The ninth annual gathering of the International Thriller
Writers was a huge success for the ITW organization and great fun for me. Every year, during the week after July 4th,
crime writers from all over the world come to my hometown to learn from each
other, show off their wit and style to other writers and fans, and drink a
considerable amount of booze. You will
be happy to know that this year, almost without exception, they accomplished
all three with grace. Almost no one
strayed into bombast, egomania, or drunken disorderliness.
The only negative observation I have to share about the
gathered crowd of writers is that far too many of the men were sporting very
bad dye jobs. These were almost
invariably paired with truly bizarre haircuts.
I imagine those men go to their local CVS and buy hair dye in the hopes
of looking younger, more virile, sexy—more like Jason Bourne or Rambo or Daniel
Craig—um, I mean James Bond. They want
to resemble their own action heroes. They
are not succeeding. If any of the
thriller men who fall into this category are stopping by MIE today, I strongly
advise them to emulate the natural look of the men of MIE. Not that those doufyses could ever compare
our blogmates.
Speaking of the men of MIE, I had the great fun of hosting
Stan for the entire week of the ThrillerFest activities. We attended some of the conference, but we
also played a considerable amount of hooky, taking time out to see the revival
of Cabaret with the fabulous Alan
Cumming, a Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival production of The Liar presented under the company’s
beautiful tent overlooking the majestic Hudson, and a visit to see the African
art collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Best of all for me
was my and Stan's rolling, ranging, amusing, stimulating week-long conversation,
especially the night we had a midnight MacBook music duel, playing each other
songs from our playlists during which he introduced me to some wonderful young
South African opera singers. I fell
completely in love with one: Pumeza Matshikiza.
I urge you to visit her at pumeza.com and let the purity of her voice
anoint your soul. I KNOW! I sound way over the top here. Listen to her and see if you think I am
exaggerating.
Saturday evening was the awards banquet. Two of our MIE number were finalists. Our former blog mate Luke Preston’s Out of Exile was nominated for Best
E-Book Original. And Stan and Michael
were finalists for Best Paperback Original with Deadly Harvest. Neither of
our confreres won the prize. It would
have been nice if they had, but given the enormous number of books published
every year, just to count oneself among the five finalists is wonderful
achievement.
Annamaria - Monday
Posts
What a wonderful time it sounds, and what a wonderful sound the voice of Pumeza (although I must confess to not understanding a thing she's singing... but then I often have that problem when reading books, too. And no, Jeff, it has nothing to do with my dye-job, nor my wax-job).
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of the dye-jobs, I believe the correct spelling is 'doofus', and personally I've always felt that the plural should be 'doffusii'. Don't ask why I'm so knowledgeable on the subject...
EvKa, you are right about the spelling of doofus. I confess I failed to look it up. I might have been using the British spelling. I have been so focused lately on how the Brits express themselves that the other day I nearly exclaimed, "Poppycock!"
DeleteOh, "Poppycock!" indeed. Now you're just showing off! :-) By the way, I've been curious, off and on, and keep forgetting to ask: is Annamaria Alfieri your 'official' name now, or is it purely "nom de plume," and you go by your birth secret identity in what passes as "real life?"
DeleteEvKa, you will be proud to know I stopped myself in time!
DeleteI am still Patricia King in my nonfiction life, but I identify myself as Annamaria when I am in author mode and especially when I am trying to make my work known--no small task.
Thanks, that's what I figured. As I said, just curious (I've died many times along side my cat...)
DeleteIt was a wonderful week indeed. Annamaria has more energy than a proton in a particle accelerator. And she has a stash of limoncello in the freezer that she forces guests to drink. And when someone from Sicily says you do something, you do something! Grazie cara amica.
ReplyDeleteStan, There is another bottle in the freezer awaiting you next visit! Without the race from which I descend, there would be no limoncello. Without your company, last week would have been lemon.
ReplyDeleteHe wore a tie! I mean STAN WORE A TIE! What was he thinking? We'd taken a blood oath to be tieless. Uhh, or maybe it was dyeless? Frankly, I'm not so sure any more. The vision of Everett with a wax-job has severely unsettled me.
ReplyDeleteHe did! And I promise you, Jeff, that I did not influence his decision. And no Simoniz was used to achieve that handsome look!
ReplyDeleteI can't believe I missed the limoncello. And the tie.
ReplyDeleteI can bring limoncello to Bouchercon, but I don't think Stan will wear a tie with his MIE T-shirt. Maybe we women should wear ties with ours.
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