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Feeling Wicked? Have I got the book [giveaway] for you…

Meet Ryann.

The daughter of a local police detective, fifteen-year-old Ryann has spent most of her life studying how to pull off the most gruesome murders her small Colorado town has ever seen.

But killing is only part of it. Ryann enjoys being the reason the cops are frenzied. The one who makes the neighbors lock their doors and windows on a hot summer’s day. The one everyone fears but no one suspects.

Carving out her own murderous legacy proves harder than she predicted. Mistakes start adding up. And with the police getting closer, and her own father becoming suspicious, Ryann has to prove once and for all that she’s smarter than anyone else—or she’ll pay the ultimate price.

I had an early peek at this one, and for those of you who are groovin’ on Michael Slade’s release of HEADHUNTER Reimagined, I’m thinking this might turn your crank.

Kelly Charron has written a YA novel with a serial killer for a protagonist. And recently I sat her down and subjected her to the patented kc dyer ‘5 Questions’ treatment. The conversation here is the result. I should note that there is some graphic content in the book [tho’ not in this interview!], and it’s aimed at teens 16 and older.

kc: PRETTY WICKED has a teen serial killer as a protagonist. What’s the response been from your audience?

Kelly C: I was super pumped but a tad nervous for the book’s release. My protagonist Ryann is a very unlikeable character. I’m always hearing writing advice that promotes making your protagonist likable so that the reader will want to go on the ride through the story with them. Also, the more the reader relates to and likes a character, the more they connect and root for them. When I wrote Pretty Wicked I hoped that the reader would be fascinated with being inside the villain’s twisted mind enough that they’d want to go along for the ride just to see what Ryann was going to do next. It seems to have worked. The majority of the reviews I’ve received so far discuss how they’ve ended up rooting for her and wanting her to succeed despite the horrible person she is and the horrific things she does. They still seem to be invested in her as a character and are intrigued with her because she is so unlike most other protagonists in popular YA fiction. I have had quite a few readers see that there is a sequel and mention that they can’t wait to read what crazy things Ryann will do next, which is very exciting for me! I’m so grateful people want more of her!

kc: How was the writing process for this story? Easy, tough, lots of research…? What stands out to you from the experience?

Author Kelly Charron

Kelly C: The bones of the story came to me almost fully realized. I wrote the first draft in 6 weeks, but then took quite a while to revise small details, the timeline and my character motivations. I needed to keep her character true and the fact is, a psychopath doesn’t need or have “normal” motivations for their actions and often have no motivations at all. I think I gave Ryann a good balance of when and why she does the things she does, keeping it fairly realistic in comparison to a true psychopath.

Overall it was quite easy to write PW compared to the other books I’ve written, though the sequel has been giving me grief. It’s coming along (slower than I’d like), but I’m very happy with the story. It will be a whole new and different way to see Ryann that I hope readers enjoy. I did do a heap of research from watching hours of murderous crime TV, prison documentaries, and documentaries on child/teen killers. I read a lot about psychiatric disorders with particular emphasis on sociopaths and psychopaths.

kc: Was it hard to get inside Ryann’s head, as both a teen and a generally unsympathetic character?

Writing the book was actually a lot of fun. Stepping so far out of myself and into Ryann’s mind was fascinating. It came to me surprisingly easy, which my friends and family laugh at. They joke that there must be something wrong with me to be able to slip on such a dark, gritty character with ease. I blame my love of horror. I’ve always been drawn to scary TV, movies, and books. I love to be frightened (fiction only) and have always been captivated with villains and their motivations, actions, and how their actions affect those around them.

I’m going over the second book in the series now and it’s just as stress-free to write her. It really is almost as though she is whispering her lines and thoughts in my ear. There is some dark humor (mostly from Ryann’s vantage point). She is definitely a disturbed character who does appalling things, but that’s why a lot of people love reading her. How many people dress up as their favorite villain for Halloween? It’s fun to be bad sometimes.

Writing teen characters hasn’t been a problem. I’ve worked with kids and teens for years. Being around them on a regular basis helps and it hasn’t been that long that I don’t remember exactly what it was like. Believe me, I do.

kc: Ryann’s dad is a police officer in the story, and I know your partner is also a police officer. Has that helped [or hindered?] your writing process?

Kelly C: He’s a good sport for helping me and also fielding the odd question from writer friends of mine who occasionally need to pick his brain. Obviously there are a lot of differences since he works in Canada and my series takes place in a fictional town in Colorado, but I get a good sense of the way things work from him and then research online from there.

kc: Tell us where we can find a copy of PRETTY WICKED. Is it possible to get a paperback version? What about a signed copy?

Kelly C: Right now the e-book is exclusively on Amazon, but the print version can be purchased online at any retailer like Chapters and Barnes & Noble. I do send out signed copies if people are interested in purchasing one. They can email me at kelly@kellycharron.com. They can also contact me through my website at http://kellycharron.com.

Thanks so much for this, Kelly. Good luck with Ryann and her sequel!

Thanks for chatting with me kc! It was fun.

If you’d like to get your hands on a copy of Pretty Wicked on Amazon, you’ll find it HERE. Want to chat with her on twitter? She’s @KellyMCharron. You can find her on Facebook and Goodreads, too!

And now, for a special treat, I’m going to give away an ebook copy of PRETTY WICKED to one lucky reader.

Answer the following skill-testing question in the comments or tweet your answer, hash-tagged with #PrettyWickedGiveaway by Friday, December 16, 2016, and your name will go in the draw!

Question: What is Kelly’s cat’s name?

The answer to this skill-testing question can be found on Kelly’s website!

More soon…

~kc

Edited to add: It’s Friday night! And the winner of the free ebook is:

Susan Kelsh!

Susan, email me at kcdyer@shaw.ca and we’ll organize getting your copy of Pretty Wicked to you!

Thanks to all for playing along!

HEADHUNTER REimagined E-book giveaway!

Horror-fied that it’s almost December?

Me, too!

Where did this year go to?

I can tell you where my November has gone — into the pages of an old-new project. But I just pressed ‘send’ yesterday, and now my lovely agent has more holiday reading material.

To celebrate finishing, and also the arrival of my friend Michael Slade’s new ebook [discussed HERE, in case you missed it], I’m going to have a little contest.

Prize is a free Kindle edition of “HEADHUNTER Reimagined”!

All you have to do is answer the following ‘skill-testing question’:

Slade has deep roots in the history of the Mounted Police. In what year do they begin?

The answer can be found somewhere on his website HERE. [Hey, this is not hard. I’ve even given you the correct page!]

All you have to do is send me the correct year, either on twitter @kcdyer, Facebook or leave a comment on this post, and I’ll put your name in the draw. I’ll do the draw Friday night. Open to readers anywhere in the world — but remember the prize is in Kindle ebook format only. And hashtag your entry #HeadhunterGiveaway, so I am sure to find it.

So, spread the word and let’s share the horror with Slade’s HEADHUNTER, Reimagined! See you back here Friday night!

More soon…

~kc

RE-imagining Headhunter …with Michael Slade

For a while, my good buddy, the best-selling horror-meister Michael Slade has been working on a Super -Sekrit project. And now the walls of his lair are sufficiently blood-spattered, the truth can come out. He has re-imagined, and re-issued in digital form, his very first horror masterpiece, HEADHUNTER.

This is very exciting news for all the Sladists out there. But my goal is to boost his signal to a whole new audience. For that, I’ve pulled him into my own spiderweb long enough to ask him a few questions about this experience. And because I love you … I’ve decided to share.

Here, for your reading pleasure, is a recap of my chat with the infamous Michael Slade, on the subject of HEADHUNTER, Reimagined.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here….

kc: Reading through the material on your site, it’s clear that there were many sources of inspiration for the original version of HEADHUNTER. What’s changed for you this time around? Would one have to be a “Sladist” to detect the changes in HEADHUNTER Reimagined?

Slade: From 1971 (my articling year) to 1982, I practiced criminal law full-bore in the sexual underground of Vancouver. What a dynamic era to be a gladiator in the trial courts! Vietnam War draft dodgers flooded the city, the counterculture was duking it out with the establishment, the Gastown Riot took place out front of my office, junkies shot up in my restroom as heroin poured in from the Far East, and Canada had a new prostitution law.

I built my practice as “the hookers’ lawyer.” I defended hundreds of prostitutes of every sexual orientation: women, men, transvestites, transsexuals, and dominatrices. Knowing that one day I’d try writing a crime thriller, I asked each sex worker two questions: Who was your kinkiest “john”? What was your most dangerous “date”?

From prostitution, I moved on to specializing in the defense of insanity: murder cases involving psychosis and psychopathy. As one judge injudiciously put it, “Counsel, it seems you’ve cornered the crazy market.”

The 1970s saw the first female Mounties don the red serge tunic, and I witnessed the sexist backlash they faced from their male colleagues.

“Write about what you know” is the scribbler’s mantra, so I poured all that underground experience into the original version of HEADHUNTER, and tried to make the plot and characters as brutally honest as I could.

When I teach “Writing Dark Fiction” at conferences and universities, the first question I ask attendees is: “What’s the worst thing that ever happened to you … and how are you using that trauma to power your noir fiction?”

Because it’s your worst experience, it will reflect your deepest raw emotions, so even if you capture only a quarter of that emotion in your story, your plot and characters will ring true for potential readers.

My worst experience was the death of my dad when I was nine years old, so that became the backstory of HEADHUNTER’s troubled cop. And because my dad’s death got psychologically mixed up with horrific images of Jivaro headhunters on the covers of 1950s men’s magazines (known in the publishing trade as “the armpit slicks” or “the sweats”), HEADHUNTER’s personally chilling plot sprang to gut-wrenching life.

Plot: a headhunter neurotic manhunts a headhunter psychotic through Vancouver’s real-life sexual underground.

The original version of HEADHUNTER was published in 1984.

Then, tick-tock, thirty years passed.

Because HEADHUNTER was based on what I had experienced while practicing criminal law, subsequent events have buttressed and confirmed its Mountie Noir themes.

By 2015, almost four hundred female Mounties had launched a lawsuit (which they’ve now won) alleging years of sexual harassment, bullying, and abuse.

The RCMP commissioner recently took a stance against racists in the Force.

Canada’s despicable crimes against its Native people have been exposed in public forums, and indigenous women by the hundreds are missing or have been murdered.

In the years after HEADHUNTER was published, in what’s known as the Pig Farm Case, Robert “Willie” Pickton confessed to the murders of forty-nine women he’d lured off the streets of Vancouver’s Skid Road.

In searching Pickton’s squalid farm, the Mounties found skulls cut in half and stuffed with hands and feet, the remains of a victim crammed in a garbage bag, and a handgun with a dildo attached to the barrel as a makeshift silencer.

Forensic teams recovered the DNA of thirty-one women.

Pickton fed body parts to his pigs, and after the animals were slaughtered, he gave the pig meat away to friends.

One of the women butchered was a long-time client of mine.

Because HEADHUNTER was created before writers used computers, a paper book had to be scanned into a digital file to convert it to an e-book, and that process spurred me to completely reimagine the story with 20/20 hindsight from all that’s happened since.

It’s the same plot, but after two years of retelling, not a paragraph and hardly a sentence is the same as in the original version.

No, you don’t need to be a “Sladist” to detect the much-of-it-came-true, torn-from-today’s-headlines changes.

If you read between the lines, 1982 is the new Now.

kc: You pounded out your earliest manuscripts on a manual typewriter. How has the process been different this time? How has technology been an asset?

Slade: Publication of a novel used to mark the end of its creative evolution. Typesetting a manuscript meant printing it in stone. Publishers were loath to change a word unless lawsuits threatened.

Digital books, however, have changed all that.

Not only did scanning a paper book free HEADHUNTER from its chains, but I can rework the text any time I want.

That puts the author, not a heartless corporation, in the driver’s seat.

kc: Do you have plans to reimagine all your “Special X” titles eventually?

Slade: Just the early novels: the ones written before the research tool of the Internet.

For instance, HEADHUNTER involves voodoo in Haiti and New Orleans. YouTube showed me genuine voodoo rituals filmed long before I was born, and when my Mounties witness voodoo rites at night in the Louisiana bayous, the sounds they hear are sounds I heard online while writing that scene.

I was also able to find the ghastly magazine covers – Stag (1955) and Male (1956) – that sparked HEADHUNTER’s plot.

For GHOUL – the heavy metal Lovecraft thriller I’m currently reimagining – I can study the Cthulhu Mythos monsters in Google Images that I couldn’t before.

What say we step into a Soho Goth club in 1987 and watch Alien Sex Fiend perform “Boneshaker Baby”? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4sgxvIntBU

Now, if we mix in psychotropic drugs and psychosis, are you revved-up to prowl the sewers of London under Google Maps and pick off wayward theatre-goers leaving Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap?

We live in a wonderful age for time machine research, and I think GHOUL Reimagined should benefit, don’t you?

kc: Will HEADHUNTER Reimagined be available in hard copy one day?

Slade: Yes, Cemetery Dance – the leading dark fiction publisher – will release a signed, limited-edition hardcover and trade paperback in 2017.

http://www.rue-morgue.com/single-post/2016/11/11/Cemetery-Dance-to-publish-new-editions-of-Michael-Slade%E2%80%99s-cult-classic-horror-noir-HEADHUNTER

kc: Where can I find more information on your books and the background to the stories?

Slade: HEADHUNTER Reimagined is available on Kindle, Apple iBooks, Kobo, and Nook for just $3.99 US by clicking on the links here: http://www.specialx.net/specialxdotnet/e-books-headhunter-reimagined.html

Eight more Special X thrillers in three e-bundles are available here: http://www.specialx.net/

Here’s The History of Michael Slade and HEADHUNTER Reimagined, with illustrations: http://www.specialx.net/specialxdotnet/bio.html

And here’s the reaction from experts who know the genre and/or the real-life underworld it depicts:

“HEADHUNTER Reimagined … like it wasn’t freak-out-scary enough the first time! All I can say is that Michael Slade’s brain is getting twistier with time — and Crime doesn’t come any darker than Slade’s Mountie Noir.” – Diana Gabaldon, author of OUTLANDER

“HEADHUNTER stunned me! It’s really good!” – Alice Cooper

“A real chiller! HEADHUNTER gives you shock value for the money. It will raise hackles, eyebrows, and blood pressure everywhere.” – Robert Bloch, author of PSYCHO

“As a young cop walking Vancouver’s Skid Road beat, HEADHUNTER enthralled me with its hardboiled realism and noir horror. Now, a third of a century later, the reimagined story is no less exciting or frightening. The dark shadows in a Michael Slade novel make you want to keep your back against the alley wall.” – Detective Inspector Kim Rossmo (VPD ret.), inventor of Geographic Profiling and ongoing international psycho-hunter

“Crime writer Michael Slade is the real deal! As a trial lawyer, Slade knows psycho killers, sex predators, and their horrific crimes inside out. As a Mountie, I worked sex crimes and led a team of ViCLAS psycho-hunters for 7 years. If reading Slade makes you react, ‘Wow! Serial killers don’t really do that to people, do they?’, I can tell you, yes, they do.” – RCMP Staff Sergeant Christine Wozney (ret.), CO of the Violent Crime Linkage Analysis team (West Coast)

So there you have it! Hie thee to the internet and pick up your copy today. [It may not be blood-spattered, but it’s got a killer gator on the front!]

More soon…

~kc

kc checks in

Well.

Busy autumn, eh?

This is my favourite season of the year. Perhaps not coincidentally, it is the most bookish time for me.

Back to school, the Surrey International Writers’ Conference takes place, more time to write, falling leaves — I love it all. But this year it’s been a little crazy, even for a chronic over-committer.

The conference was likely the best I’ve ever attended, in no small part due to the amazing crew of volunteers and staff who put it together, and also to the wonderful attendees who inevitably bring their best GAME to the table. But the conference also gave me a little break from the two new guys in my life. You may have met them already if you follow me on twitter or facebook, but if you’ve missed them, let me introduce you.

First we have Tyr, named for the Icelandic god of war. [Well-named, may I say?]

This is Tyr at 9 weeks, with his dead penguin in the background.

Then we have Puck [named for Shakespeare’s sprite]. Puck came to us a bit younger — here he is at 6 weeks.

He was pretty sleepy at first.

So, yeah. Busy times at Chez Dyer.

Silas was pretty unimpressed with Tyr initially, and even less impressed with Puck, but they are growing on him. [We’re still not at Full Filial Acceptance levels, but we’ve stopped fearing for the puppies’ lives, so yay for forward progress!]

If you want to learn more about these fuzzbuckets, they make pretty regular appearances on my twitter feed [anti-Trump balm], and they now have their own Instagram page at tyr.and.puck, if you like that sort of thing.

And as for me, I’m writing. Just got edits back from my intrepid agent Laura Bradford on my MG series opener, and I’ve started on a wee little new project aimed at grown-ups again. I’ve had a bit of luck with the back-burner project in the past, so fingers crossed.

I’ve got more to say about #SiWC16 [and #SiWC17!] and a tonne of books [both the paper and audio variety] to talk about, but I think I’ll stop here for today. As always,

More soon…

~kc

This Week…

The Surrey International Writers’ Conference is upon us — my craziest week of the year. We have a LONG sold-out event this year, with more than 80 workshops, panels and events, all geared toward professional development of writers at every level. This year’s theme is ‘Once Upon a Time…Machine’, and I can’t wait to see how everything unfolds.

If you’re interested, you can follow the latest developments on my twitter account @kcdyer or the conference account, @SiWCtweets.

For events open to the public, there will be a gala and signing on Thursday night at Chapters in Langley, and on Saturday night at the Sheraton Vancouver Guildford, we’re expecting a big crowd for the SiWC Author signing.

On Thursday, our Master Class day, I’ll be offering what we call a ‘Beginner Intensive’, a three-hour marathon introduction to the conference itself, and definitions and discussions of all the elements of this complex industry that I can cram into the workshop time. Over the course of the conference, I’ll be sitting on a couple of panels — ‘Breaking Bad in YA’ and ‘Working with an Agent’, and moderating the social media panel. I’m really excited about my Sunday workshop, ‘The Wandering Writer’, too. I’ve got a BIG slideshow put together from all the research trips I’ve taken over the past 10 years, along with all the tips and tricks I’ve picked up along the way.

So, yeah — busy week. I need to break out the kc dyer stockings and hit the road for Surrey, soon. If you’d like to learn more about the conference, including the amazing presenters attending [Jasper Fforde, Susanna Kearsley, Sonali Dev, Robert Dugoni, Diana Gabaldon, Hallie Ephron, Delilah S Dawson, Cat Rambo…and I’m just scratching the surface here!] check out siwc.ca or follow me on twitter.

And, as always,

More soon…!

~kc

Signal Boost aimed at Those Who Love Treats: MimBakes Blog

As a writer, I have to spend a LOT of my life in social media. I’ve always been sensitive to the wishes of my family & friends, tho’, and careful not to force them onto the kc dyer stage if they are not comfortable there.

But just recently my daughter Meaghan has taken to blogging herself, mostly about her adventures in baking [seasoned also with a touch of her new puppy, Mad Max].

Since she was a wee thing, she has always been the best baker in the family, and is putting her skills to good use while she’s at school in Edinburgh.

Mim cupcakes — Mimi’s Vanilla Bailey’s cupcakes

My favourite part of her blog is her careful step-by-step photography, which is guaranteed to help even a novice find their way through these receipes.

Mim bagels — One of the steps needed for making Rustic Bagels.

She’s also really good about including specific measurements and nutritional values.

[And did I mention the puppy? ]

You can find MimBakes HERE.

Your tummy will thank you!

More soon…

~kc

Run like a Word Nerd…

A bit of stream-of-consciousness on the subject of running.

I stared running when I was 19 years old, and have, more or less, never really stopped since then. I’ve done a few 10ks and so on, but nothing really serious.

My son’s girlfriend Alicia and I have made a little habit of running the ‘Beat the Blerch’ 10K in Seattle every fall, and it’s coming up in a few weeks, so I was out running around Stanley Park the other day, trying to up my distance a little. When I run, I listen to music, or sometimes podcasts or audio books, mostly so I can’t hear my own laboured breathing.
But it always hurts.

So there I was the other day, slogging around the park, regularly being passed by the young ‘uns [and, full disclosure, a few old ‘uns, too…]. A sweet young runner sped past me just as the podcast ended, and suddenly I had a full-on epiphany.

I watched her surge on by, and, well — it was okay. It was okay she passed me. She SHOULD pass me. She’s an athlete — something I will never be. Because what I am is a word nerd. As a kid, while I did learn to swim, I never competed in a single sport. Except compulsive reading. [Note: Not a sport.] Lifelong reader and writer. Not an athlete.

When I started running at 19, the only thing that really kept me going was the sure knowledge, gleaned from all the experts I could find who would slow down enough to talk to me, that it would get easier.

It hasn’t. And, yeah, it’s been a LONG time since I was 19.
But I still do it. And I’m here today to tell you it’s okay to run like a word nerd. It’s not only okay — it’s really, really worth it.

Why?

First of all, if you are a running word nerd, you are not alone. Writers Sheri Radford and Anita Daher both know their way around a heel blister. My buddy, agent & writer Nephele Tempest knows how to lace ’em up. And lately I’ve been following my writing pal Chuck Wendig’s posts about his own experiences running. [If you haven’t read his discovery of one of the less savoury side-effects of running, you MUST. Quintessential Chuck! Also? Very, very accurate.]

Like the rest of us wordnerds, Chuck knows that running is hard. The very idea of it goes against every writer’s instinct to melt into a chair for the day with a book or a pen or a typewriter, and without pants.

I’m here to tell you, it’s nigh-on impossible to run with a typewriter. I need to put it down first. And the book. [I often keep the pen.] Then I put on my pants, and go for a run.

The beauty of being a running word nerd is that you don’t have to run far. When I started, I remember running around a single city block, and hoping for death by the end. I run a bit farther these days, but not much. My usual running time is around half an hour. Sometimes 45 minutes. Once a week I try for a longer jaunt, if I can. And each time, the same thing happens.

I run. I pant. I sweat. I think I’m going to die.

But instead of dying, I finish the run, and then stretch a little. And while I am stretching, a wee miracle arrives on endorphin wings.

The first thing those little winged angels remind me is that I am DONE running for the day. Cause for celebration right there. But that’s not all. Running clears my head. I get my best ideas during or just after a run. I fix plot snarls mid-stride. It’s good for my writer self.

It’s also good for the doubter who lives in the black, hairy nest in one corner of my brain. The doubter who fosters pessimism, self-loathing, imposter-syndrome, quitting. Know that guy? I do, too.
Running doesn’t shut him up completely, but it squishes down his monsters for the day, to a size where I can manage or ignore them long enough to get my writing done.

I don’t have to run far to get this benefit. In fact, I think it’s kinda been good that I run like a word nerd — which is to say sorta slow and not very far, but pretty regularly. My knees still work, and for that I’m grateful. Because my head works, too, and my heart, and I credit the running for that.

So, please consider this permission to not have to be an athlete when you run. It’s okay to run like a word nerd. Walking is good, too, and I’m going to address that whole element another day, for those who just ain’t into the whole shambling thing. So no pressure. But I just want to say, every writer I know who runs, is better for it.

More soon…

~kc

Audio Love #1: SLIP OF THE KNIFE by Denise Mina

Last summer, while on a book tour in the wilds of northern Canada, I fell in love with audiobooks. I admit to being a late-adapter on this front, but when I fell, I fell hard. I’ve been a podcast listener [and creator!] for years, but didn’t pick up an audio book before I was travelling through the land of no reception.

Now I know better.

I listen to audiobooks [and podcasts, still!] while driving, running the seawall and walking the dog. Also before I fall asleep.

So, let’s discuss the latest voices in my head, shall we?

I’m going to start by talking about the book I just finished this morning. I’ve been on a Denise Mina kick for the entire summer. I am seriously in love with her writing — her storytelling ability is wonderful, her capture of the life and language of Glasgow is sublime. I thought I couldn’t love a down-and-dirty Scots writer more than Irvine Welch, but Mina? Has won my heart.

SLIP OF THE KNIFE is a Patty Meehan novel. It’s not the first of the Patty Meehan stories, sadly, but it was the first I could get in audio. The story is set before the turn of the century, in the early ’90’s in and around Glasgow. Patty is a columnist and reporter, comes from a large Irish Catholic family and gets tangled up in the murder of her ex-boyfriend who has inadvertantly taken a picture of an IRA operative. The story is gripping, but as always, it is Mina’s characterizations that grab me and haul me in. The language is raw and real [NO one can swear like a Glaswegan!] and her ability to turn a phrase has made me laugh out loud often, in spite of the often horrific subject matter.

This book was narrated by Jane MacFarlane, who does just a brilliant job. Loved the story, loved the reading. Highly recommend.

Have you listened to a good book lately? Please share!

More soon…

#RWA16: kc crashes the party…

So, I’m in San Diego, attending my first ever Romance Writers of America conference.

These guys know how to do an event up BIG. There are more than 2000 Romance writers [and probably a few other hangers-on like myself] at this conference. The city is amazing, everyone has been lovely and I just watched the amazing Beverly Jenkins knock everyone dead with her keynote speech. [This is the second keynote I’ve heard from Beverly. She is nothing short of awesome as a speaker. She educates me, uplifts me as a writer and she makes me laugh AND cry every time.]

I’m not a romance writer, but my agent lives in this city, my editor came for this event, and I see this as a chance to learn from a wonderful and diverse group of other writers. [Also? Apart from a few meetings, signings and parties I’m supposed to attend — no organization required!]

If you follow me on twitter, FB or Instagram, you’ll see a few of the shots I’ve taken while around town.

I have a signing tomorrow afternoon from 1-2:30 pm in the Marriot ballroom, but apart from that, my plans are to drink in the atmosphere, learn as much as I can, and enjoy this pretty city. If you are nearby, come say hello!

More soon…

~kc

Friday Signing…!

Tomorrow evening the kilted mummy and I will be hanging out at Chapters Metrotown, signing copies of Finding Fraser, eating Scottish shortbread [and Canadian brownies] and chatting.

He loves to share his kilt…want to try it on?

Come join us, and answer the eternal nerd question: What better place to spend a Friday night than in a bookstore…?

[Hint: There IS no better place!]

Click the link for event details. And see you tomorrow at 6 pm!

For those who can’t make this signing but would like a copy of Finding Fraser, you can order a signed copy from the wonderful folks at the Poisoned Pen bookstore:

More soon…

~kc