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This past weekend, I was in Toronto for the Bloody Words mystery conference. As many people are aware, Toronto was an eventful place to be.
I took the 8:30 train Friday morning from Ottawa, arriving in Toronto around 1PM. If I had gone down Thursday morning instead (as most of the Ottawa-based members of Crime Writers of Canada did), I would have had to take a bus to Brockville to get a train the rest of the way. But by Friday, CP workers had been legislated back to work so the VIA trains (which use CP tracks between Ottawa and Brockville) were able to run normally.
The train got to Toronto more or less on time, and I was just a short walk from the hotel where the conference was to be held. Had it been an hour late or so, I would have been caught in the flood - Union Station was transformed into a sewage-plagued swimming hole when construction workers severed a water main on Front Street, and the subway station was out of commission altogether.
The weather was chilly and rainy however, so after checking into my hotel I decided it would be a good afternoon for indoor activities. I wandered up to the Art Gallery of Ontario to see the Picasso exhibit and a few of the permanent exhibits (Emily Carr and Group of Seven). Then I headed back to College Street and the Lillian Smith Branch of the Toronto Public Library, where I visited the Osborne Collection of children's literature and the Judith Merril science fiction collection (formerly known as the Spaced Out collection). I was back at my hotel in time to watch the news and see some incredible pictures of Union Station, and then watch Frank Foster get murdered on Coronation Street, before attending the first panel of the evening.
The main guest authors at the conference were Gayle Lynds, author of the Book of Spies, a mystery about the secret Library of Gold under the Kremlin; Linwood Barclay, who has written numerous bestselling thrillers; and Rick Blechta (who writes mysteries with musical themes). But there were many of my favourite authors there, including the usual Ottawa contingent, as well as some I had not heard of before but who will doubtless join my list of favourites.
Saturday morning I attended three panels, then left around noon for an extended lunch break and a visit to the Sleuth of Baker Street bookshop. As the next event I wanted to attend did not start till 3:30, I returned by way of the Eaton Centre food court where I stocked up on a few edibles. Of course, we all know what happened there just a few short hours later!
Saturday evening was the conference banquet and awards presentations and Sunday morning, I went to a presentation of a play: The State of New York vs. Peter Pan. It had originally been written and performed as part of a Fringe Festival and was really very funny. Tinkerbelle clearly isn't as naive as she looks (Disney might want to reconsider using her to introduce their show) and pixie dust should definitely be a controlled substance!
I had decided to stay over Sunday night as well, since I always find it a bit of a rush to get checked out of my hotel on a Sunday morning. So I had Sunday afternoon to wander about the city. I crossed York Street over to Harbourfront, browsed the museum of Inuit art at the Queen's Quay Terminal, and returned over to the east side of Front Street, ambling about the antiques stalls in the St Lawrence Market area. I went to Nicholas Hoare Books (soon to be the last in the country, if it isn't already), then up to Queen Street and back to my hotel. I had hoped to go into Indigo books but like the rest of the Eaton Centre, even with its separate entrance, it was "closed until further notice". I even managed a dip in the hotel pool. It would have been tempting to try to get tickets for the ballet version of Hamlet, which was playing at the centre right near the hotel, but by then I was rather tired and wanting to get packed and organized for my departure on Monday.
And so I survived my extended weekend in the big city, with lots of good reading ahead of me (and plenty of fodder if I ever get around to writing a crime novel myself!)
I took the 8:30 train Friday morning from Ottawa, arriving in Toronto around 1PM. If I had gone down Thursday morning instead (as most of the Ottawa-based members of Crime Writers of Canada did), I would have had to take a bus to Brockville to get a train the rest of the way. But by Friday, CP workers had been legislated back to work so the VIA trains (which use CP tracks between Ottawa and Brockville) were able to run normally.
The train got to Toronto more or less on time, and I was just a short walk from the hotel where the conference was to be held. Had it been an hour late or so, I would have been caught in the flood - Union Station was transformed into a sewage-plagued swimming hole when construction workers severed a water main on Front Street, and the subway station was out of commission altogether.
The weather was chilly and rainy however, so after checking into my hotel I decided it would be a good afternoon for indoor activities. I wandered up to the Art Gallery of Ontario to see the Picasso exhibit and a few of the permanent exhibits (Emily Carr and Group of Seven). Then I headed back to College Street and the Lillian Smith Branch of the Toronto Public Library, where I visited the Osborne Collection of children's literature and the Judith Merril science fiction collection (formerly known as the Spaced Out collection). I was back at my hotel in time to watch the news and see some incredible pictures of Union Station, and then watch Frank Foster get murdered on Coronation Street, before attending the first panel of the evening.
The main guest authors at the conference were Gayle Lynds, author of the Book of Spies, a mystery about the secret Library of Gold under the Kremlin; Linwood Barclay, who has written numerous bestselling thrillers; and Rick Blechta (who writes mysteries with musical themes). But there were many of my favourite authors there, including the usual Ottawa contingent, as well as some I had not heard of before but who will doubtless join my list of favourites.
Saturday morning I attended three panels, then left around noon for an extended lunch break and a visit to the Sleuth of Baker Street bookshop. As the next event I wanted to attend did not start till 3:30, I returned by way of the Eaton Centre food court where I stocked up on a few edibles. Of course, we all know what happened there just a few short hours later!
Saturday evening was the conference banquet and awards presentations and Sunday morning, I went to a presentation of a play: The State of New York vs. Peter Pan. It had originally been written and performed as part of a Fringe Festival and was really very funny. Tinkerbelle clearly isn't as naive as she looks (Disney might want to reconsider using her to introduce their show) and pixie dust should definitely be a controlled substance!
I had decided to stay over Sunday night as well, since I always find it a bit of a rush to get checked out of my hotel on a Sunday morning. So I had Sunday afternoon to wander about the city. I crossed York Street over to Harbourfront, browsed the museum of Inuit art at the Queen's Quay Terminal, and returned over to the east side of Front Street, ambling about the antiques stalls in the St Lawrence Market area. I went to Nicholas Hoare Books (soon to be the last in the country, if it isn't already), then up to Queen Street and back to my hotel. I had hoped to go into Indigo books but like the rest of the Eaton Centre, even with its separate entrance, it was "closed until further notice". I even managed a dip in the hotel pool. It would have been tempting to try to get tickets for the ballet version of Hamlet, which was playing at the centre right near the hotel, but by then I was rather tired and wanting to get packed and organized for my departure on Monday.
And so I survived my extended weekend in the big city, with lots of good reading ahead of me (and plenty of fodder if I ever get around to writing a crime novel myself!)
