Last night was the kick-off to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. The festivities began at the Mystery Bookstore party in Westwood, where I caught up with Craig Johnson, Reed Coleman, Gary Phillips, Denise Hamilton, Chris Grabenstein,Victor Gischler, Sean Doolittle, Jason Starr, Gregg Hurwitz, Chris Rice, Mark Haskell Smith, David Corbett and Teresa Schwegel to name a few. Then it was on to the Book Awards and the after-party, where I ate lots of shrimp and yakked with Lee Lankford, Dick Lochte, Aimee Liu, Tom Nolan, Les Klinger and Aimee Bender, among others. But the highlight of the night for me was finally meeting Book Prize nominee Daniel Woodrell. I have been an admirer and penpal of his for years, but this was the first-time we met face-to-face. Galleycat’s Ron Hogan was kind enough to take a picture of my brother Tod, Woodrell, and me. Today I’m signing at the Mystery Bookstore booth with Steve Cannell and Christopher Moore, another long-time penpal of mine who I have never met. More on that later…
Well, they’re no Sean Penn or a Nobel Prize winner, but I’m sure you had a good time.
I wish I could ask you to say “hey” to Steve Cannell for me. I met him at Bouchercon a few years back (and by “met” I mean “attended his seminar along with several hundred other people”). He really impressed me with his personal story and insights into writing.
I saw Cannell; Crais; Connelly; Ellroy and actor Ted Shackelford walking around. The future of news panel was good with great commentary from the crowd, some nutty as fruitcakes. The patriotism and dissent with Richard Reeves was excllent and the health of the planet with Bill McKibben. Both were filmed for C-Span. Lot’s of first novelists. It’s good to see and hear the stories of those who finally became successful. The sci-fi panel was stellar, with Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi vying for most verbose panelist. It’s a toss up.