 Co-Chairs: Colleen Glynn & Linda McNab
Email Colleen Glynn | Email Linda McNab
A Whale of a Crime is underway and all clues point to Vancouver, Canada. Never fear: mystery buffs Colleen Glynn and Linda McNab are on the case. Colleen is a retired administrative assistant and Linda is a retired social worker who leads a mystery book club. Colleen and Linda are both avid fans of mystery novels and have been attending Left Coast Crime conventions since Calamari Crime in Monterey (2014). They are excited to be co-chairs for Whale of a Crime.
Registrar: Stan Ulrich
Email Stan Ulrich with questions about registration.
Panel
Chair: Chantelle Aimée Osman
Email Chantelle Aimée Osman
 Chantelle Aimée Osman is the editor of New Wave Crime at Down & Out Books. The former Editor-in-Chief of RT Book Reviews and a freelance editor for over 10 years, she is the co-host of the Crime Friction podcast as well an instructor at the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, Authors at Large and LitReactor. Chantelle is the author of the non-fiction series on writing The Quick and Dirty Guide To… and has also published numerous works of short fiction and served as editor for several anthologies. She is currently editing an episodic thriller, Serial Killer, featuring a variety of authors including Jeffery Deaver, Eoin Colfer, Jason Starr and herself. She was named a Left Coast Crime Guest of Honor in 2016, and will be keynote speaker at CCWC 2018. [website]
Panel
Co-Chair: Jay Stringer
 Jay Stringer was born in 1980, and he’s not dead yet. His work has been nominated for multiple awards, included two Anthonys, a Derringer, and the McIlvanney prize. His stand-up comedy has made at least three people laugh. He’s English by birth and Scottish by attitude; born in the Black Country, and claiming Glasgow as his hometown. Jay is dyslexic, and came to the written word as a second language, via comic books, music, and comedy. He writes hard boiled crime stories, dark comedies, and social fiction. Jay won a gold medal in the Antwerp Olympics of 1920. He did not compete in the Helsinki Olympics of 1952, that was some other guy. [website]
 Program Book Chair:
Linda L. Richards
Linda L. Richards is an author and journalist. Her published books include three series of novels featuring strong female protagonists. She is president of the Western Canadian Chapter of Sisters in Crime, the former publisher of Self-Counsel Press and the founder and publisher of January Magazine. Her short story, “Terminal City” appears in Vancouver Noir (Akashic Books). Linda divides her time between Vancouver, Canada; Phoenix, Arizona; and Paso Robles, California.
Silent Auction Chair: Pam Fairweather Thomson
Email Pam Fairweather Thomson
 Pam Fairweather Thomson is a retired teacher who has always loved reading mysteries. She has attended Malice Domestic, Mayhem in the Midlands, three Bouchercons, and seven Left Coast Crime conventions: 2002, Portland, OR; 2004, Monterey, CA; 2009, Waikoloa, HI; 2010, Los Angeles, CA; 2014, Monterey, CA; 2016, Phoenix, AZ; 2018, Reno, NV. She is looking forward to helping welcome everyone to the debut of Left Coast Crime in Canada. Beautiful British Columbia has been Pam’s home since she was three years old. After growing up in Powell River on the Upper Sunshine Coast and working in Greater Vancouver, she then retired to live on the Lower Sunshine Coast (only one short ferry ride from Vancouver!). The official Ghost of Honour this year is L.R. Wright, whose books were set in the Lower Sunshine Coast.
Book Signings
Co-Chairs: Laurie McNab & Craig Kellam
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.
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.
Meet-the-New-Authors Breakfast Chair: Mike Befeler
Email Mike Befeler
 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. Mike is the author of fifteen books including six novels in the Paul Jacobson Geezer-lit Mystery Series and recent standalones: Unstuff Your Stuff; Court Trouble: A Platform Tennis Mystery; an international thriller, The Tesla Legacy; and Death of a Scam Artist. Mike is past-president of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Mystery Writers of America. After a thirty-nine year business career, he retired into writing. He grew up in Hawaii, spent many years in Boulder, Colorado, and currently lives in Lakewood, California, with his wife Wendy. In addition to mystery writing, Mike is a professional grandpa, being entertained daily by his 3 year old grandson. [website]
National
Publicity Chair: Janet Rudolph
Email
Janet Rudolph
 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
Email Bill Gottfried | Email Toby Gottfried
 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 |
