Annamaria Back Home on Monday
Actually, I returned home at 3:30AM this past Saturday. Thereby hangs another tale, and the one I want to share today is already whacky enough.
But how to tell it, bizarre as it is? I guess Good News/Bad News is as apt an approach as any. So let's dive right in. Confession: This will involve some bragging.
GOOD NEWS
My "At-last" book, fourth in my Ten Commandments (Vera and Tolliver) series. A Death on the Lord's Day finally launched this past Tuesday. I was able to bring a copy of it with me when I set out on Wednesday for Nashville, feeling in fine fettle.
That afternoon, in the Bouchercon book room, I met up with George Easter, Publisher of Deadly Pleasures Magazine. His current issue, I am proud to say, includes a four-page spread on my now four-book series.
Thursday morning brought me to Author Speed Dating, always one of my favorite modes of communicating with potential readers. It is organized by the delightful, incredibly generous Les and Leslie Blatt, friends also from our MWA-New York Chapter.
My partner during that tour de force was Michael J. Cooper. We were both hawking new books which take place in 1914, his a thriller, after WWI is already underway, and mine a whodunnit before the war, where my three main characters all take a role in solving the crime. The story is a law-and-order tale, half investigation and half prosecution.
On Thursday evening, Stan Trollip (who is the Stanley half of Michael Stanley) and I had a delightful dinner in an authentic Italian restaurant. That experience was the closest thing to normal that happened to me once I checked into the hotel. (See Below).
My early Friday-morning panel was called Golden Slumbers (all the panels were named after songs) and focused on how writers avoid information-dumps from too much research. It went well. Brag warning: by the time I went to sign books afterwards, mine had all sold out. A first for me.
Afterwards, I had the deep pleasure of a long coffee break with my blog mates: Caro, Jeff, and Stan Trollop- emeritus of MIE.
BAD NEWS
The venue for this year's Bouchercon was the Gaylord Hotel and Conference Center, a monstrosity of a place. It was best described by my friend Jeff Markowitz, who quipped, "It's all good till you realize you've booked a room in the Twilight Zone." Michael Cooper greeted readers at speed dating, saying "This place is visible from deep space."
Here are its stats: "The resort includes a 2,400,000-square-foot, 2,000-room, 20-story hotel; 800,000 square feet of convention and meeting space; a 20,000-square-foot luxury spa and fitness center; and a 1,950-car parking garage."
The design of the hotel is bizarre: There are no straight lines. Walkways, a river, everywhere, gardens and plantings, interspersed with myriad elevators, staircases, escalators within strangely shaped sectors with five or six different names. Guest room numbers include a letter and four numbers. I was in room C 3122, which I reached by going down a corridor in the D section to find elevator C4 and taking it to the third floor, where I made three left turns and followed the numbers to find my room.
Asking people who were wearing employee badges for directions almost always yielded instructions that got you lost.
But that was not the worst of it. The entire complex is under a dome and is air-conditioned. No matter how much a person walks around, and despite the trees and small buildings made to look as if they are in a small town, one is never outside. It is eerie in the extreme, strangely claustrophobic. The temperature is, for me, on the chilly side. The air does not move. The leaves on the plants and trees are always still. There is no weather. One of my fellow panelists said she felt as if she was in The Truman Show.
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| Real weather on the way to the airport. What a relief. |
As I write this, I am certain that nothing could ever tempt me to go back. But I do highly recommend the Gaylord complex for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. Where else could they experience on Earth what life will be like in a human habitat on Mars. Under a tightly sealed dome, totally fake but a best attempt to replicate life on our home planet.
It's all there, right now in Tennessee. And it's scary.
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I hope Caro eventually found her way. She was lost on Friday!
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the new book! I just finished it and enjoyed it very much. Highly recommended!
Thank you so much, Michael. You had a lot to do with how it turned out. Years ago, when you interviewed me about Idol of Mombasa, you said that maybe one day I would make Kwai Libazo a central character. I thought that was a nice idea, but I already had done a lot of research for this book. Your suggestion must’ve gone right into my unconscious mind. I didn’t know it was going to happen. But when those three Kikuyu showed up at the end of scene one and offered their information, I knew that it had come from your suggestion by way of whatever force that is that gives us our ideas. I’m so glad you liked it, and thank you for your kind words.AA
DeleteI was so happy I got to chat with you at Bouchercon, Annamaria--and congratulations on your new book. I agree with you about the venue. I experienced a few minutes of finding the place astonishing in a positive way, but I soon realized that trying to talk to someone next to a loud fake waterfall isn't fun.
ReplyDeleteWhat a treat for me, too, Kim!!
DeleteYou're so right about the water. Near it, I had trouble hearing anyone who wasn't shouting. Very stressful form of human communication. I really do think it would be inspiring to sci-fi writers. I'm not sure that I, for one, could ever imagine that the human habitat on Mars will have fake water falls. But that could be so useful in a sci-fi spy story, for instance.
I experienced the oversize, creepy Gaylord Hotel at National Harbor when you and I and Michael Cooper were at Historical Novel Society conference. That Gaylord didn't make me feel relaxed--and I gather from your description this one is even BIGGER! I can't imagine why the Bcon LOC chose the hotel instead of booking somewhere in downtown Nashville. The choice of hotel is why I didn't come to Bcon this year.
ReplyDeleteYou made a good choice, Sujata. For me though, despite the problems while there and the worse trying to get home, I am glad I took the opportunity to tout the new book that finally came out after a delay of six years. My pitches yielded a good result. And you know me, the cockeyed optimist. I train my gaze on the positive.
DeleteWell, in the good news column, I sat next to you, Annamaria, in Golden Slumbers. You did anything but put me to sleep.( Who thought 8a was a good time to talk about the info dump?) It was a real pleasure hearing from you about how you do the research... All the best to you---looking forward to reading your South American lit. Sounds fabulous!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Nancy. I'd like to think. they put us at that time and day, with that topic, because they knew we would be scintillating speakers. But whatever their motivation, we proved that five seemingly random, crime writers could put on an informative and entertaining session. I watched the audience. They were listening and engaged. HOORAY for us!
DeleteI so look forward to hosting you here on MIE, so you can tell our regular readers what your peripatetic characters are up to!