Prominence

November 11, 2007

It occurred to me yesterday, during Sarah Weinman’s Blogging session at Crime Bake, that I was so kind in the past to cohorts and colleagues with whom I hobnobbed at Podcamp Boston and I hadn’t extended the same niceties to my MWA and Sisters brethren.

What I’m getting at is the lack of links to, and evaluations of, the people at this year’s Crime Bake conference. So let’s take a brief jaunt down what is soon to be memory lane (I’m writing this before day 2 of the conference).

The committee was great to work with and I’m thrilled to have taken a formal role this year instead of the quasi-committee-member role I had for the previous five Crime Bakes. People who deserve my digital applause are:

Ruth McCarty, Cathy Cairns, Leslie Wheeler, Paula Mello, Hallie Ephron, Lynne Heitman, Roberta Isleib, Hans Copek, Judy Copek, Paula Munier, Kate Flora and Vaugn Hardacker.

If you Google these names you’ll find a host of published authors in the mix as well as some great IT people, Webmasters, editors and more. Apologies go out for any name that was misspelled as this list was taken right from this year’s program.

Other people who had an impact on me this weekend included Maria, Jerry, Paul and others on the staff at the Hilton. Sarah Weinman (linked above already), Linda Landrigan (for tweaking my outlook a little bit when it comes to short fiction), Steve Hull (for giving me ideas without even knowing it), Ann Collette (for making me realize that all our existing perceptions or knowledge can be incorrect), all the volunteers on my little possé, and everyone else I spoke with at this year’s event.

If you’re a writer in this genre, get on the ball. Get yourself to SleuthFest early next year (February 28 to March 2, 2008) and plan to attend Cape Cod Writers’ Conference and the 2008 version of Crime Bake.

As a side note (and didn’t you just know there would be one) as much as this column is a spot to thank and recognize others, it’s also the spot where I’ve tried to overuse parentheses just to the point of reading annoyance. Did it work?

More to come…

©2007 Jeff Cutler and Novel Ideas