So I guess I’ll be going after all. I wasn’t sure about attending Bouchercon 2009, slated to take place in Indianapolis from Oct. 15-18, but Sara J. Henry convinced me. She said you never know who you might meet there. It could be someone who plays a pivotal role in your life. She was kind enough to imply that I was one such person, having met me last year at Bouchercon in Baltimore.
Larry Beinhart (what a hunk!) introduced me to Sara at Lee Child‘s birthday party. She’s a wonderful person and talented writer. We had a conversation at the closing banquet about her then work-in-progress, an elegant literary mystery involving a small child. As a mother, I couldn’t help but add my two-cents. She says that my comments were useful, so useful in fact that she considered them when doing her rewrite.
Over the intervening year, Sara has had her ups and downs as a writer. If you want to read about them (and they do make interesting reading), then you should visit her blog. (It’s a treat. She’s witty and insightful, and offers anecdotes of warm, thoughtful wisdom.) To make a long story short, Sara worked hard on a rewrite and faced a painful disappointment in terms of finding an agent. She persisted. The result? She ended up with a fantastic agent who has gotten her a two-book deal. Her book, Learning to Swim, will be out in Fall 2010 and its sequel in Fall 2011. What a wonderful and inspiring story, huh?
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Wow, how did I miss this great post?
I subscribe to your blog but somehow it slipped past me.
Serendipity at work! – I’d actually just met Larry in a buffet line (where I tend to meet most people – that’s also where I met Phil Spitzer!) and a group of us had snagged him because we were told we should have a male escort to walk to Lee Child’s party.
Absolutely your comments about a small boy helped me reshape the child’s character in LEARNING TO SWIM – it made me realize I hadn’t been considering his scenes through the eyes of a six-year-old – which was really crucial in making the story resonate.
Hard to post comments here – it shows only half of what you’re typing! So excuse any typos.
Yay, Bouchercon!