This year I'm the vice-president of the Crime Writers of Canada. I like the organization, it's small but it's coast to coast in Canada and a pretty diverse bunch; from international bestsellers Linwood Barclay, Louise Penny, Giles Blunt and Peter Robinson to "pre-published" members.
We hold our Annual General Meeting at the Bloody Words Convention which this year will be in Ottawa from June 5th to 7th.
The CWC represent crime writers at events like BookExpo and Word on the Street, we publish a catalogue of member's books, send out a newsletter and notices of member's book launches and readings and organize the Arthur Ellis Awards for crime writing in Canada.
So far in my vice-presidency all I've managed to do is talk to the folks at Sony about a discount on their e-reader for our members (right now it looks good, more info to follow).
My question now is, what do people look for in writers' organizations? What should we be doing at the Crime Writers of Canada to better serve our members and maybe even to get more members?
Of course, this wouldn't be my blog without a little self-promotion, so I'll just say that yesterday Thomas Dunne Books agreed to publish Swap in the USA in early 2010. I'll have more on that soon.
