Tuesday, November 07, 2023

September 2023 - Bouchercon for a Day and a Wedding

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

Bouchercon is a world wide mystery convention - where mystery authors and readers come together to talk books.  Authors talk about their books, trying to connect with readers.  I went once when it was in Long Beach about 10 or so years ago.  This year, it was in San Diego.  I couldn't go for the entire weekend thanks to work.  It was Labor Day weekend, which is also the start of quarter end close at work.  I did ask, but there was no way to make it work.  But I did go down for one day - Saturday.  Okay, I left early on Friday to drive down, and I drove back on Sunday.  But I was only there for one day.

And it was great.  I went to several panels, and I got to see several authors again that I haven't seen in a few years.  I had a stack of Donna Andrews books to get signed, for example.  Plus, I got to meet some authors I had never met before, which was wonderful.

I spent most of my time hanging out with a friend who has started writing again.  She'd recently self-published the first in a new series, and her panel was on Saturday.  It was a fun panel.  I had dinner with her and her husband on Friday night and lunch with her and another author on Saturday.  It was fun spending time with her.

At the end of the month I went to a wedding.  These are some people I've met at the monthly game days.  It was a nice wedding a reception.  Simple, but nice.

In news of things I didn't do, I'd gotten excited when Camp Pendleton announced they were bringing back their mud run.  That's been one of my favorite weekends of the year.  Last year, they had the mud run, but for base personnel only.  This year, it was semi opened to the public.  If you weren't base personnel, you had to be sponsored on to the base.  Well, that leaves me out, unfortunately.  I'm hoping they will fully opened it to the public again soon.

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