More than thirty years ago, I attended my first Pacific Northwest Writers Conference. I was too poor to pay my own way at the time, so I got in by virtue of being a volunteer. One of my jobs was to pick up a visiting editor who was coming from New York City. I met her at the airport, collected her luggage, and headed for the conference which was being held at Pacific Lutheran University on the far southeast side of Tacoma.

At the time I had sold two original paperbacks, and one of them had been published. During the drive to the conference, the editor told me rather disdainfully, and this is a direct quote, “Original paperback mysteries are where anybody who wants to be published can get published.”

Why, thank you very much! What a lovely thing to say!! I remember taking her to the conference. I do NOT remember taking her back to the airport. For all I know, she’s still out there somewhere, wandering in the wilds of Parkland.

I believe in writers conferences. There are far too many would be writers who, like me, have had the front door to their hopes of becoming an author slammed in their faces when it came time to sign up for college level creative writing classes. To this day, there are creative writing professors who sniff down their noses at people who are so misguided as to want to write “genre fiction.”  Mysteries, fantasy, sci-fi, romance—if that’s what you want to write, good luck getting it past any given professor in any given MFA program. MFAs and genre fiction DO NOT MIX!

But writers conferences thrive on genre fiction, and that’s one of the reasons I’m a big supporter.

Last weekend this year’s PNWC was held at the Hilton at SeaTac. I was on hand on Friday night for an after-dinner professional writers panel.  Robert Dugoni was the moderator—and a very capable one, too.  The panelists consisted of Kevin O’Brien, Nancy Kress, Elizabeth Boyle and yours truly. Three of us are mystery writers—Robert, Kevin, and moi. Nancy writes sic-fi while Elizabeth writes historical romance.

It was a diverse panel, but a fun one. We’ve all been writing books for years, but it was daunting for me to sit up on the dais and look out at all those hopeful faces. These are people who are just now starting out on their writing journeys, and they’re all hoping to be where my fellow panelists and I were sitting at some some time in the far distant future.

The people on the panel all had stories to tell, and we told them. When it was over, on the way home, my agent told me what a wonderful job I had done.  My thought was, “I was on a panel.”  No big deal.  When I got home, my husband asked, “How’d you do?” I said I thought I’d done all right. (To my way of thinking, I’m always just barely adequate.)

The next day was the conference banquet where prizes are awarded to stories submitted for judging. Bill and I sponsor the Mystery/Thriller contest, and I thought it was only fair that I be on hand to award same.

The night before, going up onto the raised stage in the ballroom for the panel, I was wary because there were no handrails.  Long time readers of this blog know how prone I am to taking tumbles at inadvertent times. So when we arrived at the conference center on Saturday, I expressed my concern about the missing hand rails to Pam Binder, the conference director.  She immediately made sure that by the time the show got on the road Saturday evening, handrails were in place on both sides of the stage. I certainly used them, and so did everybody else.

While Pam and I were discussing the handrail situation, however, she told me how all day long people had been telling her and sending her messages about what a wonderful job I had done on the panel the night before.  I thanked her of course, but my thought was: It was a PANEL. There were four people up on the stage.

When it came time for the Mystery/Thriller award, the Mistress of Ceremonies announced I would be doing the presentation.  As I rose to go up onto the raised stage, people began applauding.  Pretty soon they were standing and applauding.   By the time I reached the podium, I was receiving a standing ovation from everyone in the ballroom, and I had yet to open my mouth.

I have seldom been so completely taken aback. I was not scheduled to receive an award from PNWC on Saturday night, but that enthusiastic standing ovation will live in my heart for a very long time—a heartfelt award from a roomful of writers to a very grateful fellow writer.

Thank you, PNWC.  You made my day!