RARA-AVIS: Bouchercon Noir Panel

From: Brian Thornton ( tieresias@worldnet.att.net)
Date: 13 Sep 2007


Dear Fellow Rare Birds-

I've been tapped to moderate this year's Bouchercon Noir Panel up in Anchorage. Since I just received word from my pal Ken Bruen that he has to drop out of B'con this year (health reasons), our panelists this year will include:

Rara Avis' own Vicki Hendricks Bill Cameron (author of LOST DOG) Sean Doolittle (most recently author of the Anthony-nominated THE CLEAN-UP) Julia Spencer-Fleming (author of a series about a female parish priest in Appalachia who has an affair with a married cop in her small town. I confess that I haven't read anything by her yet, although I'll have finished her latest by the time B'con rolls around)

This year's noir panel theme is going to revolve around why people write what they write (thanks for your answers to the questionaire, Vicki. Quite illuminating), why some people who don't consider themselves noir writers are considered "noir" by others, how the explosion of "neo-noir" and the subsequent hot commodity status of noir fiction has spawned an "everything's noir now" marketing movement within publishing itself (in just one step in the never-ending quest to sellsellsell), with the results that the concept of "noir" fiction has been abused so badly that the definition itself is almost meaningless in the opinions of many.

For example, I know an author with a medieval mystery coming out next year that she is billing as a "medieval noir." When I asked her why it was "noirish" and not, say, "gothic," she allowed that it was more "hardboiled" than "noirish," and I was and remain skeptical about that. Obviously, I haven't read it yet, but it did get me thinking.

So I'll be asking some leading questions of our worthy panelists, some of whom consider their own work noir, and some of whom don't. Most of whom have fans somewhere who consider their work "noir," or at least "noirish," and then, like a good moderator, I'll be getting out of their collective ways and letting them shine.

If you're coming to B'con I sure hope to see you at the panel (or afterward, maybe in the bar). Whether or not you're planning on attending the con, I'd welcome thoughts from any of our merry band who are interested in addressing the above notions. Bear in mind that I'm not invested in the notion either way, and can certainly see many sides to the question of the status of what consitutes noir these days. I'd just really love some input from you folks.

After all, I learn so much just from being a member of RA, a lot of it from those worthies with whom I often disagree the most. For that, I am profoundly grateful.

All the Best-

Brian Thornton

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