MALICE DOMESTIC by Gloria Alden

At the beginning of this month my friend Irma Baker and I went to Malice Domestic in Bethesda, Maryland at the Marriott Hotel. I’ve gone to Malice Domestic, a mystery writers and readers’ conference for over twenty years, and it was nice to visit with people I’d met before as well as the banquets. We were given a heavy cloth bag when we signed in containing eight books in it.

Our room was very nice and had comfortable beds, too, with windows letting sunshine in during the day.   

There was a guy with a table displaying all the books he published on a table for free. Unfortunately, I didn’t find the table until there was only one book left. I wasn’t really looking for it. There is a woman there who sells books on the hotel’s lower level, and I always buy a book or two from her, too. I felt sorry for her because she wasn’t selling as many because of the free books being given away.

There were several banquets with good food and people who stood at the front and talked to those of us at the table eating breakfast and later dinners. There were tables in an open area where we could sit at tables and order lunch, breakfast too, except when there was a breakfast for everyone one morning, or dinner if there wasn’t a banquet that evening. At one of the banquets those who had won awards for their books were introduced and everyone applauded.

It was nice meeting people I already knew and meeting new people, too. The nice part was if someone looked familiar they were wearing their name tag with their name and where they lived so one could walk up to them and see who they were, and were they were from.

I was on a panel called Detecting Duos the day before we left. It was nice, but not a lot of people were there to listen to us.

Irma and I left on Sunday and headed for Alexandria to visit two friends of hers. One was Cecilia who had us stay for supper – pizza. After that we went to the Best Western Hotel where we spent the night and had breakfast in their basement area with wonderful food and all free, too.

After we left and went to a nursing home where Irma’s other friend lives. She is not in good shape so I stayed in the lobby reading a book while Irma spent an hour with her in her room.  Then we left and headed towards home stopping for lunch at a restaurant that had delicious food.

We didn’t get home until after six o’clock Monday evening. I so wanted to get home and see my dog, Maggie. My daughter called me as we left Pennsylvania and went into Ohio to see how soon I’d be there. She told me Maggie was really missing me.

Have you ever gone to Malice Domestic?

Do you think you’d like it if you haven’t been yet?