| It’s the Holiday Season! Sort of. It’s also my favorite time of the year (outside of sweater weather). NE Crime Bake season! We had an AMAZING conference this year! I love seeing all my New England writer/reader friends and get to work the registration desk. I also got to be on a panel and moderate a panel for the first time! Friday night was the “Truth and Fiction” panel with the amazing Brenda Buchannan as hostess with the mostest. My fellow panelists were amazing, and I was totally nervous about the stories I had. The panel is basically us answering questions with either true or false stories. I had a LOT of false stories. I also learned that apparently I’m a GREAT liar. I only had one true story (that everyone thought was false). All the rest were well thought out lies, that everyone thought was true. So yay me? Here is our illustrious panel! I even stayed up past my bed time for it. Pardon my look…..it was so hot working the registration desk, I had three costume changes due to the temperature.  And yes, my badge does say “VIP”….cause obviously. Saturday started bright and early with free breakfast, which ya’ll know is my favorite. I started manning the registration desk with my friend Skylar (and fellow Curry grad) around then. Lots of information to give! Then, came the big even of the weekend. I moderated my first panel. I was so nervous, but had reached out to the amazing panelists before and got such good vibes from them that I felt comfortable. Paul Tremblay, Dana Cameron, Bracken McLeod, and Chris Holm were discussing “Another kind of future” in crime writing. They all blend different aspects of horror, supernatural, biological, dystopian, etc into crime fiction. It was a lively discussion, and I loved the interplay between Paul and Bracken who seemed to know each other REAL well. Other than a little time slip that I had (guys, time is hard), the panel went great.  While I was confident it went okay, to have people tell you it was great is event better. Kristopher Zgorski, who you might know as the face/man behind Bolo Book Reviews0(0%), had a lovely write up about the panel as well on Facebook.  The rest of the conference flew by! I had sold/signed some books which is always fun, bought some more after picking up my consignment check. Here is what I ended up with:  Keen eyed readers will see the Podcasting book. At a recent craft fair someone told me I had a voice for podcasting….so I’m thinking about starting one. What do you think? It’d be something like Baseball, books, and _______? Send me your thoughts! And finally. Lots of craft fairs this fall. Always a fun time. I decided to run a contest for people who bought books at the events Similar to what I did for book two, I gave buyers and opportunity to name a character in book three (which is in the drafting process). And the winner is…  Stay tuned! And to be honest, there are a lot of great names out there, so even if it isn’t “official”, if you entered a name there is a very real chance it’s going to show up in future books. And don’t forget to come see me in the next few weeks! 11/27 Rockland Winter Market – Rockland, MA 12/3 Bryanville Craft Fair – Wolves Den Pembroke, MA 12/10 Braintree Winter Market – Town Hall  |
Nicole Asselin Writer 