Edward G Pettit

In between my Poe War battles, Bouchercon was a blast.  I rode down to Baltimore with Swierczynski and Scott Phillips (who flew into Philly and hopped a ride with us).  I had some good evenings drinking and eating with some great writers, editors and crime fiction aficionados (too many to mention).  But as much fun as it was, I cut out early to come home to write.  Usually, I love panels.  Love to hear people talk about books and writing.  But this weekend all I could think was, I should be writing, not listening to people talk about it.  So I cut the time short, even though it meant missing Scott Phillips and Victor Gischler on the "Beer" panel, and came home to do some work. 

Picked up a slew of books and journals in the free books bag, some of which Swierczy and I traded, some I gave to my Mom and three goodies that I kept (All the Colors of Darkness by Peter Robinson, The Black Hand by Will Thomas, Oscar Wilde and a Game Called Murder by Gyles Brandreth) along with the latest issues of , Mystery Scene (cover story on Lawrence Block), The Strand Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Crimespree (Bouchercon edition) and Crime--the Swedish Way (a collection of ten new crime stories by Swedish writers). 

I picked up a few more: Swierczy bought for me a copy of one of Dan Stashower's Harry Houdini mysteries, The Floating Lady Murder.  Gerald So gave me a copy of the first issue of The Lineup, a journal featuring hard-boiled poetry about crime. And I purchased a copy of Bill Cameron's new book, Chasing Smoke.  Looking forward to reading them all.   

Spent a couple hours perusing the mind-blowing cases of American pop-culture artifacts at Geppi's Entertainment Museum.  You have to visit this place next time you're in Baltimore.

I failed once again to bring home the remains of Edgar Allan Poe (the shovel broke while digging), but all in all, a great trip.