A Tale of Two Writing Conventions by Susan Calder

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In August, I spent a weekend at When Words Collide Festival for Readers and Writers in Calgary, my hometown. This year marked the festival's 15th anniversary, and I've attended each year from the start. I love the energy, the learning, and the fun of catching up with people I only see once a year. 

About 900 writers and readers gathered at the downtown Hyatt Regency Hotel for panels, presentations and special events. They chatted and networked in the hallways and merchants' room. I sat on three panels, two of them related to short stories and the third about historical research and its application to stories. I learned a lot from the discussion with fellow panelists and from the other panels and talks I attended.        

A full room for our panel on crime short stories titled "50 Ways to Kill Your Lover."  

Despite the word "festival" in its name, WWC is really a convention like Bouchercon World Mystery Convention which arrives in Calgary nine days from now. I'll be there and look forward to experiencing the similarities and differences between the two festival/conventions.  

WWC is multi-genre, while Bouchercon is devoted to crime writing. B'con is a larger event. It spans five days vs. three days for WWC. Close to 1,500 people are expected to attend Calgary B'Con, which draws an international crowd. It takes place in different cities every year, usually in the United States. WWC is a Calgary event. Most registrants come from the local area, although people increasingly travel here from other Canadian provinces and beyond. B'con is a fan convention at heart. WWC offers more for writers than for readers. 

Popular WWC speaker, retired Calgary Detective Dave Sweet (middle), engages both writers and readers with his stories of police work. He'll be a Special Guest at Calgary Bouchercon.  

The Calgary B'con schedule is packed with offerings that interest me such as panels on historical writing and interviews with the eight author Guests of Honour: Louise Penny, Kathy Reichs, Abir Mukherjee, Mark Greaney, Jennifer Hillier, Vicki Delany, Kevin Sands, and P. J. Vernon. Posthumous Fan GoH Steele Currey was chosen for his long-time support of crime writing. Sadly, Steele died in November 2024. A special exhibit of his mystery, espionage, and thriller book collection donated to the University of Calgary will be displayed at the convention. 

I'll be on two B'con panels, one about the enduring appeal of traditional mystery stories and the other about the benefits for writers of conventions, festivals, book clubs, and critique groups. I've had experience with all of these things, and five of my six novels are traditional whodunit mysteries. It's been interesting to plan these panels with colleagues from Britain, the USA, and other parts of Canada. 

My fellow BWL author, Bonny Beswick, nabbed a twenty-minute spotlight talk on a topic relevant to Canadians: "Writing when it's so cold the ink in our pen freezes." She's generously invited the other attending BWL authors to join her. I'm especially eager to chat with Bonny and BWL writers donalee Moulton, Joan Donaldson-Yarmey, and David A. Poulsen at the convention.

Crime Writers of Canada will also feature me and four other writers in a media spot about Western Canadian writing. We all have short stories in the Sisters in Crime - Canada West anthology Crime Wave 4: Home Sweet Homicide, which will be launched at Bouchercon. 

I have a second short story published in the upcoming Murder Most Alberta Anthology, and I might read from the story at the twenty-minute spotlight for that book.  

Evenings at B'con will be for fun: Cozies and Cocktails Wednesday night. Thursday's Opening Ceremonies will include a White Hat Ceremony, Calgary's traditional welcome to visitors. 

At the WWC 2026 Opening Ceremonies, Special Guests received a received a warm Calgary welcome with gifts of white cowboy hats. 

Other evenings will offer a live auction, the 2026 Bouchercon Anthology signing, a pub trivia night, several awards ceremonies, and Author Bingo with free food at the Underrepresented Authors Reception.

Sunday's Closing Ceremonies will cap the five-day happenings with a Guest of Honour panel moderated by BWL author Dave Poulsen.  

When it's all over, I expect to be exhausted but pumped to dive into my writing.    

Fall Colours and Feedback – Barbara Wackerle Baker

 

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Happy fall. Happy bright colours. Happy thoughts of snow flurries starting soon. Yup, lots to be happy about.

Feedback on Book 4 of Jillian’s escapades trickles in. The good news is - no one hates it…yet. And there is no bad news…yet. Just areas to improve the story and, of course, editing misses. My editing misses. 

 

A few embarrassing notes I have to mention (consider it airing dirty laundry):

• How is it possible that I used ‘nod’ 124 times in 169 pages? WTH? And ‘smile’ 98 times. Hold on, it doesn’t stop there. I ‘wave’ 77 times. Thank goodness I only ‘inhaled’ 25 times. Trust me, you will never see me nod, wave or smile again. I will continue to inhale though. WORD read the novel to me numerous times. I never heard the repetitiveness. Certainly, never saw it.

• Now don’t get me started on my haphazard use of commas. I’m hopeless. But I try hard.

• Ditto with Canadian versus American spelling.

• And the typos that Spell Check didn’t squiggle underneath to get my attention because they are words – just the wrong words (sitings should be sightings, there’s should be theirs). Good grief. 

There are also comments about pacing, additional scene breaks required to smooth transitions and the need to tie chaos together for continuity and growth. Easy fixes that don’t make me want to throw my laptop out a window.

These helpful, wonderful folk found it all and I’m grateful to have them on my side. But darn it all, I’m a bit anal about perfection. Obviously, I need to ramp that trait up…a lot.

The overall positive feedback makes it easier to get outside and enjoy fall without feeling guilty about not chaining myself to the keyboard and hammering out another version. I’m thankful for that because the colours are stunning. Reflections…ditto. I’d say it’s my favourite time of year, but I have three other seasons vying for the same spot.

Once the rest of the critiques slide into my inbox, the edits will happen, chaos will be managed, and the comma issues…I’m not even sure what to say will happen to those unruly rascals. 

   

Until then you’ll find me on the trails snapping pictures. Unlike my overuse of nod, wave, smile and inhale, I have unlimited bytes for pictures. And I’ll be on paths where those dang words can’t follow me. 

 

Baker, Barbara - BWL Publishing Inc. (bookswelove.net)

Barbara Baker Author Page Facebook 

 

Summer of Lies by Barbara Baker — BWL Publishing

What About Me? by Barbara Baker — BWL Publishing

Jillian of Banff XO — BWL Publishing

Scotland 2026 by Naguib Kerba

 Scotland 2026 — Naguib Sami Kerba Photography

Fall Colour by J. S. Marlo

Wide of the Mark

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J. S. Marlo's Books

I grew up in Eastern Canada, and my favourite season has always been fall.

When I was young I loved school, so I was always excited to go back to school, and I was born in the fall. I also loved the change of colours, but at the time, I didn't realize how lucky I was to see such a beautiful scenery in my own backyard.

In my current northern corner of Canada, we have lots of evergreen and some deciduous trees, but no maple trees. In the fall, most leaves turn yellow than brown. Right now, the forest behind my house is a tapestry of dark green, light green, and yellow. It's pretty but it doesn't compare to the forests in Eastern Canada.

It's hard to explain to someone who's never seen maple trees how their leaves paint the forest in the fall. They turn sunny yellow, radiant orange, bright red, and every shade in between. Every tree is different. Some turn only one colour while others have leaves of different colours. 

I'm currently on vacation near where I grew up, in the middle of the change of colours. It had been over a decade since I was here in the fall, and it's even more beautiful than I remember. So, this month, I will leave you with these pictures.

Enjoy the fall!

JS

 

 

J. S. Marlo's Website

A Paranormal Investigation by Eileen O'Finlan

 

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In September I posted about meeting with Jo MacGugan, a paranormal investigator, as part of the research for my upcoming novel, The Haunting of Blackberry Hill. I want to have my characters bring in a team of paranormal investigators to help them figure out what is going on in their house. But I didn't know what exactly paranormal investigators do. During our conversation, Jo told me about an investigation that she would soon be doing in Worcester and suggested I attend.

The investigation was held at Salisbury House, the headquarters for Preservation Worcester, an organization that preserves the historic sites and structures of the city of Worcester, Massachusetts. It was built in the mid-1830s and is supposedly haunted. Jo and her colleague, Shannon, led the investigation. My friend, Carol, came with me and we, along with 14 other attendees accompanied them in their investigation of the ballroom, basement, an upstairs bedroom, and the attic. 

We got to see several pieces of paranormal investigation equipment in action. There were electronic voice phenomena recorders, electromagnetic field detectors, a few different response devices including my favorite, the Epoch Box which actually allowed spirits to answer us with a yes or no, infrared cameras, and, Jo's favorite, a spirit box.

We didn't actually see any ghosts (for which I am grateful) but we did hear a few voices when the recorders were played back that we definitely did not hear while the device was recording. The Epoch Box got a bit of a workout in the basement. And while up in the attic, a music box started playing by itself.

The spirit box came into use in the attic. My friend, Carol, was the first to try it. I gave it a go next. The spirit box is a small handheld device, not much bigger than a cell phone. The person listening to it wears a blindfold and noise-canceling headphones that are plugged into the spirit box. The rest of us asked questions of the spirit. The person with the spirit box can't hear any of the questions because of the noise-canceling headphones. All they can hear is what's coming from the spirit box which sounds just like someone flipping radio stations at high speed with a lot of static in between. If the spirit answers, it will come through in the static at which point, the person with the box is to say out loud whatever they hear.

When it was my turn, I thought I heard a voice in the static three different times, but I couldn't make out what was being said. It was definitely the same voice each time, though. 

I never thought I would take part in something like this. Though I love ghost stories and I'm fascinated by tales of hauntings, I'm a big chicken when it comes to putting myself in the way of it. Still, I'm very glad I did it. Having had that experience will allow me to write the scenes with the paranormal investigators with better accuracy and much more realistically. Thanks, Jo and Shannon!

Carol using the spirit box in the attic of the Salisbury House