Bouchercon Country 2007

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Living with the world's largest mystery convention

I never could have imagined a year ago how life could change daily when working on publications and preparations for the 38th annual Bouchercon World Mystery Convention coming to Anchorage next month. Now that I am living it, it's an experience that will have a lifelong impact on me as a person and a writer. It's also motivated me to make some far-reaching changes I don't think I would have done otherwise, from getting bionic ears to a new job after 9 years in the same one. I really don't think any of us working on this convention will ever be the same!

I actually started working on the Bouchercon Program in the midst of our dark Alaskan winters, and kind of floating along and sharing my ideas and designs with the small group meeting monthly for Alaska Sisters in Crime. By winning the bid for Bouchercon in 2002, only a year after our group hosted Left Coast Crime 2001, it gave me an opportunity to become a Board member for the organization, as our former officers resigned to form the Bouchercon07 Steering Committee.

Anyway, I set up some templates and began collecting book covers and researching authors who had already pre-registered or were identified as the convention's Guests of Honor.

I could not believe what I discovered! We had more books represented and a variety and breadth of writing that left me stunned! From best-selling to those with their first books, it just screamed talent! And I'll admit it, I hadn't read all that many mysteries beyond the ones written by some of our local members like Dana Stabenow, Sue Henry, Megan Rust, and the Alaska Women Speaks series. Some books I had read and so enjoyed, like Rita Lakin's Getting Old is Murder and related series, or recognized names splayed across the New York Time Bestsellers at our grocery bookstands like Lisa Jackson or Thomas Perry or Diana Gabaldon. I didn't think of them as mysteries or as Bouchercon authors.

Don't get me wrong. I'd heard about Bouchercon, but truly had no concept of what we were getting into until we'd begun. And I began a hopeless attempt to read as many books as possible before any of these authors set foot in Alaska. It's definitely a futile endeavor, but what I have read has only reinforced this sense of being in league with absolute greatness, of being in the midst of people who have not only yearned, as I have, to be the real writers of the world, the ones who write the books the world really reads.

I also would not have rushed into getting the cochlear implants as I've done if Bouchercon wasn't looming on the horizon -- but I'll never regret doing so, for I am so far ahead of where I was just a short month ago before the implants!!!

And daily to be not only loving so very much being a part of all of this, and working with the greatest group of people I think I've ever known, and looking forward to meeting all of these folks who have been sending their bios and photos and ads, and who are becoming more and more real every day, is just the greatest gift and that's what life is like living with the world's largest mystery convention. Sept. 27-30, 2007, in Anchorage.

Project Archaeology series

Here are some of the books I've written or edited for the Project Archaeology INTRIGUE OF THE PAST series. I began working on these books in 1992 and most recently worked on Idaho's. Alaska's student handbook uses a juvenile historical fiction approach to teach about archaeology and cultural resources. It is available through the Alaska State Office of History and Archaeology office. They now have Project Archaeology: Investigating Shelter - a module examining cultural use and archaeological remains of the Northwest Coast plank house. For information, 907-269-8728.

Living in Alaska

Real Alaskans learn to LAYER -- as we can't predict temps here or follow any weather forecasts (like we can anywhere else in the U.S. with some degree of certainty). So please think of LAYERS - we have had snow in September and in May, it is not that unusual. We also have huge mountains with ice fields surrounding Cook Inlet and the Anchorage Bowl, so even when it feels hot, there are places that are super cool. Sometimes those same places are hotter in the winter because they're closer to the winter sun, so you're sweating up a storm up in Turnagain Pass in January, while your nose quickly freezes and you can barely breathe, the air is so cold and dry, when downtown.

Visiting Alaska? I would suggest that along with your short-sleeved comfy shirts, you put in some sweaters or long-sleeved cooler weather shirts to wear over them, and then the outer wear. Autumn is coming too fast and is very fleeting here, and very beautiful. The colors actually blow you away (and I'm from Maine with the busloads of tourists viewing foliage every Fall)... tundra, birch, cottonwood, spruce, it is just amazing the colors that come out and almost impossible to capture in photographs. It normally gets pretty chilly at night in late August, although it can get very hot around noon and you need to take some of it off.

As an implant to Alaska, I've learned to think in layers. As a mom, I'm teaching my son the same. Never go by what you wake up with in the morning when in Alaska (for weather/temps). Keep the rain gear in the truck. Keep the mittens-gloves and scarf/hat in the gear box in easy reach, and always wear two or three layers.

My husband grew up here and also taught me that Alaskans in Anchorage rarely change lanes when driving - we usually stay in the same lane we'll be turning from. We don't wear gloves (mittens prevent frostbite better). We always watch and expect moose or bear, even on the 50 mph streets inside the city. We expect to pay more (but Anchorage has NO sales tax, so prices you see everywhere are what you get at the cash registers).

Welcome to my Alaskan world!