Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss

Big Mystery Conference in the Little Apple

October 5, 2005

Manhattan…ah the bright lights, the big city, the corn. Corn?? Well I must mean Manhattan, Kansas which is where the 2nd annual Great Manhattan Mystery Conclave was held last weekend. A great road trip made by Sara and myself started off Friday afternoon with a lovely tea at the local Country Club. The clotted cream was excellent in my opinion but a little too thick according to Sara. A local bookstore provided three varieties of tea; Berry Earl Grey seemed to be the overwelming favorite.

The event headliner was “America’s answer to Agatha Christie” Carolyn Hart; writer of the Death on Demand series.

Other authors included Susan Wittig Albert, Patricia Sprinkle, Denise Swanson, Marcia Talley, just to name a few.

Saturday was filled with thought provoking panel discussion sessions with topics like:

  • Why Read Mystery? where mysteries were compared historically to morality plays and the classic theme of “good vs. evil” and our sense of justice can be satisfied.
  • Knowlege is Golden! broadening your horizon of other fields added to the plot; feng shui, needlework, snipers…
  • Long Gone–or Are They?…Ghosts! A WAY to serious discussion of campfire tales and ectoplasm.
  • and many more but we had to pick and choose as there were two panels every 45 minutes all day.

    A nice banquet Saturday night with tons of book bag door prizes and delicious food.

    Sunday, we had to leave early and missed the tour of the local cemetery and the workshop on rewriting with Nancy Pickard, which looked to be intriguing if you have aspirations of writing a book someday.


    They also held a writing contest and created, Manhattan Mysteries, a book of the winning short stories and had it available.(My favorite so far, is the one about the “Flamingo Fatality” by Beth Groundwater) The winners were recognized and available at the booksigning along with all the other authors.

    Check out the contests at Fresh Fiction… there is a signed copy up for grabs!!

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