I'll be attending Bouchercon this year for the first time. Bouchercon is a huge convention of mystery writers held every year.

This is going to be a weird experience for me because, as far as I can recall, I have only ever been in the same room as a real writer five times. Last year I had lunch with Anneke Klein and Bill Kirton while in London. On the same trip I had dinner with agent-sibling Andrew Grant. The only other two writers I recall meeting in real life, decades ago, are Fred Hoyle(!) and Larry Niven.

Bouchercon is going to increase my same-room-as-a-writer count by approximately 8,000%.

I'll be in Indianapolis for the conference 15-18 October. The week after I'm visiting NY, where for the first time I'll meet the wonderful people at FinePrint Literary Agency and Editor Kathleen from St Martin's! On the way home I'll stop in LA for a couple of days, where I'm planning to visit the Getty Villa of Roman and Greek antiquities, if I can ever get their broken online ticketing system to work.

If you're going to be in Indy, NY or LA at the same time and would care for a coffee/beer, do please let me know. I'd love to meet.

Next year there's going to be an extensive book tour going for weeks around the US to lots of places.