Left Coast Crime 2025

 Travel and prior commitments prevented me from writing about march’s left Coast Crime conference in Denver. I’ll correct that today.

A quick note: I’ve been to over twenty conferences since my first, 2008’s Baltimore Bouchercon. I don’t take as many notes as I used to because each year there are fewer things I haven’t heard. The list below is by no means a comprehensive listing of all the interesting things I heard over that weekend, just those that were new, or of special interest to me.

PIs: Historical & Modern

SJ Rozan: The PI is the embodiment of having to make a difficult decision in an area of moral ambiguity.

Matt Coyle: PIs are the equivalent of the Western gunslinger. Once he’s done the job, he’s not so useful.

SJ Rozan: Short stories are like a liquor story robbery: in and out. Novels are long cons.

Noir: How Dark Can We go?

Christa Faust: Dark humor is a great way to help readers bridge the gap to an unlikeable protagonist.

CF: Hard boiled + Down these mean streets goes a man who is not himself mean. Noir = He’s mean, too.

CF: As an author, it can be hard to stick with a series. “I’m married to this series and I love it. but look at the ass on that idea.”

CF: There’s no level of “how far,” but how you handle it. If a scene can be cut and not hurt the story, cut it. Be as dark as you want, but not just the sake of darkness.

Conversation notes (Christa?):

Let the queer characters be messy. Too many cis writers make them perfect for fear of giving offense, which makes them two dimensional.

Humor can be a protective coating for the queer characters.

Medicine and Forensics:

DP Lyle: DNA is involved in less than 1% of cases.

The Craft of Writing:

Duane Swierczynski: A scene that comes to you right away is likely a cliché.

Rob Hart: Doesn’t want ‘sensitivity readers;’ he wants ‘accuracy readers.’

RH: Does one draft backward so he’s not running out of energy by the end.

Noir: Examining the Dark Side

Jon Bassoff: The reader doesn’t have to like the protagonist; he just has to be interested in him.

David Boop: In noir, the pro is the con.

DB: the reader can only spend so much time in the dark before you lose him. Comedy not only gives the reader a break, it intensifies the next bad thing to happen.

Mark Bacon: Car dealers put GPS and kill switches in cars for people with poor credit so they can keep them from driving the car and find it without bothering with a repo man, This can cause serious problems when a car dies on a busy highway.

Audience member: Postwar noir dealt with PTSD, though it wasn’t called that then. Now (neo)noir is nihilism.

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This was my second Left Coast Crime. Both were as well run as any conference I have attended, and I’ve been to more than twenty. If you get a chance to catch one – next year’s is in San Francisco -  you should go. You won’t be sorry.

 

 

Left Coast Crime: The Personal Touch

 Last week I focused on the panels at this year’s Left Coast Crime. I mentioned I might not get quite as much from them as I used to; after having been to so many, what I go for now are the people, and this year’s event did not disappoint. I apologize in advance to anyone I omitted. There was a lot going on and my ability to hold competing thoughts isn’t what it used to be.

 

So, in no particular order, thanks to

 

The LCC committee, notably Lucinda Surber, Stan Ulrich, and Les and Leslie Blatt. (Note the use, and necessity, of the Oxford comma.) They had extraordinary obstacles to overcome, not the least of which was starting things up again in the post-covid world, and they pulled it off masterfully. Kudos to everyone involved.

 

Our police procedural panel. Jim L’Etoile, T.K. Thorne, and Frank Zafiro constituted as close-knit a group of panelists as I have ever been involved with. We got together for drinks after the first day’s panels and spent time with each other throughout the week. I’m looking forward to getting together with all of them at future events.

 

Frank Zafiro (again). I mentioned him above, but we spent a lot of time talking apart from other activities. Frank is a walking library of police information, and an excellent teacher besides being an outstanding writer and a good friend.

 

Colin Conway. I’d met Colin before, but this was the first I got to spend much time with him. Great company, knowledgeable about a wide range of topics, and a good teacher in explaining why some police things are the way they are.

 

James D.F. Hannah. A fairly reserved weekend by his standard: no arrests. Jimmy takes his craft seriously, despite his reputation as a hellraiser. Talk to him about the works of Robert B. Parker sometime. You’ll learn something. Even if you’re one of Parker’s kids.

 

The residents of Albuquerque. Nicer people will not be found anywhere.

 

Lee Goldberg, who spent more time than I could have asked for discussing elements of how books become films.

 

Holly West. She was Holly West, which is high praise right there. Always a treat to see her.

 

Lindy’s Diner. On the corner of Fifth Street and Central Avenue. Only open till 3, but worth hustling over for. They even named a sandwich after me in anticipation of my arrival. (The Fat Bastard burger was excellent.) Ask for Dawn, and tell her Dana and Corky sent you. She probably won’t remember us, but I always wanted to tell someone to do that.

 

Baca Boys. Thanks to Frank for the tip. Outstanding breakfast.

 

Thicc Pizza. Another Frank recommendation. I’d never had Detroit-style pizza before, but I’ll definitely have it again. Look for it in the 505 Central food court, across the street from Lindy’s.

 

On the other hand…

 

Southwest Airlines held our plane at the gate for an hour and a half to load the baggage. Explanations ranged from “We’re shorthanded” to “It’s raining.” This made us late into Austin, but we did not have to change planes. The same was not true coming home; we had to run to make our Austin connection. Alas, our bags were not as quick as we were and took a later flight. It will be a long time before I fly again, and a sight longer before Southwest gets my business.

 

The Clyde Hotel. Formerly the Hyatt. The management change took place a week before the conference, and the new owners made no evident effort to get ready. No restaurant, the elevators weren’t fully functional until Saturday, and the bar was only open from 4:30 to 9:30. Let me repeat that. At a readers’ and writers’ conference, the bar was only open from 4:30 to 9:30. (They attempted to make up for the short hours by making everything exorbitantly expensive.) That tells you all you need to know about the hotel “experience.”

 

The good news is that those last two items will not be what anyone remembers from this year’s conference. The good programs, good company, and good cheer will linger, and there was more than enough of those to go around.

 

Thanks to everyone involved.

Left Coast Crime 2022

 The Beloved Spouse™ and I have become regular conferencegoers, so we pretty much knew the drill for our inaugural Left Coast Crime. I’ve been to more panels than I can remember, so the number of new things I hear or learn gets a little smaller with each event. Still, I am always looking to learn, and LCC did not disappoint. Here are the things that popped out at me, based on my scribbled notes. They often paraphrase what was actually said, and I was unable to get attributions for all of them. My apologies to those whose names were omitted. No slight intended.

 

THURSDAY, APRIL 7

Police Procedurals

I got my panel out of the way right off the bat, and it gave the rest of the conference a tough act to follow, if I do say so myself. James L’Etoile moderated T.K. Thorne, Frank Zafiro, and me in a discussion of the tropes of police procedurals, for better or worse. The four of us hit it off right away, Jim set things up expertly, the audience was into it, and a good time was had by all. So much so that the panelists had a “reunion” in the lounge later in the day.

 

I was supremely chuffed to be included on a panel with actual LEOs, and by the people who approached later to ask questions or pass along a compliment. Maybe my most rewarding panel ever. Thanks to all who were there.

 

Writing a Series: Keeping it Fresh

William Kent Kreuger will write a standalone when an idea speaks strongly enough to him.

 

Glen Erik Hamilton set out to write  a standalone but had so much fun world building he decided to turn it into a series.

 

Matt Goldman – If you pick the right time and place, things will take care of themselves.

 

Kreuger spoke of “Domestic Exotica,” stories set in the US but in places no one knows much about.

 

Kreuger was advised to “Write what you know.” He knew Minnesota and the dynamics of farming and people, so he ran with it.

 

These authors generally write for themselves and trust the readers will follow. They also don’t worry about things from past books. What’s done is done.

 

Celebrating the Short Story

James D.F. Hannah says many of his stories deal with “death by sporting goods.” He goes into Dick’s and looks around wondering “Could I kill someone with this?”

 

Robert LoPresti mentioned a writer who goes through each page and kills the weakest sentence. “Why is this sentence here?”

 

Stephen King has compared unfinished short stories to cups with no handles. He sets them aside until a handle comes to him.

 

FRIDAY, APRIL 9

Thrillers

All books must be readable as standalones. Repeat the descriptions of continuing characters. Regular readers will just skip over.

 

The longest continuous occupation of an American city after a race riot is Cambridge MD.

 

Writing for the Screen

Lee Goldberg – Advice to authors: If offered an option, take the money and run. Tell the producer/showrunner you’re willing to be as involved, or uninvolved, as they want.

 

Lee Goldberg - The upcoming film Fast Charlie (Pierce Brosnan) is based on Victor Gischler’s novel Gun Monkeys. Apparently very loosely, though Gischler is good with it.

 

Lee Goldberg – Many things that are changed from a book to screenplay are due to budget or scheduling considerations.

 

Lee Goldberg – The key to a screenplay is to capture the essence of the book, not to create a slavish recreation.

 

Lee Goldberg – A screenplay is a blueprint for the director, cinematographer, etc. to work from. The writer’s job is to tell the story through action and dialog.

 

Lee Goldberg now writes the first drafts of his novels as screenplays, then fleshes them out. Says it gives him a better idea of the pacing and how well the story holds together.

 

The best pilots feel like Episode 7 on the screen. Best pilots ever: Justified, Magnum, Hill Street Blues, though many excellent pilots never get made.

 

SATURDAY, APRIL 9

Hardboiled

Matt Coyle – Everything that happens to a character has to matter.

 

The Contradiction of Humor and Crime: How do you know what’s funny?`

Cynthia Kuhn – Common advice for thrillers is to make things more serious for the protagonist all the time. In comedies, make it more absurd.

 

Location as Character

Johnny Shaw & Craig Robertson – If you only have a few days to research a place, go to bars. (Audience member asked about where else to go if they (or their character) didn’t feel safe in a bar. Other places were discussed, but the takeaway I got was if you or your character don’t feel safe in a place, maybe that’s not the kind of case/story they should be working on.

 

There was lots more, but some wasn’t as new to me, and much of the truly entertaining stuff fell into the category of “You had to be there.”

 

Next week, individual callouts for those who helped to make this a memorable conference.