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| Guests of Honor Donald Bain and Renee Paley-Bain interviewed by Toastmaster Donna Andrews. Ultra-gracious, all three! |
It’s not the biggest mystery conference of the year. One of the smaller ones, actually. But this is a blessing for the writers,
aspiring writers, and fans who attend.
The information flow is constant and the level of discourse high, but
there is no standoffishness among the participants. Openness is one of this mystery conference’s
greatest assets—no matter whom you want to talk to about writing the
genre—everyone is right there and willing to engage.
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| Just one of score of panels featured the attending authors. |
A particular benefit for the members of the New York Chapter
of Mystery Writers of America is that this meeting of the tribe includes quite
a few of us, so the mix of people offers quite a few familiar faces. This is not to say that people don’t travel
from afar. Last year I made friends with
a mystery novelist from Arizona. This year
I met a fellow writer of historicals from Louisiana.
The atmosphere at Deadly Ink is casual, and there are plenty
of opportunities for one to one and small group discussions.
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| How the sky looked from my room. |
The weather last weekend was quite awful, which gave us all
an excuse to remark that it was no sacrifice to stay indoors on that particular
summer weekend. But everyone I met also
said they would not care. We were making
our own sunshine, regardless of what was going on outside.
Unlike most such conferences, meals are almost all
included. So it is easy to sit with
different people for each one and get to know many of the attendees.
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| Dinner entertainment. |
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| Sherlock Holmes tests his Truth-o-meter on Terry Irving |
This year during the banquet, a troop of local actors
performed a comic whodunit, with audience participation.
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| E.F. Watkins, happy David Award winner! |
Each year, the people attending choose the winner of the
David award, for the best mystery of the previous year. This year it went to E. F. Watkins for her Dark Music.
Annamaria Alfieri highly recommends that you attend next year!
I am a great fan of Deadly Ink and always will connect it with our dear Robin Hathaway... Thelma Straw
ReplyDeleteAfter Robin won the David a few years ago, I made her a replica of the award and had a little ceremony to present it to her at Juliano's in Carnegie Hill! She was thrilled!
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Thelma, I missed Robin while I was there. Last year at the Sunday brunch, they did a tribute to her, wonderful lady that she was!
DeleteOh, lovely... she was a "rara avis".. I hope her friends will be able to get her last book published... . tjs
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