My First LCC: Lynn Raimondo

My first LCC was Calamari Crime 2014 in beautiful Monterey, California. I’d always wanted to attend LCC, but up until then never seemed to find the time. When 2014 rolled around, I was determined to make up for lost opportunity. From afar, LCC seemed like the Baby Bear of crime writing conferences. Not too big, not to small, but just the right mix of programming, people and sightseeing in a destination city.

Is it also okay to admit that I was dying to get someplace warm? Those of you who don’t live on the West Coast may remember the winter of 2014. For Chicagoans it was the year of the polar vortex, one soul-crushing day of sub-zero temperatures after another. And did I mention snow? It started on the day after Halloween and by January my neighborhood could have been a stage set for Ice Station Zebra. The concept of walking around outside in fewer than five layers of wool, fleece and down seemed almost hallucinogenic.

So you can imagine the sensation of well-being that flooded me when I stepped off the plane in San Jose into warm, moist air. And saw trees with leaves. And flowers. I’d dragged my husband and son – neither, in fact, needed a gun to their heads – along on the trip with me and we spent a restorative two days in Big Sur before heading back up the coast to the Portola Hotel and Spa, located in Old Monterey next to Fisherman’s Wharf and the Marina. The setting couldn’t have been more idyllic.

As soon as we arrived, I headed off to rehearse with my panel of fellow lawyers, moderator Daco Auffenorde, Teresa Burrell, Susan Goldstein, and Robert Rotstein. Entitled “The Truth and Nothing But: Law and Murder,” it gave us a lot of latitude in what to talk about, and because we were up against some stiff competition, Daco came up with the brilliant idea of staging a mock trial in which each of us would play our series characters.

To our surprise, quite a few people chose us over Louise Penny, and we had a great time entertaining our audience with pretend courtroom proceedings. Here’s a picture of us in our costumes:

The fun didn’t end with our panel. Over the next two and a half days, I partied with old friends and made dozens of new ones, gathered tips from my fellow authors, made contact with readers and librarians, and generally had a blast. By Sunday, when it was time to head back to my frozen city, I knew LCC was one conference I was never going to miss. Ever. Again.

See you all in Phoenix!

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Lynn Raimondo is the author of Dante’s Wood, a Library Journal Mystery Debut of the Month, Dante’s Poison, and the recently released Dante’s Dilemma, all featuring Mark Angelotti, a blind, psychologically troubled forensic psychiatrist. Before turning to writing, Lynne was a partner at a major Chicago law firm, the general counsel of Arthur Andersen LLP, and the general counsel of the Illinois Department of Revenue.