Today was a good day.
Breakfast consisted of decaf coffee. While drinking, I ran into my friend Sophie Littlefield, who was about to host a panel on relationships in suspense fiction and the panelists were none other than JT Ellison and Erica Spindler. The panel was mainly for aspiring writers, but I snuck it anyway. The panel went quite well and provided a wealth of information for everyone. My personal highlight came near the end when a member of the audience asked about maintaining tension in a novel and JT singled me out as a writer who was able to sustain tension effectively over a long period of time. What a nice thing to say.
Lunch was with my former agent, Matt Hudson, who is now at a book packager called Full Fathom Five. It was lovely spending an hour with him at an organic sandwich place just south of Bryant Park; we talked about the highs and lows and utter weirdness of the publishing business. As I had some time to kill after lunch, I moseyed over to the Mid-Manhattan branch of the NYPL and read a play entitled CHILD’S PLAY, written by Robert Marasco in the early 70s. Very creepy play – which is not surprising since he wrote one of my favorite horror novels, BURNT OFFERINGS.
And then it was off to the Drama Book Shop to spend some time with a very talented actress (and college pal) named Jen McGuire. We exchanged tales of neuroses and tidbits of wisdom over tea and juice. After this, I ducked into Rockefeller Plaza to avoid a sudden cloudburst and mingled among the tourists until 6pm, when I met up with another college friend, Jordan White, for dinner at the Carnegie Deli. After he and I finished our meals, the waiter gave us the check and hastened to add that we could stay at the table as long as we wanted; five minutes later, he returned and promptly encouraged us to leave. Ah, NY. Jordan and I made our way to Midtown Comics where he twisted my arms (not really) into purchasing several trades he recommended.
Tomorrow I won’t be leaving the hotel at all. I have panels all day (and all day Saturday). This is not a complaint; this is merely a statement of fact. I am very, very excited to be here.