Back from Bristol

My trip to Bristol was truly pleasurable. This weekend saw the first Crimefest, originally scheduled as a bi-annual event, but already the positive response from crime fans and writers has prompted a re-think, and the good news is that Crimefest will now return next year, as well as in 2010.

It’s not possible to cover everything that happened over the weekend in this post, but the first thing I’d like to say is that, as always, it was good to meet a number of pleasant people for the first time, as well as seizing any chance that presented itself to spend time with old friends. Of course, there’s never enough time over these weekends and I missed a few people I was looking out for.

Among fellow bloggers, I met Declan Burke, Petrona and Crimefic Reader at long last. It turns out that Declan, like me, will be heading to Baltimore for Bouchercon in October and it will be good to catch up with him again then. The writers I talked to whom I hadn’t met before included Laurie King, Pat McIntosh, John Macken and Patricia Finney. And also Dolores Gordon-Smith; in the ‘small world’ department, it turns out that her husband works closely with colleagues in my firm, and Dolores lives not too far away from me in Cheshire.

I’d also like to say that Adrian, Miles and their team did a great job of organising the event. It must be hard work, but as far as I could tell, everything ran smoothly and people enjoyed themselves. Which is the test of success for any convention.