It’ll make it so much easier for next year

This may well be my favorite BCon related exchange ever, as taken from the blog of Michael Simon, author of DIRTY SALLY and BODY SCISSORS:

On arrival back home [from Bouchercon], I got an email from a buddy:

“Sorry

we only got to see each other for a second at Bouchercon — I looked

for you afterward, but couldn’t seem to find you. Were you avoiding the

bar?”

I wrote back:

“There was a bar?”

Yes. Yes there was:

Apparently

the panels were only a small part of the camaraderie and exchange of

information. I imagined a crime fiction bar, filled with tough dames

and hard-punching mugs, the grumbled chatter broken only occasionally

by the crack of a pool cue over someone’s head.

Another prominent player in the field explained it to me this way:

“I’ve

been to thirty of these conferences. The panels aren’t going to tell me

anything I don’t know. I show up at the bar at eleven AM and stay till

closing.

“How else am I supposed to see everybody?”

Indeed. Because, as we all know from before, the three rules of BCon are:

Hang out in the bar.
Hang out in the bar.
Hang out in the bar.

The rest are details.