This past weekend, the annual New England Crime Bake, our regional mystery conference, took place in Dedham, Massachusetts. For 23 or 23 years, since it was born in Kate’s living room, crime writers at every stage of their writing career have gathered together to share knowledge, drink in the bar, share war stories and triumphs, and otherwise enjoy being in the company of others who know it is okay to hear voices in their heads so long as the resulting violence only takes place on the page.

The annual Crime Spell Books anthology was introduced at the Bake. Kate and Gabi both have stories in the collection.

Interested in learning about fire investigation? That was there.

How about crime scenes? Blood spatter? Crime scene investigation? That was there.

Flashwords. Lifetime Achievement. Welcoming first time authors? How about a noir-ish banquet? That was all there, too. And a whole lot of lobsters!

Our own newest member, Gabi Stiteler, was there…well, actually, everywhere since she was co-chair of the event.

Sadly, there don’t seem to be any photos of our own Matt Cost in his crazy shorts, looking like a well-tanned boat captain who just came ashore. Maybe we will still find one of those? As for the rest of us…some of us were definitely there. Jule Selbo doing a master class.

Kate Flora holding forth about creating tension and planting clues? This might be the world’s worst photo. But some people aren’t photogenic. At least the content was good. That red-faced critter down in the lower left is Kate.

Dick Cass was there, as was Brenda Buchanan.

Here’s Dick’s panel:

Maureen Milliken was there, taking notes. And collecting books and swag for the Maine Crime Writers tree she puts together for the August Elks annual tree event. Picture a holiday tree decorated in red and green skulls or maybe a lot of black cats?

Here, by the way, is our tree from last year: