I’m going back to old-school blogging for a moment to talk about Crime Bake 2025, from which I returned yesterday. I’ll say up front that I had a great time and met quite a few people I didn’t know or had only known on the periphery of the New England crime writing community. I’ll also add the disclaimer that I am on the Crime Bake committee, so I’m going to be a little bit biased.

The Guest of Honor this year with Lori Rader-Day, and she was fabulous. Like Gabino Iglesias the year before, she was friendly, affable, approachable, down-to-earth, and honored to be there. I actually got the chance to speak to her one-on-one for a bit at the banquet, and she was lovely.

Being on the committee, I didn’t get the chance to attend maybe all of the panels I would have liked to. Especially since I was moderating one of them.

I was asked to moderate the Civic Duty: Writing About Social Issues panel. It can be a heavy topic, and certainly there were some heavy moments when the panelists were answering. But we had a terrific group of panelists (Richie Narvaez, Jeff Markowitz, and Courtney Denelle), and they were open and honest about their experiences and how they approach the craft of writing when it comes to folding social issues into their fiction. We heard some really great things from those who attended (to which I felt extremely relieved–this was my first time moderating a panel!).

The banquet was later that night, and aside from a few hiccups, it went smoothly. And then attendance remained pretty high for the Sunday morning non-fiction authors/experts, which is saying quite a lot considering there are plains and trains to catch.

A few personal highlights for me:

• I finally got the chance to meet Sara, my editor for The Last Line in person. It was so lovey to meet her and catch up on the last year.
• Back in March I helped run a writing retreat in Orange, MA. It involved providing some prompts and some writing time. Basically, I would show several images of places and characters and give the group fifteen minutes to write. Then I would pause them, show them images of various “things”, and give them another fifteen minutes, the idea being they must now fold the “thing” into whatever they were writing. One of the participants attended Crime Bake for the first time this year and told me that she continued what she had started using my prompts, and that it was the first time she finished writing a full-length novel. That made me warm and fuzzy.

The number of first time attendees this year was significant, which was a great improvement over last year. And the best story of attendance we heard was about an online writing group that is spread over at least two continents. They had wanted to meet in person, and they chose Crime Bake to do it! One came from as far away as Oregon and another from London, England.

We heard a number of times that this was the best Crime Bake in a number of years, and I’m very proud to have been able to be a part of planning it. Kick-off for planning 2026 is in December, and I’m already thinking through ideas for programming and the banquet.