Whale of a Crime Newsletter: May 4, 2018
Welcome to the first newsletter for Left Coast Crime 2019: Whale of a Crime. You are receiving this newsletter either because you are registered for LCC 2019 or because you attended LCC 2018 in Reno. LCC 2018 attendees, who are eligible to submit nominations for the LCC 2019 Lefty Awards, will remain on the distribution list through the nomination period in January 2019. To unsubscribe, click the link at the bottom of the newsletter and you will be removed from our list (and will not receive a nomination form).
Meet the Co-Chairs: Colleen Glynn & Linda McNab
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 the Vancouver convention in 2019.
Meet the Special Guests for Whale of a Crime
News from Guest of Honour C.J. Box
As Joe Pickett might say, things are going to get western at Left Coast Crime in March, 2019 in the beautiful City of Vancouver.
I’m C.J. Box, and it’s my pleasure to serve as Guest of Honour.
For those of you unfamiliar with my work (it’s okay, really), I’m the #1 New York Times best-selling author of 25 novels including the Joe Pickett series. The novels have won awards, including the Edgar for Best Novel and a Western Heritage Award for Literature. They’ve been translated into 27 languages and two television series based on the books are currently in development.
The newest Joe Pickett novel, called Wolf Pack, will be published in March of 2019.
Joe Pickett is a game warden, and the series revolves around Joe, his family, an outlaw falconer named Nate Romanowski, and it’s set in contemporary Wyoming. Each book in the series explores unique and sometimes controversial topics and themes like endangered species, energy development, local versus state versus federal control, western culture and mythology but, I hope, it does so in an entertaining and page-turning way. My readership is fifty-fifty men and women, which I find wonderful.
I’m an avid outdoorsman, and I’ve hunted, fished, hiked, ridden, and skied throughout Wyoming and the Mountain West. I served on the Board of Directors for the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo and I currently serve on the Wyoming Office of Tourism Board. My wife Laurie and I have three daughters and one (so far) grandchild. We live on our small ranch in Wyoming.
It’s been a long time since I participated in a Left Coast Crime event, and I’m really looking forward to meeting participants and readers and whooping it up in Vancouver. [website]
News from Guest of Honour Maureen Jennings
Thank you so much for inviting me to be Guest of Honour at Left Coast Crime. My husband and I visited Vancouver many years ago in our courting days and we loved it. I’ve never forgotten how delicious the fresh salmon was.
I began with a book about a Victorian detective who worked in Toronto. Although at the time it seemed unlikely — huh? Victorian detective? Toronto? — the series was picked up by Shaftesbury Films and went on to be broadcast on television. Nobody would ever have guessed we would eventually go into twelve seasons and be shown in more than one hundred territories.
I took a break from that series to write four police procedural books set during WW2 in rural Shropshire, UK. The protagonist here is Detective Inspector Tom Tyler. The second book,
Beware this Boy was the inspiration for a television series
Bomb Girls which deserved a longer shelf life than it got.
After that, I returned to William Murdoch but decided to advance the time period to 1917. Murdoch is an older man with a grown son, Jack, who returns from the trenches in very bad shape. Needless to say, there are crimes to solve as well as emotional damage to repair. The book is called
Let Darkness Bury the Dead.
The latest book is another leap in time to 1936 but still with the Toronto setting which is Murdoch’s world. I now have a female private investigator named Charlotte Frayne. Even after the carnage of WW1, (the War to end all Wars) the world is as unsettled as ever which always makes for rich material to draw on. Jack Murdoch is following in his father’s footsteps as a detective. William has retired to Nova Scotia but is always willing to offer an opinion on tricky cases. Jack and Charlotte end up working on a case together which gives me the chance to weave in lots of back history. This book is called
The Paradise Café. It takes place during a record breaking heat wave that swept across Canada in July 1936.
I look forward to sharing these new ventures with you all and I’ll certainly be in search of the best ever salmon. [
website]
News from Fan Guests of Honour Don & Jenn Longmuir
Jenn and I met at a bookstore called Murder and Mayhem in Port Dalhousie. Jenn owned a clothing boutique called Out of the Ordinary and I worked at the bookstore. Both stores shared the same entrance and we often played board games and just talked during slow times. We got married in 1996 and started Scene of the Crime Books over a pizza with nothing more than a tiny apartment, a note pad, and a small collection of 200 books. We had to take a small loan out to buy our first computer. But when it came to me I guess Jenn saw the obvious — I was a real catch.
Our first author experience was at the 1997 Toronto St. Lawrence Book Show when Iden Ford walked up to us and asked, “If one of your authors walked by would you know them?” He then introduced us to Maureen Jennings.
In 2004 we took the leap and opened our brick and mortar location on the corner of Bronte and Lakeshore in Oakville. Our first author signing was with Vicki Delany who lived just around the corner.
Due to lack of traffic we closed our doors two years later and concentrated on doing conventions such as Left Coast Crime, Bouchercon, Bloody Words, and Malice Domestic, and the Internet.
We are now approaching 15,000 books on such sites as ABE, Alibris, Amazon (CA & US), Biblio and our website
Scene of the Crime Books.
News from Toastmaster Cathy Ace
Hello from Vancouver, Canada – frequently voted one of the best places in the world to live, and somewhere I’m sure you’re going to enjoy visiting when Left Coast Crime is held here in 2019. I’m absolutely honoured (yes, with the extra “U”!) to be Toastmastering (that’s a word, now) the event, and look forward to welcoming you with open arms. When I do, I’ll be trying to fill some huge previous Toastmasters’ shoes, and will do my best to not trip over.
I know that LCC is a time when friends who see each other maybe just once a year enjoy gathering, greeting, gossiping about favourite (there’s a that rogue, Canadian “U” again!) authors and books, and generally catching up; I’m sure 2019 will be no different. But the thing I especially love about LCC is that there are always people attending for the very first time, and to those of you who aren’t sure quite what to expect, let me tell you…it will be an exciting time, so maybe consider coming a bit early, or staying on awhile afterwards, because Beautiful British Columbia has earned its name.
I’m looking forward to introducing those of you who don’t know her yet to my intrepid professor of criminal psychology, Cait Morgan, whose world travels through eight novels have her tripping over corpses and puzzling, closed-circle mysteries. Like me she’s Welsh-Canadian, so she’s a bit bossy, and loves her food (Vancouver has one of the best foodie scenes…for those of you who like to indulge). Maybe you’ll also find some time to investigate some quintessentially British mysteries with my women of the WISE Enquiries Agency – four softly-boiled PIs who run their business out of a Welsh stately home. Either way, I’ll be delighted to have the chance to chat to you about my characters, my homeland of Wales and my home of two decades, Vancouver, as well as taking the chance to find out what types of crime writing interests you.
Because that’s the thing about LCC, you see – even if you’re new to it, you’ll have “old friends” by the end of day one, because we all start with something in common…a love of great crime writing! I look forward to welcoming you to Vancouver in 2019. [
website]
ONE TO ONE
Each Left Coast Crime Convention raises money to support a local literacy organization with funds raised through a silent and live auction and the annual Quilt Raffle. LCC 2019’s auction recipient is
ONE TO ONE, a unique children’s literacy program that provides one-to-one tutoring to children in elementary schools during regular school hours. Trained volunteer tutors work with students who are identified by their teachers as needing a boost in their literacy skills. Typically, each student spends approximately 30 minutes two to four times a week with a volunteer tutor. ONE TO ONE provides these children with an opportunity to practice their reading in an environment where it is okay to take risks, make mistakes, and learn at their own pace.
All proceeds from Left Coast Crime 2019’s auction go to ONE TO ONE . Anyone — reader, writer, bookseller, librarian, blogger — may donate an item or two to the silent auction. Details to follow!
Hyatt Regency Hotel Vancouver
The Hyatt Regency Hotel Vancouver is centrally located in downtown Vancouver and is within walking distance to the Stanley Park Seawall, restaurants, and transit (from YVR, Vancouver International Airport). The hotel is taking reservations now and if you are registered with Whale of a Crime, you should have received your reservation code. If you haven’t received it, please email our Registrar,
Stan Ulrich.
Side Trips
The Vancouver Committee is presently working on organizing three Side Trips:
- Tuesday, March 26, A Day Trip to Victoria
Victoria is the capital of BC and is located on Vancouver Island. The bus trip would include a ferry ride through the scenic Gulf Islands. More information to follow.
- Wednesday, March 27, Babes in the Woods Cold Case Tour
This is one of Vancouver’s most famous cold cases: the discovery of the remains of two children in Stanley Park in 1953. Although many police hours were spent on the investigation, the murderer was never found. This would be a half-day trip around Stanley Park and then a visit to the Vancouver Police Museum, which is the oldest police museum in North America. Forensic evidence from the case is on display. The Police Museum is in a heritage building which used to be the City Morgue. Many TV shows and movies are filmed here, including X-Files. Because the building is old, there is no elevator and it is not wheelchair accessible.
- Sunday, March 31, Museum of Anthropology at UBC
This would be a Sunday afternoon trip. The Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia campus in Vancouver houses one of the world’s finest displays of Northwest Coast First Nations arts in a spectacular Arthur Erickson designed building overlooking mountains and sea.
Are you Registered for Whale of a Crime?
Not sure if you are registered for LCC 2019? Check our Whale of a Crime
List of Attendees. Then visit the LCC 2019
Registration Page if you need to register for Left Coast Crime 2019.
Left Coast Crime 2020: San Diego
Hold the Dates!
We are thrilled to announce that Left Coast Crime 2020 will be held in San Diego, California, March 12–15, at the San Diego Marriott Mission Valley. Lisa Brackman, Kim Keeline, and Maryelizabeth Yturralde will chair the convention. More details about registration will be available soon.
