Two ‘firsts’ this weekend. Poisoned Pen’s Webcon was allegedly the world’s first Online Mystery Convention – and what a brilliant idea. The archive of events is on their website so for those of us who weren’t able to spent all of Saturday glued to the computer, there’s a chance to catch up on the ‘live’ panels and interviews and a lot of the pre-recorded material.
Given the cost of attending real conferences, maybe we’ll be seeing more of the virtual sort in future? No travelling, or worrying about what to wear or who’s going to feed the cat. Obviously there were glitches – BlogTalkRadio isn’t always as clear as it might be and some of the participants had pitched battles with their computers – but there was some excellent material available. For twenty-five dollars (including a virtual goody-bag) it was a great day out/in.
The other ‘first’ for me (which clashed with the Webcon, as things do) was a trip to hear some professional actors read three short dramas by upcoming writers, one of whom is a good friend. I’d never realised before how trained performers can bring well-written words to life – even when clutching copies of the script. It was simply wonderful. So I guess I won’t be retreating to live on the Internet just yet.
Ruth Downie 
Hi Ruth,
I’m sorry I missed the live conference, but I really enjoyed the author interviews. It gave me a chance to learn more about my favorite authors and what they’re working on. I hope they do more of these conferences. There were some nice trailers as well for a number of the books. Are there any plans for a trailer for any of the Ruso books? It might be nice to hear an introductory snippet from one of the audio books to hear what Ruso’s supposed to sound like. I imagine that he doesn’t actually sound like that voice in my head that I listen to when I’m reading.
Regards,
Mark
Mm, I hope they do more of them too. As for a book trailer – I did think about it, but couldn’t imagine what would go in one that wouldn’t be hideously embarrassing. I’ll have to look at other people’s and see how it’s done.
In the meantime Tantor have a snippet of Simon Vance reading ‘Persona non Grata’ at
http://www.tantor.com/BookDetail.asp?Product=1418_PersonaNon
or if he isn’t your idea of Ruso, Peter Kenny and Sean Barratt can be heard reading the British editions of the first two at http://www.audible.co.uk under ‘downie’.
How wonderful the Internet is!
Ruth