So many of us have been missing the joys of in-person conferences and other gatherings with our writing/reading communities, but one of the many benefits of Zoom and other technologies is that we’ve been able to attend and participate in events that might normally have been out of reach: too far or too expensive to travel, for example, or job duties or family responsibilities keeping us tied close to home.
It’s with those benefits of Zoom in mind that I’m thinking of Alibis in the Archive, hosted Saturday and Sunday, October 9-10, by Gladstone’s Library in Flintshire, a county in Northeast Wales. Presenting at an event in the United Kingdom might generally have been a challenge or even ultimately out of the question, but when Martin Edwards asked me earlier this year if I’d like to be part of the program (programme, I should say!), I jumped at the opportunity. I’m glad to be appearing alongside good friends and Malice Domestic organizers Verena Rose, Shawn Reilly Simmons, and Tonya Spratt-Williams for the final session of the weekend’s events: a discussion of “Traditional detective fiction today – the view from America.”
The full schedule features some terrific writers, including Martin Edwards himself, as well as Bonnie MacBird, Joseph Goodrich, and Rupert Holmes (yes, that Rupert Holmes!), among many others.
Gladstone’s Library is the home of the British Crime Writing Archive, includes the archives of both the Crime Writers Association (I’m proud to be a member!) and the Detection Club, the latter founded in 1930 by Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ronald Knox, G.K. Chesterton, and others.
Check out the full schedule for this year’s Alibis in the Archive here, and purchase tickets here—either for single events or the whole weekend’s activities.
See you in the library! (Or on Zoom, but you know what I mean.)