St Hilda's Crime and Mystery Week-end

I've just returned from Oxford after taking part in the St Hilda's Crime and Mystery Week-end -the 23rd year this conference has taken place under the admirable stewardship of Eileen Roberts and Kate Charles. The company of fellow readers and writers was very convivial, as always, and the weather was kinder than the forecast had threatened. Talks were chaired by Natasha Cooper with her customary excellence, and although other commitments meant she had to leave early, Andrew Taylor was the perfect substitute to bring on from the bench.

There was a varied group of speakers, including Andrew (who discussed historical crime fiction), Marcia Talley (very good on "cozy crime") and Sarah Weinman, whose topic was domestic suspense. The international guest of honour was Lee Child, and the Friday night dinner speaker was Ted Childs, the ITV guru responsible for Inspector Morse. Val McDermid was the after dinner speaker on Saturday. I learned something from all of them.

My talk was "Trending - Why is Golden Age fiction fashionable again?" I shared a platform with Carol Westron, who talked about "rules" during the Golden Age. And here let me tell a perfectly true story. I was first asked to speak at St Hilda's a long time ago; my topic was Balliol's crime writers and I was very nervous. I felt the content was okay, but (although people said nice things about the talk) I felt my delivery of the material was flawed by anxiety.. The truth is that, although I've done a lot of public speaking and advocacy in my twin careers as solicitor and writer, it's not something that has ever come naturally to me. Perhaps it's odd, but I find reading from a prepared text harder than talking without notes on a favourite topic, and making it up as I go along.  But I've spoken at St Hilda's several times now, and I'm glad to say that it's become progressively easier for me. This year I worried less in advance about my presentation than I have done previously. So I've gained confidence - but it has taken a long time, perhaps longer than most members of the audience would guess.

As ever, the social side of the week-end was hugely enjoyable.. Before the conference began, I was glad to have the chance of dinner with my old friend Ann Cleeves, and on the Saturday night, those at my table included two superstars of the genre, Lee Child and Val McDermid, along with Andrew, who is one of the contemporary crime writers whom I most admire.. It was really rather memorable, and for me it was - quite genuinely - an honour to be part of it all.. .

St Hilda's Crime and Mystery Week-end

St Hilda's Crime and Mystery Week-end is a crime conference with a distinctive and delightful personality which makes it very different from other crime-related events. The setting is St Hilda's College, Oxford, and I'm just back from the twentieth conference, which was, if anything, even more enjoyable than usual. The fact that this week-end is not advertised, has no promotional website, and yet has flourished for two decades, speaks for itself. When people do find out about it, and attend, they tend to love it, and go back year after year. There's no clearer sign of success than that.

The theme this year was "The Present and Future of Crime Fiction" and when I was asked to deliver a paper, I thought I would be very crafty and find a neat way to weave a talk about the Golden Age into the over-arching theme. What I hadn't anticipated was that some other writers would have the same idea - and my talk was on Saturday afternoon, while just before lunch P.D. James herself would be speaking about....the Golden Age.

P.D. James was aptly described by Natasha Cooper, the chair of the conference, as the true Queen of Crime and it was wonderful to see that her audience regarded it as a true privilege to be able to listen to her. And so it was. Fortunately for me, there was no overlap between her topics of mine, and one of the more daunting experiences of my public speaking career (yet a real honour) was to see Baroness James herself sitting in the front row to listen to my paper. I did feel a bit nervous, having foolishly said the previous evening that I feel more confident about speaking in public nowadays than I used to, but I managed to get through to the end without drying up completely. The papers are delivered in pairs, so P.D. James spoke along with Frances Fyfield, while I was paired with Peter Robinson - and it was very good to catch up with him again over the week-end.

The other speakers included Andrew Taylor (talking about C.S. Forester), and Val McDermid, while two after dinner speeches were given by Bernard Knight on the Friday, and Cilla Masters on the Saturday. There was also an extremely interesting panel chaired by Ayo Onatade on the future of crime publishing. The attendees included quite a number of notable writers who weren't actually speaking - a few examples include Frances Brody, Ann Granger, Marjorie Eccles, Kate Ellis, and AK Benedict - while I met several writers whose first books are due to appear shortly. As ever with these events, the combination of catching up with old friends and meeting new people was very pleasurable.

Much of the success of St Hilda's is down to continuity and the sterling efforts of the organisers, Kate Charles and Eileen Roberts, and Natasha Cooper, who chairs quite brilliantly in a calm, efficient and extremely generous style that few if any could match. This trio put a huge amount of work into the event, and their reward is simply that they give a lot of people a great time.If you've never attended St Hilda's, I do recommend it very strongly. The dates for next year are 15-17 August 2014.

St Hilda's

The 18th St Hilda's College Crime and Mystery conference was another triumph for organisers Kate Charles and Eileen Roberts, as well as for Natasha Cooper, who chaired the sessions with the unobtrusive excellence as well as efficiency that seem to come so naturally to her.

I was glad to share a platform with Andrew Taylor, who gave a very good talk about Wilkie Collins - my subject was the British lawyer-author, with special focus on Cyril Hare and Michael Gilbert. Among the highlights of a varied programme, Ayo Onatade gave fascinating insight into the world of the courts, while Val McDermid spoke very interestingly about justice, referring to one of her own excellent thrillers, A Place of Execution. What I didn't know was that the book was inspired by a true crime case - which she learned about from our mutual friend, the true crime expert Douglas Wynn.

As ever, there was the chance to meet pleasant people for the first tme as well as to renew old friendships. I was glad, for instance, to have a chat with Marcia Talley, who is in the foreground in the photo. Marcia is an accomplished American author who is a regular attendee at St Hilda's.

It was a real privilege to be invited to take part, and I'm very grateful to Kate and Eileen for all their hard work. After an excellent but very hectic week, I must admit I was pretty exhausted by the time I was driving home. But it was well worth it.

A Happy Day

Life has been frenetic recently, but this has certainly been a great and memorable week as far as I'm concerned. With more to come, given that I'm heading off tomorrow for the St Hilda's Crime and Mystery Conference at Oxford, organised by that splendid writer Kate Charles, and Eileen Roberts. It's always a fun week-end. I missed it last year because of holidays, but a couple of years ago I had a terrific three days there. This time I'm giving a talk on 'The British Lawyer-Author'. Val McDermid and Frances Fyfield are among the other speakers.

The trip to Oxford is all the more timely given that this morning was devoted to a trip to my daughter Catherine's sixth form college (once a grammar school, which I attended long ago, but now scarcely recognisable from the 70s buildings). The aim was to learn her A Level results, given that the UCAS website had crashed. Was it an omen? Fortunately not, as she did extremely well and secured her place at Lincoln College, Oxford, to read German and Italian. So I am a proud father, but proud most of all because she has worked hard and deserves the wonderful experiences that should accompany her time as a student. Whatever the media might suggest, not all teenagers are rioting looters, in fact those I know are all very good people: and thankfully they are in the vast majority.

Then it was a mad dash to Southport, to the resort's Flower Show, a major annual event. This year they were featuring books and writers as well as much else besides (which accounted for a burst of 'The Hallelujah Chorus' halfway through our gig.) I shared a platform with Kate Ellis, and we had plenty of books to sign, always good for morale. The photo shows us in the company of another Ellis (no relation). Ron is a crime writer I've known for many years, and he also published one of Kate's books a few years back. Kate, her husband Roger and I than wandered round the Show, which was quite fascinating. The second photo is of one of the show gardens. I do love gardens, and The Cipher Garden may not be the last book I write with a gardening backdrop.

There are times when it seems increasingly difficult to fit in the day job, I must admit! But I remind myself I'm lucky to have these two lives. And this week, also, I've moved office - for the first time in 31 years. As you can deduce, I'm not the most daring and adventurous person in the world! But it's all contributed to a remarkable few days.

St Hilda's

I’m really pleased to have been invited to Oxford, to speak at the St Hilda’s College Crime and Mystery week-end in August. This is an event which I’ve attended two or three times before, although not for a few years. St Hilda's was, until recently, a college exclusively for female students. Val McDermid is an alumna, and in fact she and I were contemporaries at the university, though our paths did not cross until many years later.

My previous visits to the St Hilda's week-end have been pretty memorable – I met Anne Perry and Susanna Gregory here for the first time, for instance, and remember a hugely enjoyable visit to an Inspector Morse exhibition with the likes of Colin Dexter and Andrew Taylor, as well as a delightful lunch with a retired tutor from my old college.

The two principal organisers are Kate Charles, a former chairman of the CWA and a much under-rated writer, and Eileen Roberts, who spent a good many years at St Hilda’s and retains her connection with the event, which is especially popular with American crime fans, as well as members of Mystery Women. It was at St Hilda’s that I was encouraged by those great crime enthusiasts Lizzie Hayes and Ayo Onatade to follow Andrew Taylor’s lead and become an honorary Mystery Woman. Which I remain to this day!

The topic for the week-end (at which the speakers deliver papers with a unifying theme) is ‘the wages of sin’, and in due course I’ll have to think about an interesting way of addressing the subject. Any suggestions of an angle that readers of this blog would find appealing will be gladly received!