Hot Book Fair

Had a great book fair at GenProbe today in San Diego. The temperature outside climbed up and over the record. A hundred degrees for San Diego in November? It was cool and comfortable in the Garden Atrium at GenProbe a high-tech company that makes diagnostic products for the medical laboratory. One of my last research products was testing out their genetic probes for early detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis the causative agent of TB. This nasty bug took a long time, weeks sometimes, to expose itself on conventional growth media. In acute cases you could often pick up the disease on stained smears of sputum. Their product was break-through technology for the early diagnosis of TB in respiratory specimens. That was just the beginning of their huge success. They own three, huge, modern buildings.

My cousin is their document manager and asked if I could attend the annual book and gift fair today. I sold several books which always makes me happy. It was fun. The facility is not open to the public so it was just GenProbe employees that attended during their breaks and lunch. "Books For Fun" was the main vendor.

Tomorrow is the first day of the La Jolla Writer's Conference. Conference fee covers over 85 lectures/workshops held during the conference. Attendance is limited to 200 which gives ample opportunity for writers to mix and speak with the faculty who are publishers, writers and literary agents. James Frey of Opra fame, is to be one of the key note speakers. Remember the dressing down he received on the Opra Winfrey TV show when she discovered that his nonfiction book "A Million Little Pieces" was a pack of lies. He told the publisher  that some of the story was made up, but the publisher wanted it classified as nonfiction.

Also this week Escondido Library invited one of our most celebrated fiction writers, James Huston of "Marine One" and "Falcon Seven" fame. He is a most interesting speaker, prolific writer and works full time in his law practice investigating airplane accidents. Said he dictates everything onto a Dictaphone while driving on the freeway.  After he completes the story, his secretary types it out and it will take him several months to edit and finalize for the publisher.

Next week is the TRAC conference in Sacramento. During the conference, they want me to introduce my book to the members. TRAC is a California rail group.

In between, I getting some research done for the next writing effort. I'm taking on non-fiction story of true crime. I have a proposal ready to pitch at the writer's conference. I get a 7-minute "pitch slot" of which 2 minutes is the pitch and 5 minutes for the critique.