Dateline BEA: networking opportunities and the state of thrillers

Though I spent plenty of Friday trolling the floor (typically, I’d say to myself that I’d only spend 15 minutes and finally leave a good two hours later, books in hand) and saying hello to various publicists and writers I knew, I still had to psyche myself up for the amorphously titled “Syndicating Litblog Reviews” talk I was scheduled to give. Eschewing elaborate Powerpoint presentations for a more informal approach – meaning I didn’t have time to do anything fancy and figured the turnout wouldn’t be so large that it would just look silly. It seemed to have worked, though Mark Sarvas was correct in that it was a bit of a “valiant struggle” to stick to the topic at hand. But things got more fun in the Q&A as publicists and other bloggers in the audience (including Ed Champion, Max Magee and Carolyn Kellogg) exchanged cards with various publicists (including Meryl Zagarek) wondering how they could reach each other. If that’s not matchmaking, I don’t know what is…

Another two-hour visit to the floor later, it was time to check out the “State of the Thriller” which, if you go by buzz, is rather excellent (and that includes MIRA’s multi-author signing for its new anthology THRILLER, which attracted a throng of people so long that the cache of 500 books was pretty well depleted. Get the book while it’s hot, that’s for sure…) Testifying to this on the panel (moderated by ITW co-chair David Morrell) were MIRA’s executive editor Margaret Marbury, M is for Mystery’s Ed Kauffman, Writers House agent Simon Lipskar and Putnam exec editor Dan Conaway, book critic David Montgomery and James Patterson (left, with Lipskar and Morrell, photo credit A.S. Meridith), who introduced himself as follows: “I’m Jim Patterson and I write about ten thrillers a year.” Subject topics ranged from distinguishing mysteries from thrillers, and Montgomery’s version – that mysteries start with a crime and the book is about its resolution, while thrillers deal with the threat of the crime and the tension of trying to prevent it – works for me. Many other contributors to the anthology were in attendance, including Chris Mooney, Eric von Lustbader, Katherine Neville, MJ Rose and Steve Berry, and Marbury spoke about working on the book and how for her, many of the short stories were an introduction to some “great writers” she hadn’t had a chance to read yet. The Q&A was lively, though as always, there was one woman who couldn’t let go of the redirect (though she did spur a back-and-forth about newer crime writers worth reading.) Another audience member beat the drum for Washington novels so I brought up Ross Thomas, then tested the industry panelists’ patience by asking them to prognosticate on what “the next big thing” in thrillers might be.”

Although I was sorry to have missed the UK/US Turf Wars panel – which sounded incredibly entertaining, according to Michael Cader’s writeup – time flew by quickly enough that it was time to ready myself for the parties, but that’s in a future post (with Ron’s already up for viewing pleasure.)

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