The Conference Game

I’m not a novice at the conference game.  In my parallel incarnation as someone who does political risk analysis for a living, I’ve attended God knows how many symposia in places ranging from the exotic (Tashkent, anyone?) to the very very prosaic (the two-day session at a Toronto airport hotel offered no diversions at all).  But they all tended to have certain things in common.  Most of the punters were men, in suits, with titles – colonels, PhDs and ambassadors were ten a penny.  And the subject matter tended to be involved, obscure and sometimes rather draining – Islamist terrorism, Somali piracy, child soldiers; you get the idea.  So when my publisher said it might be a good idea for me to put myself about at CrimeFest 2018, I assumed it would be a bit like one of these hoolies, but probably with fewer suits.

Boy, was I wrong.  First, everyone is happy to be there; they’re putting aside the cares of the world rather than trying to find new ways to grapple with them.  Secondly, they’re all fans so they know what they’re talking about.  (One of the more unnerving aspects of the international security arena is the number of professionals one comes across without a clue about the subject in hand.)  Thirdly, women may have outnumbered men.  And finally, punters wore anything.  Anything.  Often topped with crazy hair.  The only crazy hair I’d get to see at security conferences had either been slept on (and the owner didn’t know), or was excessively short – say, those US military haircuts where they leave a landing strip on top.  Fans, writers, publishers, agents, all cheek by jowl in the corridors and conference rooms of a Victorian hotel in Bristol.  Not like a counter-insurgency colloquium in a Crystal City VA ballroom at all…  

For a lot of authors crime writing festivals are clearly a sort of jamboree; they catch up with people they haven’t seen for a year, check out who’s doing what, and keep the bar open long after the panel sessions are done.  They also get out of their garrets – being a full-time writer can clearly be a solitary existence.  For the publishers, agents and booksellers CrimeFest must be an opportunity to meet their peers, find out what is getting a buzz, and try to sense what might be the next new thing. 

For me it was an introduction – to genres and authors I hadn’t come across, to long-time favourites like John Lawton and Robert Wilson who I got to meet in the flesh, and to the extraordinarily enthusiastic fan-base who keep the crime fiction world turning.  It was also a touch scary.  There are so many crime and thriller writers out there, most of whom one’s never heard of, even though they’re publishing excellent stuff.  How on earth is one going to get read? 

Finally, it was an education in how other people write; Lee Child’s tendency to produce only one draft was a revelation (though probably not a habit my editor would want me to adopt…).  Traipsing around in such exalted and professional company, equipped only with ‘My first novel’s out in September’, makes one feel a bit of a fraud.  Still, next time…