Magna cum Murder was, as
always, great. It’s a friendly
convention in a magnificent setting, the Columbia Club of Indianapolis. Kathryn Kennison, with her hard-working
staff, keep everything moving and invite great guests.
The Saturday panel Coffee,
Cats and Cozies I was on didn’t have many cats, but a lot of good, funny, rich conversation about the value the cozy sub-genre offers. Fellow panelist Elena Hartwell spoke of the
difficult transition from script writing to novel writing – they only appear to
be similar! Moderator Lynn Cahoon asked
deep questions which showed she’d thought hard about the topic.
Guest of honor Maureen
Jennings (of “Murdoch” fame) was interviewed during the noon luncheon by Ruth
Dudley Edwards, and when two very intelligent and witty women like they
collide, it’s a lively conversation.
The International Guest of
Honor was Brit Natasha Cooper, none of whose books I have read. She was introduced
by legendary author Nancy Pickard who said Natasha was a major influence on her work and a hero
who opened a new door into female protagonists in mystery fiction. Natasha
herself gave a wonderful speech but her insights into the fury that women can
feel makes me very wary of reading her work. Perhaps it’s my age, but I no longer like
fiction that hurts my soul or rips at my spirit, however excellently it is done - any by all accounts Natasha is brilliant. I like fiction that presents a serious
problem to its protagonist, a limited time to fix it, and serious consequences
for failure, but is all calm and comfort to me by the end, not exhaustion and a
soul in tatters. A little humor along
the way is helpful. Painful non-fiction
I can take, the kind offering attitude adjustment or a moral
confrontation. Fiction is where I go to
escape real life. But that’s just me
and, as always, your mileage may vary. Natasha is a formidable writer.
I attended a panel on the
direction publishing is taking (pretty much speculation that e-books and other
self-publishing are the wave of the future). I connected afterwards with one panelist,
Patricia McLinn, who is doing very well publishing her own books. I invited her to sit with us at the banquet,
where we got some excellent guidance.
The
last panel on Sunday, Age is Just a Number, had me (long-time published), Tony
Perona (moderator and well published), Elena Hartwell (stage writer and now
novel writer), and Kristen Lepionka (very young and newly published). We talked
about how we selected the age of our sleuths, how we planned to age them if the
series continued, and what we would have done differently early in our writing
experience. The fact that I am a senior,
Tony is bordering on middle age, Elena is in her thirties and Kristen in her
twenties gave an interesting side-element to the question of age.
Here I am at the Convention:
2 comments:
Thanks for describing Magna Cum Murder. I've never been, but it sounds nice. I love your outfit and hat. I bet you were a real standout.
The place I was a standout was in the Episcopal church next door to the Columbia Club. I went in that purple outfit and a senior gentleman came to sit next to me to tell me he thought it was grand to see a woman dressed so finely for church "and in ecclesiastical colors, too!"
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