Conferences of the Week

What’s the mystery genre without a conference where readers can meet each other, schmooze with authors and buy a lot of books? The circuit begins in earnest this week with two conferences, one reader-oriented, the other geared towards aspiring writers.

Love is Murder returns to Chicago for its 8th consecutive year beginning tomorrow and running through Sunday. Joining the fun are guests of honor Kevin Guilfoile, David Morrell, Judith Guest, Kent Krueger, Barry Eisler and Libby Fischer Hellmann, while John Helfers of Tekno Books will evidently be taking pitches for Five Star Mysteries.

Meanwhile, Birmingham hosts its annual Murder in the Magic City this coming Saturday and the author lineup is pretty damn stellar — GOHs Jan Burke and Steve Hamilton as well as Susan McBride, Jeff Shelby, Duane Swierczynski, Sean Doolittle, Victor Gischler and James O. Born, to name but a few.

Whoever’s going to either, enjoy, and please report back with happenings, goings-on and the like.