Kicking and screaming into the, uh, twentieth century.

To Valhalla (no, not that one, the one in New York) and to Portland (no, not those two, the one in Connecticut) for, respectively, my sixth appearance at the Young Authors Conference for high school students and my fifth appearance at the Unicorn Writers Conference for anybody.

This year, they fall within a couple of days of each other, and I decide it's about time I went hi-tech. Well, hi-er tech, but that's not hard when in previous years I've managed with a flip chart and a blown-up Peanuts cartoon mounted on a giant piece of foamboard.

My presentation to the young authors is called "Just Shoot, Stab, Strangle, Smother, or Poison Me: Writing the Murder Mystery." For the older punters, it's "The Top Ten Things You Need To Know About Writing a Murder Mystery."

(No mystery about where I nicked that idea. And imagine my embarrassment when at the presenters' dinner I found myself sitting next to the former head writer for "Late Night With David Letterman."*)
The presentations aren't the same, but there's a fair bit of overlap, so I decide to put them both into PowerPoint at the same time.

How do I know it's time for this leap forward in technical wizardry? When 12-year-old Secundus looks at me with scorn and announces: "Nobody uses PowerPoint these days, Dad."

Nifty, huh? And the pie chart appears with a circular wipe!

*It was homage, Joe.

A thousand words.

For two years now, the talented Darren Wagner has been the official photographer of the Unicorn Writers Conference. He's just posted a montage of last Saturday's event on his website. Here's a smaller YouTube version:

I think this is my first ever YouTube appearance, that I know of. It goes by pretty fast, but in case you're trying to spot me, I'm wearing my reading glasses with the thick, black frames in all of Darren's pictures. My first appearance is 39 seconds in, with Lee Stringer. (Note how the neatness of my hair deteriorates through the course of the day.)

Brief encounter.

When you're a living legend and one of the great artistic talents of all time, everyone wants to have their picture taken with you. It's not always convenient, but I guess I'd do it for Gene Wilder.

Seriously, Mr. Wilder, now well into his career as a novelist and short-story writer, was the guest speaker at yesterday's hugely successful Unicorn Writers Conference. Thanks to Maureen Amaturo, who inspired the conference in the first place and got to interview the great man, for taking the picture.

Make a date with a Unicorn.

Fledgling authors and writer wannabees who live in my neck of the woods might be interested in the first Unicorn Writers Conference, which will take place on Saturday, April 10 at the Oronoque Country Club in Stratford, Connecticut. This is a day-long opportunity to network and make connections, with sessions split between the art of writing and the business of publishing. You can read all about it by clicking here.

The conference grew from an idea of the inexhaustible Maureen Amaturo, founder of so much that is good in Rye, including my beloved Sound Shore Writers Group and the Arts Center's annual literary event celebrating the extraordinary Edgar Allan Poe. Maureen had attended conferences further afield and thought it was about time we had something similar in this corner of the Tri-State area. The keynote speaker is writer (Young Frankenstein, for goodness sake) and legend Gene Wilder. There'll be another not-to-be-missed session by my buddy Lee Stringer, who gives me two degrees of separation from Kurt Vonnegut. Oh, and somewhere down the list there's a workshop on writing the mystery novel by some guy with my name.