Faculty Additions - Cara Black, Tony Broadbent, David Cole, George Fong, Lisa Gallagher, Al Giannini, William C. Gordon, Seth Harwood, Arthur Kerns, John Lescroart, D.P. Lyle, Tim Maleeny, Kirk Russell, and Jacqueline Winspear join the 2012 Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference

Just announced! Cara Black, Tony Broadbent, David Cole, George Fong, Lisa Gallagher, Al Giannini, William C. Gordon, Seth Harwood, Arthur Kerns, John Lescroart, D.P. Lyle, Tim Maleeny, Kirk Russell, and Jacqueline Winspear to join the faculty of the 2012 Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference, July 19-22 in Corte Madera, California.

Cara Black
Cara Black frequents a Paris little known outside the beaten tourist track, a Paris she discovers on research trips and interviews with French police, private detectives and café owners. Cara is a San Francisco Library Laureate and a member of the Paris Sociéte Historique in the Marais. Her nationally bestselling and award nominated Aimée Leduc Investigation series, which includes Murder in the Latin Quarter, Murder in the Marais, and Murder at the Lanterne Rouge, has been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Hebrew. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, a bookseller, and their teenage son. Read more >>

Tony Broadbent
Broadbent is the acclaimed author of the Jethro books, The Smoke and The Spectres in the Smoke, about a cat burglar and jewel thief, in post World War II England. The third book in the series, Shadows in the Smoke will be published in August. Read more >> 

David Cole
David has divided his time between publishing, writing, and marketing, cultivating experience in every aspect of the book publishing business. He founded Bay Tree Publishing in 2002. Read more >>

George Fong
Fong is Director of Security with ESPN and former Supervising Agent for the FBI.

Lisa Gallagher
Lisa is a literary agent at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. As former Senior Vice President & Publisher of William Morrow, Lisa became known as an indefatigable author advocate who helped nurture the careers of many writers. She was lucky enough to work with numerous New York Times bestselling authors, including Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Dennis Lehane, Elmore Leonard, Gregory Maguire, Christopher Moore, James Rollins, and Neal Stephenson. Read more >>

Al Giannini
Giannini is a San Mateo County District Attorney.

William C. Gordon
Gordon’s novel, The Chinese Jars, is a mystery set in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the early 1960s. He is also the author of King of the Bottom, The Ugly Dwarf, Duelo en Chinatown, and the forthcoming The Halls of Power. Gordon is an attorney with a law office in Sausalito, a father, photographer, and world traveler with his wife, author Isabel Allende. Read more >>

Seth Harwood
Harwood grew up in the Boston area and graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He is the author of Jack Wakes Up, This is Life, and his latest novel, Young Junius, billed as "The Wire meets Cambridge, MA in 1987" and picked by George Pelecanos as one of his best books of 2010. Read more >>

Arthur Kerns
Following graduation from college, Kerns did a stint with the US Navy amphibious forces, and then joined the FBI with a career in counterintelligence and counter terrorism. Retiring from the FBI, he became a consultant with the Director of Central Intelligence and the Department of State. His lengthy assignments took him to over 65 countries. He is the author of The Riviera Contract and The Past is Never Dead. Read more >>

 

John Lescroart
A New York Times bestselling author whose books have been translated into 16 languages in more than 75 countries, Lescroart is the author of numerous crime novels and courtroom mysteries. His books include Treasure Hunt, A Plague of Secrets, The Hunt Club, Damage, and The Hunter. Read more >>

 

D.P. Lyle
Lyle is a physician and the author of Howdunit Forensics, a definitive reference guide for writers. He is also the author of Forensics and Fiction, Hot Lights, Cold Steel, Royal Pains: First, Do No Harm, Royal Pains: Sick Rich, and more Forensics and Fiction, which will be published this spring. Read more >>

Tim Maleeny
Maleeny is the author of the acclaimed Cape Weathers series, including Stealing The Dragon, Beating The Babushka, and Greasing
The Piñata. His latest book is Jump. Tim's short fiction has won the prestigious Macavity Award and appears in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen, Crimespree Magazine, and the anthologies Death Do Us Part, Uncage Me, and Thriller 2. Read more >>

Kirk Russell
Kirk's early novels feature the head of an undercover California Fish and Game team. His latest novel, A Killing in China Basin, begins a new crime series set in San Francisco, featuring homicide inspector, Ben Raveneau, and his partner Elizabeth la Rosa. Read more >>

Jacqueline Winspear
Conference co-chair Jacqueline Winspear is the author of the acclaimed Maisie Dobbs, Birds of a Feather, An Incomplete Revenge, Among the Mad, A Lesson in Secrets, and the latest Elegy for Eddie. Read more >>  

Register >>

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A Fly on the Wall at the Mystery Writers Conference

I always sign on to work the summer conferences at BP. During conferences, our role as booksellers expands to include serving food and wine at the conference dinners, moving furniture and audio-visual equipment about for various seminars, handling crowds at the public events with speakers like Elizabeth George, John Lescroat, and Robert Crais with Michael Connelly. Elaine made us laugh as we bused tables one night and she asked if we ever thought the "bookseller" job description included such duties. It does at Book Passage-- we wear many hats!

But the real payoff is to be a fly on the wall as the seminars happen, or the evening speaking engagements are going on. I heard Connelly and Crais describe how to work with helpful, encouraging police officers when they research their books, and haunting the courthouse to speak to police, criminal attorneys, or judges for information they would later include in their stories. I heard Elizabeth George and Jacqueline Winspear discussing the writer's life ("Did I really complete that novel? How did I do it? Can I ever do it again?") and the joys and challenges a writer faces every time they sit down to compose. And many, many more great tidbits as I worked the registers, or filled a wineglass, or straightened chairs in the Event Room.

As we tidied the bookstore and cleared away the last Mystery Writers Conference materials on Sunday, I sneaked a peek at the feedback forms from the students. Of course, the educational structure and speakers at the Conference are all in the brilliant hands of Sheldon Siegel, Jacqueline Winspear, and Kathryn Petrocelli and not my work, but I couldn't help wondering if the students learned as much as I did, or had as good a time. They sure did! They all left just buzzing with the knowledge they'd gained, the support and encouragement, the feeling that they can complete their projects and get them published. They loved the speakers, the food, the workshops, their consultations with the experts. The comments about the nature and usefulness of the Conference were really gratifying.

So did they have any complaints? Well, our folding chairs caused some sore bottoms, and there was this giant poodle taking up seating space. I think we can handle these challenges. [grin]