C3 – Launching of a Conference

The Love is Murder conference changed my life.  When I attended it six years ago I had already been to several writers’ conferences but this was my first experience at a gathering that welcomed readers as well as writers.  Since then I’ve enjoyed Bouchercon, Malice Domestic, Magna Cum Murder, Thrillerfest and others, but LIM is STILL different because it attracts a broader spectrum of fans and authors.  Mystery lovers mingle with thriller, horror and romantic suspense fans and share what it’s like to be a fan or a creator.
The only bad thing about LIM is that it is in Chicago in February, a long, risky flight from Maryland.  One year I spent the day in an airport never quite managing to reach the conference I had already paid for.  So from the beginning I have longed for a similar conference closer to home.
Fast forward to 2012 and the creation of Intrigue Publishing.  In conversation about things we could do I mentioned my long held dream of holding a “Love is Murder East” expanding the multi-genre concept. 
It is at this point that the Deus ex machine says, “Well… why not do it?”  In this case the Deus was my very special friend (and Intrigue VP) Sandra Bowman.
There was plenty of “why not.”  It would be a lot of work.  It would cost a lot of money.  There was no guarantee that anyone would come.
At this point Sandra and Intrigue President Denise Camacho ganged up on me.  “We’re not afraid of hard work,” they said.  “We have the money.  And we know a lot of people in the industry and in the local writing community.  We just need to commit, and give ourselves enough time to figure out all the details.”
So what would this conference be about?  I suggested a list of fiction genres that have been overlapping of late.  Mystery.  Suspense.  Thriller.  Horror.  Science fiction.  Fantasy.  And a newcomer sub-genre called steampunk.  Each has its own conferences around the country, but how much fun it would be to throw writers and fans of these genres together.
Then we needed a name for the conference that would tie it all together.  But what did all these fictional styles have in common?  Four of the 7 could be gathered under the umbrella “crime fiction.”  Four often featured inhuman entities.  And we needed to say that we’d be as much about the craft of writing as with the writing itself.  After tossing around a few dozen possibilities, Denise finally nailed it when she suggested we call it Creatures, Crimes & Creativity.
Like that, a plan was in place.  Well, not quite a plan.  Actually we jointly decided that we would leap off this cliff together and build our wings on the way down.