Talking About Books

[Peg Herring]

Met a friend for lunch yesterday for the express pleasure of talking about books, publishing, authors, reading, and writing. Some of you might have regular contact with others in the biz, but living in rural northern Michigan limits my opportunitites, and I'm lucky if I get to speak to someone who really knows the stresses of publishing once a month. I'm sure I bore my friends silly with talk of edits and pub dates, and many of them struggle to keep up with the argot.

But lunches with those as crazed as I am on the subject are days to be savored. Topics are visited and revisited: what is it that's wrong with that cozy? What was Author X thinking when she wrote that one? Will Author Y's new stand-alone be well received, and how did he get his publisher to agree to that new direction?

Others might wonder (I'm sure the waitress did when we hit the third hour) what is so fascinating. But we know. We know.

[P.J.]

Yes, we do. Sometimes just finding someone who "gets" mystery is a blessing, much less someone who is as involved as I am, albeit in slightly different ways.