Authors for Indies Day!

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This past Saturday, May 2nd, was Authors for Indies Day in Canada and Independent Bookstore Day in the U.S―a day when authors spent time visiting local independent bookstores, not to talk up their own books, but to talk up everyone’s books and to support local bookstore owners. I took part in Author Day at my favourite local bookstore, A Different Drummer Books. Joining me was an impressive roster of local authors: Linwood Barclay, Rebecca Bender, Melodie Campbell, Gillian Chan, Jill Downie, Bonnie Lendrum, Sylvia McNicoll, Janet Turpin Myers, John Lawrence Reynolds, Gisela Tobien Sherman, and Joyce Wayne.

The crowd of authors and readers milling around as we were starting:

Fellow Crime Writers of Canada writers Jill Downie (left) and Melodie Campbell (right) with Jill’s husband, actor Ian Downie. Yes, that is TWO PARTS BLOODY MURDER that Melodie is holding:

Brilliant Canadian thriller writer (and hometown boy), Linwood Barclay:

Our host, the wonderful Ian Eliott, welcoming us to the store and the event:

 

The crowd listening to Ian. It was only when I lowered my phone and looked at my picture that I realized who’d snuck in when I didn’t even know she was coming:

A lovely display of visiting authors’ books. If you look hard, you’ll see I didn’t do a good job of capturing all three of our novels on the far end of the table (we’d sold a bunch so the piles were low, always a good thing…):

Hopefully some of you heard about it and got out to support your wonderful local independent booksellers. Thanks to the national organizers of Authors for Indies Day! It was a roaring success and we’ll all be back to do it again next year!