My First Post-Lockdown Adventure: Mechanicsburg Mini-Con Getaway
I hadn’t slept in a bed other than my own for two and a half years—and Kensington’s East Coast CozyClub Mini-Con on October 10 seemed an excellent opportunity for a post-Covid getaway.
Until the program was interrupted by Covid in 2020, Kensington sponsored four of these Mini-Cons every year, each co-hosted by a bookstore in a particular region of the country: East, West, Midwest, and South. Focused on cozy mysteries, the Mini-Cons offer readers a chance to meet their favorite cozy authors for an afternoon of chatting, refreshments, games, and prizes--and of course buying books and having them signed.
Now the Mini-Cons have started up again, and the East Coast one in Mechanicsburg PA, rescheduled twice, was finally happening. I live in Northern New Jersey, four hours from Mechanicsburg, and the Mini-Con was scheduled to start at 11:30 a.m. So my husband and I decided it would be fun to make the drive the day before, arrive in time for a leisurely dinner, and spend the night in a hotel.
The event was a great success, with eleven Kensington authors taking part—from as far away as Michigan—and nearly 100 readers. It was a pleasure to meet people who had read and enjoyed my Knit & Nibble mysteries.
The bookstore co-host was the Mechanicsburg Mystery Bookshop, but since more space was needed for the large turnout, the event was held in a church hall on a street lined with charming brick buildings from the nineteenth century.
The bookshop itself is located on the outskirts of Mechanicsburg and specializes in mysteries, spy, thriller, suspense, and horror with a touch of sci-fi, selling both in person and online. The website explains that owner Debbie Beamer “has been a fan of mysteries ever since she read her first Nancy Drew book. She opened this store in 1990 with a goal to ‘provide customers with exemplary customer service.’” For more information about the bookshop, visit https://www.mysterybooksonline.com/
Thank you to the Mechanicsburg Mystery Bookshop and to Larissa Ackerman from Kensington for putting together such a wonderful event—a lovely reintroduction to life after the Covid lockdown.
As a bonus, my husband's and my drive to Mechanicsburg took us through the Pocono Mountains. The higher elevation meant that the trees were much further advanced toward the reds and yellows of autumn than the ones back in our area, and so we had miles and miles of glorious leaf-peeping en route.
And on the way home, driving west in the evening, we watched the full moon turn from a pale disk in the twilight to a glowing golden orb against the night sky.
.
Until the program was interrupted by Covid in 2020, Kensington sponsored four of these Mini-Cons every year, each co-hosted by a bookstore in a particular region of the country: East, West, Midwest, and South. Focused on cozy mysteries, the Mini-Cons offer readers a chance to meet their favorite cozy authors for an afternoon of chatting, refreshments, games, and prizes--and of course buying books and having them signed.
Now the Mini-Cons have started up again, and the East Coast one in Mechanicsburg PA, rescheduled twice, was finally happening. I live in Northern New Jersey, four hours from Mechanicsburg, and the Mini-Con was scheduled to start at 11:30 a.m. So my husband and I decided it would be fun to make the drive the day before, arrive in time for a leisurely dinner, and spend the night in a hotel.
The event was a great success, with eleven Kensington authors taking part—from as far away as Michigan—and nearly 100 readers. It was a pleasure to meet people who had read and enjoyed my Knit & Nibble mysteries.
The bookstore co-host was the Mechanicsburg Mystery Bookshop, but since more space was needed for the large turnout, the event was held in a church hall on a street lined with charming brick buildings from the nineteenth century.
The bookshop itself is located on the outskirts of Mechanicsburg and specializes in mysteries, spy, thriller, suspense, and horror with a touch of sci-fi, selling both in person and online. The website explains that owner Debbie Beamer “has been a fan of mysteries ever since she read her first Nancy Drew book. She opened this store in 1990 with a goal to ‘provide customers with exemplary customer service.’” For more information about the bookshop, visit https://www.mysterybooksonline.com/
Thank you to the Mechanicsburg Mystery Bookshop and to Larissa Ackerman from Kensington for putting together such a wonderful event—a lovely reintroduction to life after the Covid lockdown.
As a bonus, my husband's and my drive to Mechanicsburg took us through the Pocono Mountains. The higher elevation meant that the trees were much further advanced toward the reds and yellows of autumn than the ones back in our area, and so we had miles and miles of glorious leaf-peeping en route.
And on the way home, driving west in the evening, we watched the full moon turn from a pale disk in the twilight to a glowing golden orb against the night sky.
.
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