Guests of Honor Interviews: Left Coast Crime Rocky Mountain High Jinks

What a fabulous Left Coast Crime! So many friends, so many panels, so little time. Choices had to be made. So, if you didn't make it to all the panels (or didn't make it to LCC), here are links to the Guests of Honor interviews. Enjoy!

And, please join us next year at Left Coast Crime in San Francisco! San Francisco Schemin'

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Sarah Paretsky Interviewed by Leslie Budewitz

 

 John Copenhaver interviewed by Christa Faust

   

 Manuel Ramos Interviewed by David Heska Wanbli Weiden 

 

 Grace Koshida interviewed by Leslie Karst 

 

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH JINKS: Left Coast Crime 2025

LEFT COAST CRIME 2025: DENVER, COLORADO

Rocky Mountain High Jinks

Registration is now open for LCC 2025 in Denver, Colorado, March 13-16, 2025. Registration includes a Welcome Reception, two special Breakfasts, the Awards Banquet, and admission to all panels and interviews. The early registration fee of $299 extends through April 15, 2024, the close of LCC 2024: Seattle Shakedown.

More Information and Online Registration

LCC 2025 Special Guests

We are thrilled to announce our Special Guests: Guests of Honor Manuel Ramos and Sara Paretsky, Fan Guest of Honor Grace Koshida, and Toastmaster John Copenhaver.

David Thompson Special Service Award: Sara Paretsky

The Bouchercon Board announced that SARA PARETSKY is this year's recipient of the David Thompson Special Service Award!

The award is given by the Bouchercon Board to honor the memory and contributions to the crime fiction community of David Thompson, a beloved Houston bookseller who passed away in 2010. Recipients are recognized for their extraordinary efforts to develop and promote the crime fiction field.

Sara's contributions as a founder of Sisters In Crime; as a leader in helping to lay the publishing groundwork for women authors of mystery and crime fiction, and as an ongoing literacy activist, have been phenomenal.

The award will be presented during the General Members Meeting at the Bouchercon 2023 convention in San Diego. 

Congratulations, Sara, and welcome to the group!

SCOTT TUROW RECEIVES 2019 PARETSKY AWARD

SCOTT TUROW RECEIVES THE 2019 PARETSKY AWARD 

The Annual Award Honors Mysteries Set in the Midwest Chicago, IL

The Paretsky Award, an annual award that honors mysteries set in the Midwest, was presented to #1 New York Times bestselling author Scott Turow at the 3rd annual Murder and Mayhem in Chicago. The one-day conference dedicated to crime fiction is chaired by book publicist Dana Kaye and award-winning author Lori Rader-Day.

“We launched Murder and Mayhem in Chicago to celebrate the wealth of crime fiction talent in the Midwest,” says Kaye. “The Paretsky Award aims to further that mission.”

Scott Turow is the author of ten bestselling works of fiction, including IDENTICAL, INNOCENT, PRESUMED INNOCENT, and THE BURDEN OF PROOF, and two nonfiction books, including ONE L, about his experience as a law student. His books have been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than thirty million copies worldwide, and have been adapted into movies and television projects. He has frequently contributed essays and op-ed pieces to publications such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic.

This year’s Murder and Mayhem in Chicago took place at Roosevelt University this past Saturday. Over 240 crime fiction authors, publishing pros, librarians, booksellers, and readers gathered for the one-day conference, which boasted five panels, plus interviews with Turow and international bestselling author, Sophie Hannah.

Kaye and Rader-Day are already planning next year’s event, which will take place in March of 2020 and will feature New York Times bestselling author, William Kent Krueger.

An Award by Any Other Name: Guest post by Lori Rader-Day

Lori Rader-Day’s debut mystery, The Black Hour, won the 2015 Anthony Award for Best First Novel and was a finalist for the 2015 Mary Higgins Clark Award. Her second novel, Little Pretty Things, won the 2016 Mary Higgins Clark Award and was a nominee for the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original. Little Pretty Things was named a 2015 “most arresting crime novel” by Kirkus Reviews and one of the top ten crime novels of the year by Booklist. Her third novel, The Day I Died, was just released by Harper Collins William Morrow on April 11, 2017. She lives in Chicago.

Lori Rader-Day:
An Award by Any Other Name 

When Dana Kaye and I decided to start a new crime fiction conference in the crime-fiction-conference-free zone of Chicago (after Love Is Murder sadly folded in 2016), we had a plan. One track. One room. Lots of great Chicago and Midwestern authors. Stir.

It was a formula that had worked for Murder and Mayhem in Milwaukee for thirteen years, so surely it would work for what we named Murder and Mayhem in Chicago.

It did.

Along the way, though, we came up with one way we would be different than our predecessor. Our Chicago-based mystery conference would be home to a new award, given to honor a life’s work of Chicago and Midwestern mystery writing.

We named it the Sara Paretsky Award.

Of course we did.

Admit it. When I say “contemporary Chicago mystery,” Sara comes to mind. Sara Paretsky is the voice of our city and region (and, often, in ways far beyond mystery fiction, of our national conscience). Lucky for many a female crime writer, she used her voice to speak for our gender as the founding mother of Sisters in Crime, now an international organization with approximately 3,800 members, celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. We all have a voice, thanks to Sara.

So in its first year, upon whom could we bestow the honor of the Paretsky Award? None other than Sara Paretsky, of course.

Sara was a headliner of the inaugural Murder and Mayhem in Chicago, along with Minnesota’s William Kent Krueger, so she was on hand to learn along with the crowd that the award had been named in her honor and then to graciously receive it. It is among one of the most special moments of my professional life to be able to announce the news with Dana, and to watch Sara’s reaction to the standing ovation she got from our two hundred attendees.

Of course the next question is: who might be the next recipient of such an award? Dana and I are working on ideas that help bring readers into the process and when we have the details worked out, we’ll announce it widely. Because you have ideas, I’m sure, the readers of Mystery Fanfare, which does such a wonderful job of announcing award nominees and winners all mystery-award-year long. 

It is one of the joys of the mystery community to celebrate our exemplary members. Murder and Mayhem in Chicago is pleased to join in. MMC is over until spring 2018, but if you’re interested in Midwestern mayhem, check out our partner-in-crime conference, Murder and Mayhem in Milwaukee in November. 

The Paretsky Award awaits another winner. Who else came to mind when I said “contemporary Chicago mystery”?

 Photo Credit: Julia Borcherts

Pinckley Prizes for Crime Fiction

Sara Paretsky and Christine Carbo have won the Pinckley Prizes for Crime Fiction, sponsored by the Women's National Book Association of New Orleans and honoring Diana Pinckley, longtime crime fiction columnist for the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Paretsky won the Pinckley Prize for Distinguished Body of Work. The committee wrote: "Sara Paretsky's singular creation of V.I. Warshawski has stood the test of time and reader loyalty through 19 books since she first debuted in 1982 with Indemnity Only. The Chicago private investigator is fierce and funny and an advocate for all the right causes, just like her creator. Sara Paretsky has used her considerable personal literary gifts to further equal rights for women, racial justice, as well as shining a light on the need for increased literacy and help for troubled teens and the mentally ill. She is a former president of the Mystery Writers of America, and a great advocate for the rights of authors. In 1986, she founded Sisters in Crime, and we all know what an incredible difference that has made for women who write crime fiction. It seems especially appropriate to recognize her on the 20th anniversary of that group, as well as for an impressive body of work that has illuminated the lives of women in all their bravery and complexity."

Carbo has won the Pinckley Prize for Debut Novel for her book, The Wild Inside, published by Atria. The judges said, "This absorbing crime novel weaves intriguing psychological themes around the presence of a truly frightening grizzly bear, a reminder of all that is wild out there."

Read a post from Christine Carbo here.