Indiana Jonsing

Back in St. Louis. Back in my own bed. Back to my old bad habits. First a big thanks to Frank Bill and his lovely wife and apologies about the toilet. BTW they make some good sturdy industrial strength plungers in Indiana. Email Frank and I'm sure he can tell you where to pick one up. I got to see first hand the locations described in his dark stories of rural blood feuds as well as good hunting and fishing spots in the area. We stayed up too late talking reading, writing, horror movies and the guilty pleasures of Bud Light Lime. Yes, Blimey. Friday afternoon I drove up to Indianapolis and found a place to park, then made a line for the hotel bar. On the way to said bar I accosted Duane Swierczynski then made an ass of myself to Martyn Waites, Gary Phillips, Megan Abbott and Reed Farrell Coleman. A while later Anthony Neil Smith came to my rescue joined by fellow First Offender Karen E. Olsen who helped me learn some conversational subtleties that I put to good use when I chatted up Sophie Littlefield and Craig McDonald. Ran into fellow St. Louisans John Lutz, Robert Randisi and Rod Wiethop dragging their long suffering wives along to yet another event populated by misanthropic alcoholics. Scott Phillips showed up as I was sharing a "tall guy" moment with Kieran Shea and Seth Harwood and we were joined in dinner by Stacia Decker, John Rector, Dan O'Shea, Dennis Tafoya and other pleasant rummies too numerous to count with double vision. After dinner I made fan boy advances on Victor Gischler, Sean Doolittle, Dennis McMillan, Sean Chercover, Marcus Sakey, Alison Janssen, John and Ruth Jordan before retiring to befoul Greg Bardsley's bed, (cause he didn't arrive till Friday) in K-Shea's room. Shea was a class act it's gotta be said who made the whole thing possible for me. No way I could've afforded it without his offer of a place to sleep. In the morning Shea and I shared breakfast and spoke of our various projects then he encouraged me to sneak into a noir panel featuring Mr. Gischler and Christa Faust before skipping town to attend to aforementioned familial commitments. Thanks to everybody who made the trip a possibility and a pleasure.