It hit me today. I had joked about the concept before, but only today, while scouring through yet another website of yet another favored author who is about to embark on a massive cross-country tour, frantically trying to arrange my life schedule to get to one of the tour dates, did I realize that somehow, I have truly become a writer groupie.

And what, you may ask, is a writer groupie?

Well, the word "groupie" originated in the mid 1960s to describe (usually) young, good-looking girls who were especially big fans of various rock groups. I am young, somewhat good-looking (well, all right, perhaps "striking" is a better description, I might as well be honest here) and a big fan of an awful lot of mystery writers. Where "especially" comes in is because music groupies' fandom often involved sex with the rock star -- fantasized or real. As of yet I have not met any writer I want to sleep with. Well, not one who's been on a cross-country book tour, at least. But like those young women who claim they do what (really, whom) they do because they "love the music" of some particular group or rocker, I've gone to great lengths to interact with writers, whether online or face to face. Sometimes I even amaze myself. Hopefully, the symptoms I'll describe shortly will show just how gradual and insidious the process
really is.

STAGE ONE: Email the author

In the days before the internet existed -- hard to believe, isn't it? -- if you liked a book, and you wanted to tell the writer just how much, the only way to reach him or her was to contact the publisher and send a letter through them. Of course, many other important things, like proposals or manuscripts, get sent to the publisher. Thus it might take months (if at all) for fan letter to reach the desired author. The internet changed all that. Email addresses were included in the author bios. Promotional websites popped up. Suddenly, with the click of a button, you could tell that author just how much you loved the book. Or hated it. And you'd get a response fairly quickly, because email is direct. I don't remember who was the lucky recipient of my first fan email (it wasn't in the mystery genre, though) but I was so flattered the author actually took time to respond to my gushy little missive. Three emails later she was confiding to me about her computer problems. Voila, an instant bond. But email only goes so far, and the downside is that every other fan on the Internet can do that too, leading to the author getting swamped and delaying the response time. And I found I needed more gratification. Which led to...

STAGE TWO: Message boards.

Whichever author came up with the bright idea to put a message board on his or her official website -- thank you, you are brilliant. Not everyone has one, but those that do get more than full marks in my book. For one thing, it brings together a lot of different people with one common interest -- the author's books, or in some cases, the author (more on that later). For another, said author often checks in to answer questions. The cons are that the same questions often get asked over and over (even if the answer is right there on the website or in a FAQ page) and that cliques often form, unintentional or not, which may scare off people too timid to join in.

But what's truly important about message boards is that each one is unique; I frequent quite a number of them, and I have found the character of the message board seems to mimic the character of a given author. Michael Connelly's message board is fairly structured and divided into several sections; one is a Q&A between himself and fans; others are for intelligent discussions about books, be it Connelly or other people. It's more "introverted" if you will; Janet Evanovich has a similiarly tiered format but the population (mostly female) seems divided between Morelli Girls and Ranger Chicks, which results in an occasional flamewar. Tartcity.com attracts outspoken females who talk quite frankly on subjects ranging from women's roles in life and television to what foods you can eat before blow jobs (yes, that was my fault.)

But if ever there's a board that's taken on a life of its own, it's the one belonging to Robert Crais. When I showed up there over a year ago, it was really a typical author message board -- people show up to ask questions, and Crais would check in occasionally to answer. A few months later the tone was wildly different. Somehow -- and I still have no idea how or why -- a group about 20 strong had settled in, found to have a lot in common with each other, and turned a quiet board into one with high volume, a freewheeling nature, and an unbelievably high sick-minded quotient. The bottom of the forum often had more activity than the top.

Strong friendships formed and spinoff sites were created where we could share photos, have a weekly chat, or be even sillier than we were on the Forum. Luckily Crais has been more than willing to let us be ourselves, however bizarre the thread gets. But one of the Forum jokes turned into reality recently. At the end of April about 15 people showed up for the inaugural "Craisie Con" in Los Angeles. I'm told the next one might be in New Orleans. There have been a multitude of orders for hats and t-shirts. I have no idea where this will go next, but I'm having a blast. And maybe someday I can go to one of these things.

The fact that a cadre of message board regulars got together to meet with each other and the author in question shows that there's only so much that online interaction only goes partway to slake a fan's desire. Personal connection is even better, and that leads perfectly into...

STAGE THREE: Booksignings.

After a whole summer of message boards, newsgroups, and a mountain of books accumulating in my tiny bedroom, enough was enough. It was time to meet up with some of these authors. I wanted proof of my fandom which could live on in perpetuity, and the best way was to go get some books signed.

But there was a slight problem: almost no one ever tours in my hometown. It's a shame, really; they should all want to visit ME! But realistically, a tour only goes to a city where an interest is professed. Most writers aren't showing up here because Ottawa hasn't proved to be a hotbed of mystery fans (though I know they are out there...somewhere), even with an independent mystery bookstore in town. As it is few writers ever head up North, and if they do, they usually go to Toronto, or possibly Vancouver. Interestingly enough Edmonton seems to be relatively popular; how else to explain why Dennis Lehane went there recently.

But I digress. The fact is that in order to get my books signed, I have to go out of town. If the authors aren't coming here, then I must go to where they are. New York City, with four independent mystery bookstores and a bunch of Barnes & Noble chain stores, is a mandatory stop for most writers. Luckily for me, it's only an hour and a half away by plane, which made transportation expensive, but doable. But what to do first, what signing to go to? By chance I read about the annual New York is Book Country Festival, held the last weekend in September. I was in heaven: a street fair lined with authors ready to sign my books? It couldn't get better than that. So I booked my flight.

When I told my friends and family, they thought I was nuts. Or if they didn't, they were probably lying. I was taking time off work to go run up and down a crowded Manhattan street to get my books signed? Well...if that's what makes you happy, Sarah. But I didn't care if no one else got it. Still I wasn't totally sure about this: was I making a total fool of myself? Even after all that online interaction, would my favorite writers turn out to be a bunch of prima donnas who were only sitting out there because of a sense of obligation to their publisher and would rather be elsewhere? Thankfully I was proven wrong much of the time.

There was Harlan Coben, who actually recognized my email address when I told him of it, and who took one look at the jacket photo on the back of his first novel and promptly joked about the days "when he had hair"; there was Laura Lippman, who had just gotten a great review from the NY Times Book Review that weekend on her first hardcover, who wrote in my copy of one of her books that "someday she hoped to find her Inner Tart."

Sarah Weinman realized her true potential as a writer groupie in New York last fall, when she attended New York Is Book Country and ran into such luminaries as Laura "Sweet Tart" Lippman. Laura is shown above at Book Country flanked by Joe and Maggie of NY's Black Orchid mystery bookstore.

After this I was completely hooked. The first thought as I walked away from 5th Avenue towards the subway station that would take me back to LaGuardia Airport was "This was awesome, when can I do it again?!"

It took six months, but in late February I found myself in New York once again, preparing for the joint signing of the aforementioned Michael Connelly (whose last book made a big splash on the NY Times Bestseller list) and George P Pelecanos (whose last book should have). I got into the city early the day of the signing, ostensibly to do "other things" (imagine) but really to kill time since showing up two hours early might not have been a good idea. As it was, by getting to Partners & Crime with a half an hour to spare, I was ridiculously early, since the day's mini-snowstorm delayed everybody, including the two authors.

In a way, though, the awful weather made for a better experience. I met up with some fantastic fans who were just as willing as I to talk books; frazzled but friendly booksellers who were glad that as many fans showed up as we did; even a network cameraman was on hand, though I wonder if the booksigning footage was ever shown anywhere. When Connelly and Pelecanos finally showed up, after enduring what had to be the longest ever crosstown trip, the bookstore erupted into spontaneous applause. From then on it was pretty much smooth sailing. Both guys have different speaking and reading styles but both were effective. Pelecanos, especially. His current book examines the latent racism that lies in most of us, and when he spoke at length about it, I know it caused me to do some serious thinking afterward.

The signing portion was more relaxed. Amazingly, in spite of their popularity, both writers are still genuinely appreciative of fans that come out to their signings. The lines were long, and several people -- myself certainly included -- had multiple books, but all of them got signed in the end. And even if a particular fan managed to get completely tongue-tied and forget what I...uh, he or she was originally planning to say, it wasn't a big deal. So maybe next time I won't chicken out and I'll point out that the cover Right as Rain resembles something else entirely.

But one or two signings are still not enough. Through recommendations and three-times-a-week bookstore visits my shelves are ready to explode, which means more authors whose books are must-buys, which means more emails, message boards, newsgroups, signings, festivals...will it ever end? Who knows? All I know is that now I'm preparing myself for...

STAGE FOUR: Mystery Conventions.

All I have to say is this: dozens or hundreds of authors, one hotel, concentrated over a few days. There's Left Coast, Malice Domestic, Bloody Words, Crimescene, and many, many more but what trumps all of them in terms of sheer size -- capped at 1,500 -- is what I think of as the ultimate haven for writer groupies. And this November, I'm going to be there. Yes, Bouchercon, here I come...

So if you've read this far, you probably have one question persisting over all the others: why?

The answer is pretty straightforward: it's because as a general group, writers are humble, friendly, and grounded enough to know that fans are important to them, but aren't the reason they're in this game. Writers write what appeals to themselves, but it's an added bonus for them when others can appreciate their work. Well, besides the publishers that pay them, since that ought to be a given. But ultimately, I'm a writer groupie because it's fun, and because it's about books.

As for the touring author of the first paragraph -- well, it looks like I won't be able to get to one of his signings this year, but the tour's not fully finalized yet...

A regular participant in the TartCity message board, Sarah Weinman is an extremely well-read mystery reader who actively supports a handful of deserving writers. We would really love to clone her.