalism
in Mysteries.” Another outstanding panel. Rick Pullen led John DeDakis, Mark
Bergin, and Jeffery Higgins (former journalists all) through a discussion of
how authors use journalism in fiction, and journalistic trends in general.
And then, alas, the end. There was another panel session,
but The Beloved Spouse™ and I had to check out of the hotel and take care of a
couple of administrative things before going home to collapse. Was this the
best C3 I’ve been to? I have to admit the fact we had to skip last year, and
this is the first time I’ve been with my writer tribe since November of 2019 in
Dalla might affect my judgment, but I can think of none better. The hotel laid
out perfectly, the staff was courteous and helpful, and, aside from a couple of
minor technical problems with the remote speakers, the conference went off with
out a hitch. The Beloved Spouse™ and I registered for 2022 on our way out.
We’ll see you there.
(PS
Joe Lansdale will be one of the 2022 keynotes. If that’s not
incentive, I don’t know what is.)
As always it was such a delight to have you both at the conference. And yes, this is our tribe and we love our tribe. Always a great time and this year a feeling of immense gratitude to everyone who made it so amazing.
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