Santa Barbara Book and Author Festival - Saturday!

There are some tough choices to be made this weekend. On one hand, one of my favorite book festivals is scheduled in one of my favorite get-away towns, Santa Barbara. Here is list of authors who will be attending. I really want to meet Rudolpho Anaya. Bless me Ultima was the first book I read in Spanish and the first of the magic realism genre. I will looking forward to talking to Jan Burke, David Corbett, Jerilyn Farmer, Sue Grafton, Denise Hamilton, Harley Jane Kozak, Eddie Muller, Jeff Parker, Barbara Seranella, John Shannon, April Smith, and children's author Lee Wardlaw. The best part is you never know who is just going to show up.

The draw of this festival is that it is small, a few hundred people. The weather is usually a factor, one year it rained, the following year was a heat wave, so this year should be perfect. The atmosphere is casual and everyone is like family.

On the other hand, around the same time on Saturday, Denise Mina will be in town at the Mystery Bookstore along with Margaret Coel, Tess Gerritsen and Joseph Garber of Whirlwind fame. I believe this is Mina's first tour of the west coast and just love her books.

To complicate matters further, at Mysteries To Die For is David Wolstencroft, Good News, Bad News.

I'm open for suggestions...