CALIFORNIA CRIME WRITERS CONFERENCE NOW OPEN FOR REGISTRATION

2017 CALIFORNIA CRIME WRITERS CONFERENCE NOW OPEN FOR REGISTRATION:

A preeminent event for established and aspiring crime writers,

the 2017 California Crime Writers Conference will take place June 10-11, 2017

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – Sisters in Crime/Los Angeles and SoCal Mystery Writers of America are pleased to announce that registration is now open for the 2017 California Crime Writers Conference.  The 2017 California Crime Writers Conference will take place Saturday and Sunday, June 10-11, 2107 at DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Los Angeles—Westside/6161 West Centinela Avenue, Culver City, California.

A renowned event geared toward both emerging and established mystery and crime fiction writers, the 2017 California Crime Writers Conference includes workshops, presentations, and sessions with top agents, editors, award-winning authors, publishing industry insiders and crime investigation professionals. Guests of Honor for the 2017 California Crime Writers Conference are New York Times best-selling authors William Kent Krueger and Hallie Ephron. 

The intensive two-day event features an extraordinary programming lineup covering Craft, Forensics/Crime Solving, Publishing Industry, and Marketing panels, in addition to keynote luncheons, networking events, an agent & editor cocktail party, a book room and charity auction.  A limited number of individual, on-site manuscript critiques are available at an additional fee in advance.  Registration for 2017 CCWC is limited to 200 to maintain a congenial atmosphere among faculty and registrants. For full details, and to reserve your spot, visit:  http://www.ccwconference.org/register.html

Members of the news media wishing to request additional information about the 2017 California Crime Writers Conference are asked to contact Maryglenn McCombs by phone: (615) 297-9875, or by email: maryglenn@maryglenn.com

Hallie Ephron

Hallie Ephron's writing has been called "unputdownable" (Laura Lippman) "unsettling" (Seattle Times), "ingenious" (Joseph Finder), "richly atmospheric" and "Hitchcockian" (USA Today), and "deliciously creepy (Publisher's weekly). Her award-winning NEVER TELL A LIE was made into a movie for the Lifetime Movie Network. With THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN she delivers her most accomplished novel of psychological suspense yet. Hallie teaches writing; her WRITING AND SELLING YOUR MYSTERY NOVEL was nominated for an Edgar Award. She also reviews crime fiction for the BOSTON GLOBE.

When I started writing THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN, it felt like stepping off a cliff. It's been so gratifying that early reviewers are praising the two things that worried me most -- my old woman and the Bronx neighborhood I wrote around her.

As I wrote Mina Yetner, the book's 91 year old protagonist, I tried to channel my mother-in-law who died at 91 and who claimed she felt no different than she had when she was 21.  When my daughter read the book, she told me Mina reminded her of her grandmother. Fist pump!

But I do think Mina is very much ME, or at least the person that I expect to be when I'm so old that I don't feel like I have to apologize for having so many opinions.

As much as this is a book about an old woman, it's also about a place. I imagined Mina sitting on her back porch, sipping tea, the newspaper obituaries column in her lap, gazing contentedly across "her" marsh to the Manhattan skyline. That's the scene I started writing, and that's how the book begins.

I thought I'd have to go to Jamaica Bay to find a spot like that, but a friend who scouts locations for films told me about the perfect spot in the Bronx. Marsh. Skyline view. Quirky old houses. It's on the western edge of Clason Point in the Bronx, approximately where the Bronx River meets the Long Island Sound, overlooking the Soundview Lagoons.

That's where I set the book. I call it Higgs Point -- a fictional neighborhood in a real geographic location (got that?). I named it after Thomas Higgs, a real historical figure who once owned that land.

Though I invented the details of the neighborhood, I used its history. Its narrow lanes are lined with houses built on long narrow lots where there were once beach-front tent platforms. Summer-weary residents of Queens used to come over by ferry (there was no Bronx Whitestone Bridge) to camp out. The Siwanoy Indians who once lived there called it Snakapins, meaning Land Between Two Waters. How cool is that?

With her spectacular view of Mahattan, I knew Mina needed to have a connection with the Empire State Building. Eventually I discovered that when she was little, she watched it go up. As a young woman, she got her first job working there. And she was working there when a B-25 bomber crashed into it on a foggy morning in 1945.

The pieces tie together -- the remnants of a long-gone amusement park, the Empire State Building, a historic fire -- through the relationship between two main characters, a young woman and a very old woman who lives, not in a shoe, but in the Bronx.

I'm So Excited!

Hank Phillippi Ryan sent this little email out today - - -

"BREAKING NEWS: Welcome to our very own Kaye Barley--who's joining Jungle Red as our resident commentator, reader, visionary, mystery maven, arbiter, pundit and prognosticator. Kind of like Andy Rooney, but nicer (much nicer), and with a darling husband, a perfect dog, a massive library and cute shoes. Watch for Oh, Kaye! Every first Sunday on Jungle Red!"

Am I excited?  Let's just say I've been struck kinda dumb by it all.  The most intelligent thing I've said today is "Squeeee!"

Most of you are familiar with the Jungle Red Writers. but for those of you who aren't, allow me to introduce them - - -

Jungle Red Writers

Eight smart and sassy crime fiction writers dish on writing and life. It's The View. With bodies.

 

Julia Spencer Fleming


Jan Brogan


Lucy Burdette


Hallie Ephron


Rhys Bowen


Deborah Crombie


Hank Phillippi Ryan


Rosemary Harris


So, yes.  I am excited. 

I'm trying to be cool, calm and collected about it all (can you tell?)







I am excited, and I am happy.  But mostly, I'm honored to be able to hang out with these remarkably talented women once a month. 

And I look forward to seeing you all there!


wow, huh?


just - - -


wow

Jen's "Crime Readers Caught Reading Crime"

I am constantly amazed by how my friend and fellow blogger, Jen Forbus, is able to keep coming up with terrific fun ideas and contests at her wonderful blog - Jen's Book Thoughts (with THE coolest banner in blogdom).

Her latest fun idea is to spotlight "Crime Readers Caught Reading Crime."  - at their favorite indie bookstore.

I'm tickled pink to be included:

http://www.jensbookthoughts.com/2011/05/kaye-barley-crime-readers-caught.html

My favorite indie bookstore is Black Bear Books in Boone, NC, and the book I'm caught with is - - - well, why don't you drop by Jen's and see!  (a hint - it's by one of those Ephron women.  You know, the one who writes some great crime fiction - Hallie is her name).

Do drop by Jen's to see what this is all about.  It's a fun thing (and Donald took a pretty good picture, if I do say so myself).

Now I can't wait to see who the next crime reader will be and what they'll be reading. 


Thanks, Jen!