My Bouchercon 2023 Experience

 

by Sybil Johnson

Authors, readers, panels, interviews, awards, friends, books and walking—so much walking. That, in a nutshell, was my Bouchercon experience.

I spent last weekend plus some at Bouchercon in San Diego. It was nice to go to a conference that is only a couple hours drive from home. As Thomas noted in his post, there were a lot of people there. 1700 or so, the most of any Bcon. 

 

View from my hotel room

I started off my Bcon experience with the Cozies and Cocktails event Wednesday evening, put together by Ellen Byron. Cozy authors read from their books, other authors, including me, gave away one of their books. People mingled and chatted. It was great fun. Ellen is hoping to continue doing this event at future Bouchercons.

This convention also marked the first time there was an Anthony award category geared toward cozies, Best Humorous. I attended the panel where all of the nominees talked about their books. There was a fair amount of discussion about the term “humorous” being used in the award name. Not all cozies are humorous, but no one could come up with a better term.

There were numerous panels going on at the same time on a variety of topics. Plus there were the guest of honor and toastmaster interviews. I caught Toastmaster Naomi Hirahara’s interview and also National Guest of Honor C.J. Box’s interview. I also spent time working at the Sisters in Crime table hosted by the local chapters of Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego. 

 

I also caught up with friends and talked with other attendees from other parts of the U.S., Canada and England. I heard someone was there from Iceland.

The panel I was on was called Entrepreneurial Detectives: Small Business Owners Who Solve Crime with me, Cheryl Hollon (M), Esme Addison, Mary Karnes and Traci Hall. Unfortunately, Cheryl couldn’t make it because of the weather in Florida so Mary stepped up and moderated the panel. We also had a non-cozy addition to the panel. Del Chatterson, which was great fun. 

The panel minus Mary who left before I could get this pic taken.

 

As you might expect, I picked up a bunch of books. I bought some and got others for free.

 

Books, Books, Books!

There were two sessions of Speed dating with Authors, one at 7 a.m. one morning (too early for me) and one at 11:35 a.m. I went to the latter one and spent two enjoyable hours listening to 40 authors give 2 minute spiels about their books. It’s always interesting, but pretty tiring for both the authors and listeners.

While I spent most of my time inside, I did get a chance to check out the nearby Seaport Village and walk over to the Gaslamp Quarter for dinner a couple of nights. Future Bcons will be in Nashville, New Orleans, Calgary and Washington D.C. I don’t know which ones I will be attending, but I will certainly consider it.