International Mystery Writers Festival

Every year, the International Mystery Writers Festival is held in, of all places, Owensboro, KY. This year's festival runs from August 12th to the 16th. Their website says:

Mystery lovers worldwide are celebrating the International Mystery Writers' Festival. The Festival presents unique opportunities to discover plays, screenplays, and short stories professionally performed, published, or produced for the first time.

Discovering New Mysteries celebrates the best of new mystery works through an annual competition offering more than $20,000 in prize money. Audience members cast ballots during the festival and select the winners for The Angie Award categories. "The Angies" are named for the legendary Angela Lansbury, Kentucky's First Lady of Mystery 2007.

Among the luminaries who will be in attendance:

William Link - Award-winning writer-producer of TV shows such as Columbo, Murder She Wrote, The Bill Cosby Mysteries, Mannix, Ellery Queen, etc.

Sue Grafton - Louisville's own best-selling mystery chronicler. Grafton's many works include A is for Alibi, B is for Burglar, and C is for Cookie. (Okay, I may have hallucinated that last one.)

David Breckman - Hollywood producer, director, and former Saturday Night Live writer, currently writing for the hit television series Monk, starring Tony Shalhoub.

Zev Buffman - The Tony-nominated Broadway veteran actually lives in Owensboro, and is the CEO of River Park Center.

Gary Sandy - Best known for playing Travis on WKRP in Cincinnati, Gary really is from the southern Ohio area and will be attending the Festival to take part in the "Live Radio Theatre" enactments.