SinC at ALA in Anaheim in June

By Mary Boone

I’m pleased to be sharing with you the news that Sisters in Crime will host a booth in the Exhibit Hall at the 2012 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Anaheim CA.

The exhibit dates are Friday, June 22, through Monday, June 25. Author and librarian SinC members who live in or near Anaheim, or who may be traveling to the area during the conference dates, are invited to help represent SinC at this important conference.

The hours for the exhibits at ALA this summer will be:

• Friday, 6/22, 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm

• Saturday, 6/23 & Sunday 6/24, 9 am - 5 pm

• Sunday 6/25, 9 am - 2 pm

Volunteers for the SinC booth are needed during all of these times.

I coordinate and schedule all volunteers’ time in the booth. If you want to volunteer, please give me a couple of times that could work with your personal schedule. When setting up the booth schedule, I will do my best to accommodate your first preference for a time in the booth.

The time slots in the booth will be 1 to 1.5 hours in length. If a large number of members step forward to volunteer, I’ll pull back to a one-hour shift to give everyone who wants to volunteer the opportunity to do so.

I register all volunteers for the conference through SinC (that gets each volunteer a “conference pass.”

Author-volunteers may give away (we don’t sell books) and sign their books while in the booth. It’s a super networking opportunity. That said, I do ask that author-volunteers to be willing to wear two hats and to promote SinC while in the booth.

I am also looking for one local volunteer to help out by receiving SinC promotional materials from Beth Wasson, as well as donations of books sent to the conference by members (who can't come to the conference themselves) to be used for daily raffles in the booth. This volunteer also should be able to bring the boxes of materials and books to the convention center the day I'll be setting up the booth. I will provide more details to anyone interested in helping in this way.

Author members, if you are unable to attend ALA, would you consider sending one signed book to be given away in daily raffles held in the SinC booth during the convention? Librarians who win these raffles generally put the books into their library’s collections. It would be a crime to miss out on these opportunities to connect with librarians who put your books into readers’ hands every day.

I hope to see you in Anaheim! To volunteer, or for more information, contact Mary Boone, Library Liaison at macboone[at]me.com. Please use the subject heading SinC, ALA 2012 in your email to me.

Mary Boone, Library Liaison for Sisters in Crime, says she is happy to be a reader and lucky that, as a librarian, she gets paid to turn readers on to books. She encourages everyone to make sure their library or libraries have entered the Sisters in Crime "We Love Libraries" book grant lottery. Information and a registration form can be found on the SinC website page linked here.

A Reader Goes to ALA

By Molly Weston


Asking me to be part of Sisters in Crime's Summit Team and attend the American Library Association's Summer Conference in New Orleans was a lot like throwing Br'er Rabbit in the Briar Patch! Of course, I'd been to mystery conferences and booksellers' conferences, but never to a library conference. I had everything laid out for the trip a month before I was due to pack.

The excitement began to swell on the plane leaving Charlotte. I watched more and more travelers board carrying tote bags from libraries—and paperbacks in their hands. As I looked around en route, nearly everyone was reading! My seat mate was a librarian from Canada and the kind lady who entertained the child beside her until takeoff explained she was a grandmother. I later found she, too, was a librarian.

When I got into line for the van ride to the hotel, it was jammed with more librarians and their accompanying identifying tote bags. And these weren't the "Ssssh!" types from the 50s. They were all swaying to the sounds of the jazz band playing beside baggage pickup!

Unsurprisingly, our hotel was packed with librarians, too, and every day more tote bags replaced purses and suitcases. By the time the trade show floor opened, the bags were stuffed with books and posters. It was heartening to see the distinctive red Sisters in Crime bags amongst those from publishers and distributors.

[Photo: It wouldn't be New Orleans without beignets for breakfast!]

The SinC bags were an enticement for visiting our library-themed booth, as was the drawing for an iPod Touch. Mary Boone and Doris Ann Norris did a bang-up job making the booth both attractive and accessible. In addition to the SinC banners, they hung poster-sized photos of many of the "We Love Libraries!" winners to ensure that folks asked about entering the contest.

[Photo: Dorris Ann Norris and Mary Boone take a break after setting up the SinC booth.]

The Summit Team members were charged with talking with librarians, distributors, and publishers about how readers find books. We met in focus groups, one-on-one interviews, catch-as-catch-can talks on the trade show floor, and at meals. Everyone we talked with was happy to share ideas with us—frequently they seemed thrilled that someone would ask!

The Summit Report will provide full details about these ideas. Don't miss reading it! All SinC members will receive the report as part of their membership package. If you're reading this as a non-member, consider joining today at www.sistersincrime.org. This report will be well worth it.

The Saturday "Mystery Day" coordinated by Rosemary Harris brought in so many mystery writers it would be difficult to list them all. It was great fun catching up with old friends and meeting (and making) new ones. I was delighted to meet Julie Smith, whom I've loved reading for more than 20 years (she must have won her Edgar when she was 12!).

Nearly every member of the Summit Team was on a panel on the Pop Top stage. I was delighted to get to moderate "Attention to Detail: How Research Adds to the Mystery," with Frankie Y. Bailey, Rhys Bowen, Jane Cleland, and Carolyn Hart. My trip was made!

Every night I returned to my hotel room totally exhausted, but with my mind overflowing with great ideas and wonderful memories. After all, what could be better than five days with librarians and Sisters in Crime?

[Photo: (front row, from left) Rhys Bowen, Holli Castillo and Libby Fischer Hellmann ready to lend a hand in the SinC booth at ALA.]




New Orleans photos by Molly Weston.


Molly Weston is the editor of inSinC, the Sisters in Crime quarterly news bulletin. She is a book reviewer, media escort, blogger and book club maven — when not pondering the intricacies of keeping the local deer from eating the entire colorful crop at her day lily farm.

A Report from SinC's 2011 Publishing Summit

By Barbara Fister

We’ve had some very busy days at the American Library Association convention in New Orleans, and they're not over yet. Your SinC Publishing Summit team has been meeting non-stop with people who can help us understand better how readers discover the books they love.

After a series of annual summit reports that gathered insights from publishers, editors, agents, distributors, wholesalers and emerging digital publishing platforms, we thought it was time to focus on the readers, because when you get right down to it, they are the people who matter.

We’ve held focus groups with adult services librarians, librarians who plan events and specialists in young adult literature. We talked to the founder of the first social network for bibliophiles. We met with “rock star librarians” who are renowned for their expertise in "reader’s advisory,"– the art of connecting readers with books that they will love.

We learned that it’s critical to coax out what readers like to read – and why. Subgenres don’t matter as much to readers as the underlying factors that make an appealing book: tone and mood, characters you know well or those who might surprise you, fast-paced stories or language that makes you want to slow down and savor the words.

More books are published every year, and that makes it challenging for writers to connect with their audience. We hope that our report will illuminate ways that readers discover books and will help our member authors connect to their audience.

But, first, you’ll have to give us a chance to let our heads stop spinning!


Photos of New Orleans by Barbara Fister.

Barbara Fister is the author of the Anni Koskinen mysteries. The most recent title in the series is Through the Cracks. She is an academic librarian and serves on the SinC board as Secretary.

SinC at ALA: Meet Our Authors & Librarians

If you’re attending the American Library Association’s (ALA) annual conference in New Orleans this weekend, be sure to stop by booth #3259 in the Exhibit Hall to meet Sisters in Crime authors and librarians – and sign up to win an 8 GB iPod Touch.

Here’s the schedule for the Sisters in Crime booth at ALA:

Friday, June 24
Opening Reception, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.

Frances Dean McNamara
Jerri Lynn Ledford
Terri Landry

Saturday, June 25
(Mystery Day on the ALA ‘Pop Top’ Stage)

June Shaw, 10 a.m. – noon
Jane Cleland, Noon – 1 p.m.
Libby Hellmann, 12:15 – 1:15 p.m.
Holli Castillo, 1 – 3 p.m.
Elaine Viets, 1:15 – 2:15 p.m.
Greg Herren, 2 – 5 p.m.
Barbara Leavy, 2:30 – 4:30 p.m.
Julie Smith, 3 – 4 p.m.

Sunday, June 26

Librarian Sue Epstein, 10 – 11 a.m.
Barbara Leavy, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Frankie Bailey, 2:30 – 3:30 p.m.
Barbara Fister, 3:30 – 4:30 p.m.
Tony Fennelly, 3:30 – 5:00 p.m.

Monday, June 27

Terri Landry, 9:30 – 11:00 a.m.
Librarian Barbara Bibel, 12:30 – 2:00 p.m.

During the ALA conference, Sisters in Crime representatives will be meeting with ALA exhibitors and other publishing industry professionals, the first step in the preparation of Sisters in Crime’s annual Summit Report on the publishing industry. The 2011 Publishing Summit Report will be distributed to Sisters in Crime members later this summer.

Enjoy ALA – and SinC Into a Great Mystery!