New Orleans Bouchercon...Blood on the Bayou: Case Closed!

Bouchercon 2025--BLOOD ON THE BAYOU: CASE CLOSED--at the Marriott Hotel in New Orleans Sept. 3-7, 2025.

I was extremely excited about this conference. I had originally been scheduled to moderate a panel on writer's block for the New Orleans Bouchercon back in 2022, but a huge spike in COVID cases in New Orleans proper that year canceled the conference only two weeks before the starting date.

We rolled into New Orleans on Wednesday about noon. While settling into the room, my wife saw that Caesar's was holding a No Limit Hold 'Em tournament that night. Now, I'm a sucker for NLH tourneys, so I went over about a half hour before the starting time. You cannot imagine how disappointed I was when they told me I was the only entry so far, but we decided to wait around, knowing that regulars often don't show up until the last minute. Sure enough, there were 10 of us when the tournament started.

Now, if you're not familiar with NLH tournaments, they usually have a late registration/rebuy period, often to the first or second break. By the late registration deadline, we had more than 40 players, so it was a decent-sized tournament after all. I cashed in second place and won enough to pay for our trip! Great start to this conference, right?

On Thursday morning, I moderated a panel on "Writer's Block: Finding Inspiration in Unexpected Places." Panel members were authors Jonathan Maberry, Thekla Madsen, Josh Pachter, Robin Somers, and Polly Stewart. A couple of the authors claimed to never have writer's block, but when they spoke, it was evident that what they DID have were strategies that helped them NOT have writer's block.

I was a member of a Friday afternoon panel ("Crime is Bigger in Wide Open Spaces") that included Craig Johnson, the author of the Longmire series of novels, which were the basis of the well-received Netflix series of the same name. Other authors on the panel included Jeff Ayers, Bruce Bogos, and V.P. Chandler. It was moderated by Saylissa Franklin. It was especially fun for me because I spent 20+ years as a journalist in Texas and Oklahoma, covering crimes in some of the less-than-urban locations, and most of my stories are set in rural areas and towns.

All in all, it was a good conference. I spent one delightful evening in the lobby lounge with authors Reavis Wortham and John Gilstrap. Got some valuable insights into the next leg of my writer's journey. And of course, we ate WAY too much really good food. Next event will probably be the Western Writers of America Convention in St. Louis June 17-20, 2026, in St. Louis, MO. See ya there!