I was an attendee at the Raleigh Bouchercon Convention this past week – at least for a day, which I will explain in a subsequent post. Bouchercon is held every year in a different city, and is billed as the “world’s finest annual crime fiction event, bringing together more than 1,000 authors, fans, publishers, reviewers, booksellers, and editors …for a fantastic four day event.”

The very first activity was something called speed dating for authors. Those of us who signed up brought goody bags to the event and moved in pairs from table to table for 15 tables, each of us taking two minutes to introduce ourselves and our books – and hand our goody bags.

I used specimen bags for mine, tucked a postcard of my first book, Death in a Red Canvas Chair, in the outside pocket, and chocolate, bookmarks for both DRCC and my second book, Death…