Bouchercon 2014 - Queen Mary Tour

The Observation Bar on the Queen Mary

Bouchercon 2014 attendees were a mixture of newbies like me and folks who had been fans of the international event for many years. I met readers, fans, authors, editors, agents, reviewers, and booksellers. Bouchercon welcomed anyone involved in creating, publishing, and reading mystery fiction. 

The event officially began Thursday, November 13, but activities related to the conference had started earlier in the week.

Author Patricia Coleman and I arrived early Wednesday morning. The temperature in Colorado was four degrees above zero. Stepping out of the airport into sixty degree temps and palm trees was a pleasant shock.  

I was concerned that we were not in the main conference hotel. The Renaissance Hotel was four blocks away. When we checked in and looked out the window, we saw a wide brick pedestrian walkway extending from Ocean Boulevard to the conference venue. The well-lit walkway became quite familiar. 

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Long Beach - walkway from Ocean Boulevard to the conference hotel

Wednesday evening the conference had arranged tours of the ship the Queen Mary. We learned the history of the ship as we journeyed through several floors. After the tour, we had a delicious snack of fish and chips on the ship with author Liesa Malik. (Queen Mary photos in a slideshow below.)

When we returned to our hotel, our third roomie, poet and author Maria Kelson had arrived. There was no late-night chatter. We were all exhausted from our travels, and the excitement of finally arriving at Bouchercon. I’ll tell you about kicking off my conference experience with volunteer duties in next week's blog. 


Patricia Coleman - http://www.prmorris.com/
Liesa Malik - https://liesamalik.wordpress.com/

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