Birmingham Blues

I had a great time yesterday at Murder In the Magic City, a conference for mystery writers and readers that draws people from all over the country. It’s sponsored by Southern Sisters, the local chapter of Sisters In Crime. We were entertained and educated by the authors, who shared stories about the sometimes exciting and not always lucrative writing life. I tend to be intimidated by “famous people”, but these folks were friendly and personable and genuinely pleased that their fans had turned out to learn from them — and, of course, buy their books.

I went to meet Jan Burke; I’ve read every one of her books, and I was also interested in learning more about the Crime Lab Project, which she founded to obtain better funding for forensic science labs around the country. As she pointed out, it’s not CSI out there. Jan shared a story of one woman whose son disappeared. She got a call nine years later telling her his remains had been found and identified. The catch? The remains had been found three weeks after he disappeared. They weren’t identified for nine years because of lack of staff and funding at the lab where they were stored until someone had time to do the necessary tests. A silent auction at the conference raised over $900 for the project. It’s a small drop in a very large bucket, but it helps.

I’ve been a mystery reader since I discovered Nancy Drew in the second grade. I tend to like the character-driven series, and I gravitate toward women authors: Sue Grafton, Margaret Maron, Sharyn McCrumb, Laurie King, Sara Paretsky, Elizabeth Peters, Ayelet Waldman, Joan Hess, Diane Mott Davidson, Marcia Muller, Patricia Cornwell, Tess Gerritsen, Kathy Reichs – the list could go on and on.

Thanks to this conference, I’ve added some new authors to my list: Susan McBride, who writes the Debutante Dropout series and is just delightful, Harley Jane Kozak, Cathy Pickens, Kathryn Wall, and Claire Matturro. Those are just the ones I came home with; I’m sure I’ll be checking out the others as well — even the guys. They mostly write more hard-boiled stories, which are not my favorites, but they were all so nice I think I should give them a chance.

I’m trying my hand at my own mystery novel now, and this conference was just the inspiration I needed to get busy.

Susan McBride

Harley Jane Kozak and James Born

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 5th, 2006 at 8:34 pm and is filed under Miscellaneous Cool Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.