The Left Coast Crime 2016 conference in Phoenix provided opportunities to connect with readers and other authors. And Wow! Was it ever fun! My panel was called Four-Legged Sidekicks, and I joined authors John Clement, Linda O. Johnston, and Janet Finsilver, who also include animals in their stories, to talk about our mystery series.
Our panel was moderated by publicist Maryglenn McCombs, who did an extraordinary job reading excerpts from our books. She asked me questions like: Is Robo based on a real dog? ( Yes, he was. See the answer to that for more detail in an earlier blog post.) and Does writing an animal character allow you to express ideas or concepts you can’t with human characters? (For me, it’s all about the human-animal bond, so including an animal character is a must. And for Mattie in particular, Robo is the first character she learns to trust; he’ll open emotional doors for her later in the series.)
This conference features three and a half days of author panels, guest interviews, and author-reader connection activities designed for people to meet each other and learn about new and established writers in the crime fiction genre. Next year, LCC is set in Honolulu! We should all go! Check here for more info:http://www.leftcoastcrime.org/2017/
