Nicola Does Dedham! New England Crimebake and research trip to Boston

Crimebake

I returned this week from an adventure in Massachusetts, where I attended the New England Crimebake conference in Dedham and then stayed on in Boston to sightsee and do some research for a couple of days.

Although Air Canada oversold my flight and lost my luggage for three days,  I can’t say enough good things about Crimebake – the food and service at the hotel were great, and the speakers and sessions were awesome.

Some of the topics covered included:

• investigation tips and techniques from real-life police officers and PIs
• how to conduct great research interviews (especially useful for aspiring true crime writers!)
• writing great settings
• developing a series

and lots more!

There were also sessions on developing your manuscript and query letter/pitch, individual pitch sessions with authors, and round table discussions with various experts.

One of my favourite things about the conference was the mock crime scene that was set up. A retired MA State Police Lieutenant went over the scene with us at the end of the conference and showed us in detail how the clues would be interpreted to catch the criminal. This included really fascinating information about things like blood spatter patterns, canvassing a neighbourhood, and crime scene contamination. Definitely stuff I’ll use in my writing!

Although most writers who attended were more firmly in the “crime writer” category than I am as a romance author, I didn’t see this as a downside. Instead, it gave me a chance to meet lots of writers I wouldn’t otherwise have come into contact with, and I learned things that I wouldn’t have at a romance writers’ conference. If your primary motivation in attending Crimebake is pitching to agents/editors, though, you might want to keep the demographics in mind.

One other major plus about this conference (in my mind at least) – I learned to line dance!

All in all, I had a great time. Schedule and finances permitting, I’ll definitely be back next year.

Boston

Once I left Dedham, I headed in to Boston to sightsee and research the city a bit, since most of my fiction is set in MA and I expect Boston to figure more prominently in my work as I go. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I took lots!

After the conference, I took the commuter train to Boston and felt very accomplished and adventurous. We don’t have a very sophisticated transit system here in little ol’ Halifax, Nova Scotia (buses only, no trains or subway), so I’m very impressed with myself when I go to a bigger city and manage to find my way around.

My first night in Boston, I just wandered around to get the lay of the land. I checked out the Christian Science Center reflecting pool (no water in it for the winter, but the fountain/courtyard are still beautiful) and then I went to Feneuil Hall to check out the tourist shops and food. I LOVE gift shops and touristy knickknacks with a passion, so it was very difficult to restrain myself, but I managed not to buy any junk I didn’t need.

 

One thing that stumped me was the pronunciation of Feneuil Hall. It looks like French pronunciation should apply (sort of like Fen-oi), but apparently you say Fen-you-ell. When I tried to say it to a cab dispatcher for the first time, she actually had no idea what I meant!

Another thing I noticed about Boston is that everyone jaywalks like crazy – you Bostonians are all jaywalkin’ maniacs! No one waits for a light to change, ever. They just go for it and the cars have to stop whether they want to or not. I asked a Bostonian about it and he said it’s because the police don’t give out fines for jaywalking, which I guess makes sense, but I’ve never heard of a jaywalking fine in Halifax and we definitely wait at the crosswalk. I guess we’re just a bunch of scaredycats here!

I also went to the central location of the Boston Public Library – and friends, I was in book-loving heaven. The marble! The old books! That reading room!

Since I’m a huge animal lover, I was really pleased to meet the ginormous grey squirrels that run rampant in the Boston Public Garden. They’re so bold, they scamper right up to you in anticipation of being fed. The owner of the B&B I stayed in was less enthusiastic since they dig in his garden and hide things there, but I thought they were adorable.

Another thing Boston has that Halifax doesn’t is an aquarium. I have been to very few aquariums in my life, so the New England Aquarium was pretty thrilling.

(Insider tip, I think they have the best gift shop in Boston. Want a painting made by a seal? This is the place to get it. I didn’t buy one because the price was a bit much, but man, I was tempted).

Finally, I also checked out a bunch of museums, including:

• the Museum of Natural History at Harvard. (People kept thinking I was a student the whole time I was in Boston. I’ll have you know I am a VERY SERIOUS BUSINESSWOMAN. Yeah, sure…)
• and the Museum of Fine Arts

Do I have any readers out there who are from Boston? Anyone else ever visited Boston? Let me know what I should see next time I go!