Tag Archives: Bouchercon

Bring your story to life

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I’ll never forget seeing my novel THAT OCTOBER in the bookstore at Bouchercon, the world mystery convention, in New Orleans this summer. I geeked out and thanked the woman from Garden District Book Shop, which ran book sales for the NOLA Bcon, several times over the course of the conference.

I’ve been writing since I was in high school and over the decades in the newspaper business I won more than 30 first-place journalism awards, both state and national. I’m the co-author of four best-selling, award-winning true crime books.

But there was no experience quite like seeing THAT OCTOBER among books from other authors, available to anyone. (It’s all over online booksellers too, but again – having a novel that someone can pick up is an incredible experience.)

That’s a big reason I’m working with my longtime friends at Constellate Creatives to help other writers with developmental editing, copy editing, cover design, interior design, marketing and publicity including social media.

Maybe some of this perception was all in my head, but at the time of my first Bouchercon, in Nashville in 2024, I didn’t have a book in print and it felt very different to be in NOLA in 2025 with a book that people could literally pick up and purchase.

Constellate wants to help you with a goal of getting your book in readers’ hands.

There’s a button you can smash – as the young people say – on the site to ask about a free consultation.

We’re writers just like you. We’ve got some ideas.

Constellate Publishing

The thrill of seeing THAT OCTOBER for sale at Bouchercon

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I’ve never been accused of being cool about writing successes, whether it was awards for journalism or publication of pop culture pieces at CrimeReads or elsewhere or short stories at several sites or in anthologies.

One thing I’ve not been able to experience is seeing my work in a bookstore. Indie authors who self-publish, as I did with THAT OCTOBER, can see their works for sale at a million online sites like Amazon or Barnes & Noble, but seeing an indie book in a bookstore is a very rare thing. I’ve been turned down twice when I’ve taken formal steps to see THAT OCTOBER on shelves.

That’s why it was such a thrill to see my 1984-set high school crime novel in the bookstore at Bouchercon in New Orleans earlier this month.

There’s a picture of the book above, nestled in with other books on the long tables of books available for sale.

By Sunday morning, the final day of Bouchercon, two copies remained of the several they stocked.

A huge shoutout to the Bouchercon 2025 NOLA books team and the wonderful people at Garden District Book Shop, 2727 Prytania Street, New Orleans, LA, 70130. I told them several times how grateful I was that they went to the trouble of getting copies of THAT OCTOBER.

Here’s a link to Garden District:

https://bookshop.org/shop/gardendistrictbookshop

The most famous shirt at Bouchercon

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At some point I’ll write a little bit about Bouchercon, held last week (as of this writing) in New Orleans. Many of you know this is the annual worldwide convention/conference of crime writers and readers. This was my second Bouchercon and they’re a lot of fun because they’re a chance for writers like me and many much more accomplished to meet with other writers and readers.

I’ll write more about Bouchercon in the coming days, or I intend to, but a quick anecdote:

On Saturday, I was one of the authors at the debut authors’ breakfast at Bouchercon. The annual event was sponsored by Lee (“Reacher”) Child and his brother Andrew, who now writers most of the Reacher books. Another sponsor is Michael Connelly, creator of Harry Bosch and Renee Ballard and other great crime fiction characters.

Connelly also kindly hosted the breakfast.

At some point I’ll tell you how I had a quick breakfast with Connelly, but today I’ll talk about the shirt you see me wearing in the photo above.

In the photo, I’m wearing a colorful shirt with pink flamingoes and other images and it’s pretty memorable. This was the photo of me that I submitted weeks or months ago for them to use in the program book for the breakfast.

This was also the shirt I managed to wear that day to the breakfast.

I realized this only after I’m sitting at the table and about to be introduced by Connelly to speak for one minute about myself and my book, THAT OCTOBER.

So, in the interest of transparency, I opened my one minute of remarks by noting the coincidence.

“If you notice, in the our program book, I’m wearing a particular shirt and I’m wearing it today as well.

“You could assume from that that I apparently have a favorite shirt.”

I went on to talk about my book briefly but the line about my favorite shirt got a good laugh.

And I had people come up to me afterward and later in the day remarking, “Your favorite shirt!”

And it apparently is.

2025 so far, so good … ?

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Don’t be fooled by that headline. 2025 is very much a shit show. I’m talking my writing year so far and that ONLY.

I published my 1984-set high school crime novel THAT OCTOBER in June and the reception so far has been pretty good. I have no complaints about how kind and generous people have been. If you’ve read it, please leave a review on Amazon. But buy it from one of the dozens of sites that sell it, especially bookshop dot org or Ink Drinkers Anonymous, the woman-owned, Black-owned bookstore in my hometown of Muncie, Indiana.

Other than THAT OCTOBER, I’ve been pleased to see a number of short stories published or purchased for upcoming publication, including in a future anthology that I can’t wait to tell you about.

In September, I go to my second Bouchercon, the world convention of mystery and crime writers and readers, and I’ll be on my second Bouchercon panel, with a hugely talented group of authors. This one is at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 3, the first day of Bouchercon. This Bcon is in New Orleans, which I’m pretty sure should be mild and breezy by September, right? Right?

But very nearly overshadowing all this is that I submitted, earlier today, a short story to the crime fiction genre’s preeminent market. Now I don’t have any great hope that the story will be published. There are a hell of a lot of great writers out there submitting stories.

But the submission was a goal of mine for 2025. Not to get a story published in that magazine, I will note. Nope. Just to submit a story to them again.

I subbed once before, a few years ago, and their rejection was so perfectly justified but so devastating that I didn’t submit to them again for several years. Hell, I didn’t submit anywhere for a year.

So aside from publishing THAT OCTOBER, and attending and speaking at another Bcon and winning a place in this cool anthology that’s coming up in just a few weeks, getting up the nerve to submit to the Big Show again was a 2025 goal realized.

It’s all gravy from here,

As Homer Simpson would say, “Mmmm … gravy.”