What happens at Waffle House

I’m still in recovery mode from Bouchercon, held this year at the ridiculous Opryland Resort in Nashville. The good stuff was better than ever - catching up with my tribe of crime writers (“Who’s got it better than us?”), meeting new friends, writing heroes, and readers, sampling the local culture, having too much fun too late at night and struggling through panels in the morning, talking craft and business and all the things only we know about this world we’ve made for ourselves.

The conference itself and the organization thereof, however, left much to be desired. This is not a controversial stance among the attendees, believe me. I already mentioned the hotel, which had its fascinations but was vast and maze-like and geared toward families on vacation, not a conference of this type. We were too spread out, there were apparently a number of accessibility issues, it was far from downtown (but admittedly close to Cooter’s Dukes of Hazzard Museum), and the only real breakfast option was a $35 buffet that would be the shame of Vegas. Bouchercon works best in a centralized, contained space, where you know everyone will be at the same bar.

I know I’m not an impartial party on this next matter, but the treatment of the Anthony Award nominees was…not great. There were no panels dedicated to the awards as in past years, and the explanation (that not enough nominees were in attendance) doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. In my category, Best Paperback, all of us were present, and some categories could have been combined for panels if needed. Instead, there was a scheduled “meet and greet” than didn’t even rise to the level of an afterthought. (Thanks to Wes Browne, the man of renown, for organizing an off-site reading for the nominees.) The awards ceremony itself didn’t include a banquet as in the past. It all felt perfunctory, and for those of us who were first-time nominees and might never have the chance again, disappointing.

There was also an issue with an old-school caveman trying to strip the diversity and inclusion language out of the Bouchercon code of conduct, but Rob Hart has covered that ably here. Which bring us to the books, or the lack thereof. I don’t think it’s expecting too much that the very least a conference devoted to connecting writers with readers should make sure happens is having books on hand to sell. This did not happen. The original vendor was evidently not up to the task, but replacing them only two weeks before the conference didn’t improve the situation at all and may have made it worse.

The replacement vendor never received (possibly never successfully ordered) the books from distributor Ingram, so only had a selection of books supplied by the authors themselves available for sale on consignment. If we had all been warned in advance that this was a likely outcome, many of us would have brought more copies of our own books. I only brought four copies of Lowdown Road, and sold them all myself on the first day. To date Bouchercon has offered no official explanation and certainly no apology for this colossal screw-up.

Bouchercon is a huge undertaking that doesn’t happen without a lot of hard work by the local committees (not to mention the volunteers, who are outstanding and deserving of our thanks), but it also doesn’t happen without the authors and readers who pay the registration fees. It’s all about the books we write and they read, and without those, it’s just a big party we could have had anywhere. Anywhere close to a Waffle House anyway.

News and Notes

• Yes, that is a Stephen King retweet of a photo I posted from Bouchercon of some of our crew in front of the nearby Waffle House. A definite highlight of the conference.

• For the record, I lost both the Barry and the Anthony, which makes me 0 for 3 on awards when you count the Edgars in May. But my friends Holly West and S.A. Cosby were Anthony winners, and the whole night was a blast. With that, my ride with Lowdown Road is in the rearview mirror (but of course, if you haven’t read it yet, you can still do that). Stay tuned for what’s next.