Who says no one reads anymore? Check out the LA Times Festival of Books!

I recently came back from my third L.A. Times Festival of Books, held on the beautiful UCLA campus.

It's a hard scene to describe. Tens of thousands --some say hundreds of thousands--of people from all over the country descend upon the main UCLA campus, where hundreds of tents are set up featuring all things book related: publishers (both large and small presses), authors of all stripes, reading paraphernalia, and books: children's books, travel books, art books, coffee-table books, romance books, literary books, research books...and, of course, mysteries!




It was very, very hot...but the readers and fans came, undaunted.














Here I am, looking about as hot and sweaty as I felt (and I don't mean that in a "she's soooo hot" kind of way...!) Many thanks to Mark Coggins for the photo...why do I NEVER remember to bring a camera?
I signed all three of my books, Feint of Art, Shooting Gallery, and Brush with Death, at several booths: Mysterious Galaxy, Book 'Em, and LA Sisters in Crime. I also sat the Mystery Writers' of America table at the LA Mystery Bookstore, where I was quite literally shoulder-to-shoulder with the charming Catherine Coulter.

All in all, it was an inspiring, though sweaty, weekend. Wonderful to be around all those lovers of the written word in its myriad forms. And we even got out of Westwood for an evening, traveling to Koreatown to eat many kinds of meat cooked at our table. It was great fun...especially the
Soju (otherwise known as Korean saki).

The festival takes place every spring around this time. If you're around next year, I'll see you there!