Thrillerfest Day One

I wasn’t a very good convention-goer today. I spent most of my time by the pool, going on the water slide with my daughter about a thousand times.  It’s a great pool.

But I managed to catch up with a lot of my friends poolside, in the lobby, and in my brief foray to the convention hall, including Paul Levine, Jeremiah Healy, George Easter, Lee Child, Robert Ferrigno, Joe Konrath, David Morrell, Gayle Lynds, Bob Levinson, James Born,  Gregg Hurwitz, Christopher Rice, Robin Burcell, Leslie Silbert, Harley Jane Kozak, Sarah Weinman, Diane Vogt, Doug Lyle, Zoe Sharp, Eric Stone, David J. Montgomery, J.D. Rhoades, Raelynn Hillhouse, Harry Hunsicker and Reed Coleman. I also met a few authors for the first time, including Rick Mofina, John Gilstrap, Chris Mooney and John Ramsey Miller.

I’ve discovered, much to my shock and delight, that a surprising number of folks read my blog (lots of people have asked me about my encounter with the Naked Bookseller and those who haven’t asked I quickly told).

My fan moment of the day was getting all the contributing authors of the THRILLER anthology who were attending the festival to sign my copy of the book at the opening night reception. 

So far the conference is running very smoothly — remarkably so, in fact, for a first-time event.  Tomorrow, I’m attending a lot of panels and bringing my daughter to the R.L. Stine luncheon…she’s brought all her copies of his books to be signed.