The Committee

Chair: Lynn Bremer
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Lynn Bremer has lived in Nevada, since 1987, when she moved to Incline Village at Lake Tahoe. A former Special Education teacher with Sacramento Unified School District, Lynn left in 1991 to go into the Peace Corps in Costa Rica. She taught seven special education classes to 28 public school teachers in Limón through an extension university program. When she returned from Costa Rica she moved to Reno, and took classes at University of Nevada, Reno. Lynn put her B.A. in History to good use at the Nevada Historical Society, where she curated a collection of a pioneer public school teacher. The end result was the publication of a two-volume collection of her writings in 2014. Lynn was a founding member of the Nevada Women’s History Project, Trustee of the University of Nevada, Reno Foundation, and member of OLLI (Oscher Lifelong Learning Institute) where she is a member of the Mystery Reading group. It is through the OLLI Mystery Reading group that Lynn has been able to pull together a great group of smart and eager women to help put on Left Coast Crime 2018 in Reno: Bobbi Lazzarone, Lucinda Long, Cathy Retterer, Sally Snow, Joanne Yau.

Registrar & Treasurer: Stan Ulrich
Email Stan Ulrich with questions about registration.

Panel Chair: Chantelle Aimée Osman
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Chantelle Aimée Osman is the editor-in-chief of RT Book Reviews and an instructor at the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing. A freelance editor specializing in mystery/suspense/thriller, she founded Author Connect, a service enabling aspiring writers to get feedback on manuscripts from experts in their genre, and was a 2011 Anthony Award nominee for her website The Sirens of Suspense. Chantelle has published numerous flash fiction and short stories and is the author of the non-fiction series on writing The Quick and Dirty Guide to…. The episodic anthology, Serial Killer, which she is editing for Polis Books will be released Spring, 2017. [22 Literary website]

Awards Co-Chairs: Lucinda Surber & Stan Ulrich
Lucinda Surber & Stan Ulrich serve as the Left Coast Crime Awards Co-Chairs. Email them at Awards@LeftCoastCrime.org with questions about the Lefty Awards. Lucinda & Stan joined the LCC family with Left Coast Crime 2011: The Big Chile in Santa Fe, and were co-chairs (with Bill & Toby Gottfried) for 2014: Calamari Crime in Monterey. They serve as the Awards Co-Chairs for LCC, and Stan, a retired lawyer, is President of Left Coast Crime Conference, Inc. Their first mystery convention was Bouchercon 2007 in Alaska, and they’ve enjoyed exploring new places and meeting fellow mystery enthusiasts at Bouchercon and Left Coast Crime ever since. Lucinda & Stan were the Fan Guests of Honor at Bouchercon 2015 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Together Lucinda and Stan are Stop, You’re Killing Me!, an Anthony award-winning web resource for lovers of mystery, crime, thriller, spy, and suspense books. A former elementary school teacher, Lucinda created Bookworm for Kids—a resource for teachers, parents, grandparents, and all others interested in encouraging children to love reading. Lucinda and Stan try to give away as many books as they can, but still seem to have piles everywhere.

Book Storage Chair: Joanne Yau

Publisher Liaison: Lucinda Surber
We are happy to accept crime fiction and non-fiction for distribution in the book bags. There is no charge, but you will need to ship the books to the event in late February or early March. Any quantity is accepted. We prefer not to have more than 200 copies of a single title; multiple titles are recommended if you would like to place a book in every bag. In order to make book distribution work for both the participants (who will love receiving your books) and the booksellers (who will plan to bring different books to sell) we ask that you provide our Publisher Liason with the title(s) and number of current releases you would like to donate. If interested in donating books, please contact Lucinda Surber.

Auction Chair: Noemi Levine
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Noemi Levine’s involvement with mystery conventions began with the 1997 Bouchercon in Monterey. Since then she has served as registrar and treasurer for numerous Left Coast Crime conventions, was the Fan Guest of Honor for LCC 2012 in Sacramento, and was Auction Chair for the fabulous Calamari Crime Auction for LCC 2104 in Monterey. Please contact Noemi with questions about your donation for the Silent Auction to benefit the Women and Children’s Center of the Sierra.

Meet-the-New-Authors Breakfast Chair: Mike Befeler
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Mike hosts the annual Meet-the-New Authors Breakfast at Left Coast Crime when everyone is invited to have breakfast with the new authors and hear a bit about their books. The six books in his Paul Jacobson Geezer-lit mystery series have earned Mike two Lefty Award nominations.

National Publicity Chair: Janet Rudolph
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Janet Rudolph is known as “The Mistress of Mystery.” She is the writer/producer for Murder on the Menu®, director of Mystery Readers International, editor of the Mystery Readers Journal, a teacher of mystery fiction, and has been a columnist for most of the mystery periodicals. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, the International Association of Crime Writers, the British Crime Writers Association, Sisters in Crime, and the American Crime Writers League. She has been on panels at Bouchercon (the World Mystery Convention), Left Coast Crime, and several other mystery conventions. Janet was Fan Guest of Honor at Malice Domestic in Washington, DC, and an invited participant in international writing conferences in Spain, England, and Cuba. She blogs at Mystery Fanfare and Dying for Chocolate.

Advisors: Bill and Toby Gottfried
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Bill & Toby were on the initial LCC Committee in San Francisco and have participated ever since. Toby retired from her position at Calypte Biomedical in 2009 and Bill is a pediatrician who currently works with the State Medical society as a surveyor of Quality Medical Practices. Both were formally introduced to the mystery convention in 1985 at Bouchercon in San Francisco and have attended almost all Bouchercons since. They received the Don Sandstrom Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement in Mystery Fandom in 2008 and the David Thompson Memorial Special Service Award at Bouchercon Raleigh in 2015. Bill and Toby were the program chairs for Bouchercon 1997 in Monterey; and were chairs of the Left Coast Crime conventions in 2004 (Monterey) and 2009 (Hawaii) and co-chairs (with Lucinda Surber & Stan Ulrich) in 2014 (Monterey). They have attended all of the LCC conventions. Bill and Toby were Fan Guests of Honor at the first CrimeFest in Bristol, England, and have been participants in Janet Rudolph’s Mystery Readers International reading group since 1985. They also have “chaired” their own summer reading group, Mystery Addicts, for about 20 years. Bill and Toby presently own about 16,000 mysteries, some of which they have even read.

Webmaster: Lucinda Surber