Book tours Archives - William Kent Krueger

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Left Coast Crime Memories

March 25, 2018

The sky is lazy blue, the sun boldly out, the distant mountaintops sugared with new snow, and I’m feeling pretty damn happy. I’m at the end of Left Coast Crime, a wonderful mystery conference in Reno, Nevada, where six hundred people have come together to celebrate the genre for which we all share a great love.

Over the last three days, I’ve spent time with old friends and made a slew of new ones. I was privileged to share the dais with some of the most intelligent, thoughtful, talented, and, very often, humorous writers imaginable. I played poker (and won!), drank a lot of wine, kvetched about this crazy publishing business we’re all a part of, and had the time of my life. The whole experience was beautifully capped when my book Sulfur Springs received the Lefty Award for Best Novel.

The world awaits, with all its uncertainties and challenges, but because of my time here in Reno, the river of goodwill I’ve been swept up in for days, and the great outpouring of affection I’ve felt, I return to that world with my heart full of energy and my spirit buoyed with hope.

The award!

Onstage at the LCC banquet.

Playing an improv game with co-Guest of Honor Naomi Hirahara.

With Diane at the Leftys banquet.

Guest of Honor interview with G.M. Malliet.

The Leftys Gang! James Ziskin, Terry Shames, Matt Coyle and me.

Book tours, Sulfur Springs

Come Shake My Hand

March 20, 2018

Posted by William Kent Krueger

Ten days ago, I participated in the Tucson Festival of Books. This coming weekend, I’ll take part in Left Coast Crime, a conference devoted to the mystery genre, which will be held in Reno, Nevada. In September, I’ll be at Bouchercon, the world mystery convention in St. Petersburg, Florida. And also that month I’ll be a part of the South Dakota Festival of Books.

That’s a lot of traveling, a lot of days out of my year. You probably think I do these things to promote my books. When I first became a published author, that was true. But I do them for an entirely different reason now, and here it is: Community.

In this day of instant internet communication, of Facebook and Snapchat and Pinterest and Twitter, human interaction has become virtual. We participate in list serves and chat groups. We email. We Skype. All well and good, but we don’t shake hands. We don’t hug. We don’t sit down over coffee or a beer and really talk. We don’t read faces or interpret body language or connect in all the ways our physical chemistry has evolved to help us understand one another as flesh and bone and blood human beings.

At a book conference or a book festival, I have that lovely opportunity to talk face-to-face with other authors and with readers who enjoy my work. We sit and share conversation. We absorb the humanness of one another. We create community. During these events, I see people roaming singularly and encountering a friend or two, and they become a group, and the group meets another, and like molecules colliding, they form whole new relationships. In the end, everyone feels a part of something much larger.

These days, I don’t do these events to promote myself or my work. I do them because I love what comes from them, which is connection, community. I do them because I’m with people who, like me, value the power of the written word and want to celebrate that. And, lest I forget, one of the important reasons I continue to do them is because they’re so damn much fun.

If you’ve never attended a mystery conference or taken the opportunity to visit a book festival, I can’t urge you strongly enough to get off your duff and come. Like the song says, “What good is sitting alone in your room?”

Book tours

2017 Highlights

December 29, 2017

Posted by William Kent Krueger

Looking back on some favorite memories from 2017…

March: In Arizona’s Red Rocks country, beside Dry Beaver Creek. But as you can see, in spring, it’s anything but dry. I took a solo hike into the back country to try to unravel a few knots in the plotting of the Cork O’Connor novel I’m working on right now, Desolation Mountain (#17 in the series). Walking alone is always a good way to let my imagination run wild. And even if the ideas don’t come, the hike is heavenly.

May: Can you go home again? The answer, I’m very happy to say, is a resounding, “Yes!” When I returned to Hood River, Oregon, where I’d spent some of the most important years of my life, I received the warmest of welcomes. My high school classmates, some of whom I hadn’t seen in nearly fifty years, the committee that had worked so hard to plan the Hood River Reads program, the students in the schools where I spoke, and the crowd who joined me at the library to hear what I had to say about Ordinary Grace, all embraced this prodigal son with an affection that moved me deeply.

June: Hanging tough at the California Crime Writers Conference in L.A. with Matt Coyle, Elizabeth Little, Hallie Ephron, Glen Hamilton and Craig Faustus Buck.

July: Hamline Church United Methodist partnered with the Ain Dah Yung Center (ADYC) for a pizza feed at the bread oven on the church’s lawn. ADYC is an amazing organization that houses Native youths who are homeless or whose home lives are precarious. The kids from Ain Dah Yung, other volunteers, and I pulled pizzas fresh from the wood-fired oven and served them—for free!—to anyone who dropped by.

August: Sulfur Springs was published, and one of the early stops on the book tour was Mystery to Me in Madison, WI.

September: It took eighteen books, but I finally cracked the top ten on the New York Times bestseller list. I not only cracked the list, but I cracked open a decent bottle of champagne to mark the occasion. A huge thank you to everyone out there who bought a book and helped me reach this moment!

September: My wife Diane and I color-coordinated with the Sulfur Springs cover for this signing at Book Passage in Marin County, CA.

September: On my way to the South Dakota Festival of Books in Deadwood, I paused at this magnificent statue of Sacagawea on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River just outside Chamberlain. It’s only a year old and is a striking tribute to the young woman without whom Lewis and Clark would, quite literally, have been up a creek.

September: I wrapped up my tour swing to the East with a signing at the wonderful Vero Beach Book Center, in Vero Beach, Florida. A full house and an attentive audience: what more could any author ask for? I followed up with a well-deserved drink on the beach.

October: A great big welcome from the public library in Kearney, NE, where I spoke at their One Author Kearney event.

November: Here I am in picturesque Grand Marais, MN, an iconic community on the shore of Lake Superior, just shy of the Canadian Border. I presented at the North Shore Readers and Writers Festival, organized by the Grand Marais Art Colony. A bunch of my good friends, also fine writers, were here as well, including Faith Sullivan, Peter Geye, Mary Casanova, and Erin Hart. It’s a wonderful festival, and if you’ve never attended, be sure to put it on your calendar for next year.

November: I had a lovely time on my birthday this year. Did some good writing in the morning, got in a workout, celebrated with my wife at a local fun spot—check out the photo—and polished off the evening watching one of my favorite Bogart movies, “The Maltese Falcon.” Every day should be so fine.

December: I finished up the year on the cover of Minnesota Good Age magazine. You can read the article here.

Happy New Year, and happy reading to all in 2018!

Book tours, Personal, Sulfur Springs

“Sulfur Springs” is out!

August 22, 2017

Posted by William Kent Krueger

I feel like a father who ought to be giving everyone cigars. My newest child comes out today. Sulfur Springs goes on sale at bookstores everywhere. It’s been available for pre-order via the Internet for some time now, but today it’s on bookshelf displays, and it’s such a thing of beauty. This is one of my favorite covers for one of my favorite novels in the series.

Sulfur Springs takes Cork out of his beloved Minnesota to Arizona, where he finds himself in the hostile Sonoran Desert, suffering in the blistering July heat, on a desperate search for the missing son of his new wife, Rainy Bisonette. It’s a wild ride of a story, involving drug and human trafficking across our border with Mexico, clashes between those who want to help the refugees and those who want to hunt them, and Cork’s gradual awareness that his new wife is keeping secrets from him that could prove fatal.

Beginning with the launch this evening at Once Upon A Crime, the fine mystery bookstore in Minneapolis, I’ll be on a long book tour until mid-November, making more than fifty appearances. If I’m going to be visiting a bookstore near you, I’d love to see you at the event. I promise you a good time.

Book tours, Sulfur Springs

“Sulfur Springs” is almost here!

July 19, 2017

Posted by William Kent Krueger

The launch of Sulfur Springs, the next book in my Cork O’Connor series, is just about a month away (August 22). Here’s a little of what Publishers Weekly had to say about the release:

“Former sheriff Cork O’Connor, Edgar-winner Krueger’s tragedy-plagued hero, faces further heartache in his moving and suspenseful 16th outing… As usual, Krueger does a fine job combining distinctive characters with a satisfying plot.”

The Book Spy review says, “The… suspense is like pouring gasoline on the fire, making William Kent Krueger’s latest novel one of his best thrillers yet.”

Signed Copies Available for Pre-order from Barnes and Noble!

My full, updated tour schedule is available here. If I’m not coming to a bookstore near you, but you would still like a signed copy, don’t despair. I’ve signed a thousand copies for Barnes and Noble. They’re available for pre-order; just use this link.

Of course, you can also order signed books from most of the stores where I’ll be appearing.

I hope to see you somewhere on the road!

Book tours, Sulfur Springs

Archive for Book tours

Left Coast Crime Memories

Come Shake My Hand

2017 Highlights

“Sulfur Springs” is out!

“Sulfur Springs” is almost here!

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