iScream for Mysteries 2026
- Sarah Ickes
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
(Left Image: myself, Top Right: bookshop’s sign, Bottom Right: table display.)
Where to start? 🤔 This year’s iScream for Mysteries was so much fun! If you have never been to one of the Mechanicsburg Mystery Bookshop’s events before, then let me fill you in on what you’ve missed!
(The staff and volunteers had the set-up done the night before.)
Upon arriving on the morning of the event, the room had already been prepped by the shop’s staff and volunteers the night before. It was well-organized with the tables in the middle of the space dressed in black tablecloths, the author tables along the wall were in a frosty-white color, and the remaining tables designated for the mobile bookshop, snacks, and registration, were decked out in red.
Signs were posted at the different areas, as well as the photo corner…where the final author group photo was taken…and where the mobile bookshop was set up…behind crime scene tape!
(I was so excited to debut my new novella, Missing in Yuletown.)
All of the authors had a table to decorate as they saw fit with promos, email sign-up sheets, and book displays, as we prepared to face the onslaught of readers lining up outside the doors. Once the flood gates were opened at eleven o’clock, readers wandered in to pick their tables and began flipping through the event’s program, which provided the schedule for the day ahead. Specially noted inside the program was the one-day-only sale of 25% off hardcovers and the shop’s debut of their new passport card!
Each of us authors were given a stamp to use for one of the six empty boxes on the readers’ cards. If they managed to fill their passport, over the course of the afternoon, there was a discount or free book reward the bookshop would grant at their home location after the event was over.
(An image of myself chatting up my latest novella – faces have been blurred for privacy reasons.)
Then came the Author Round-About, or Author Speed-Dating…as some book events call it. While it is normal to speak for roughly two or three minutes at larger conventions, we had the generous amount of six minutes to speak with each table before the “buzzer” sounded it was time to move. I was delighted to hear the readers’ questions, and even a few which were new to me!
Now, as previously mentioned in this post, iScream for Mysteries was a scheduled event, complete with breaks for food (ice cream included), bathroom breaks (always important), and (of course) book buying! 😊 It also gave us authors the chance to rest our voices so we wouldn’t have to mime our talks by the end of the day.
(Chatting with readers can certainly wear down your voice…in a good way – faces have been blurred for privacy.)
(The readers received trivia sheets and word searches for fun in their swag bags.)
(The bookshop was alphabetized by author’s last name, along with series order!)
(It was great getting to meet Barbara Early in person!)
Back Row (Left to Right): Bill Peschel, Tj O’Connor, Carla Conti, Amy M. Reade, Andrea J. Johnson, John Havas, Robert Swartwood
Middle Row (Left to Right): C. Bradly, Ellen Crosby, Barbara Early, Nancy A. Hughes
Front Row (Left to Right): Laura Bradford, Sheryl C.D. Ickes, Sarah Ickes, GG Calpo
Overall, it was a blast chatting about mysteries with fellow readers and the day concluded with a group photo of the fourteen authors who attended. I would just like to give a quick shout-out to the Mechanicsburg Mystery Bookshop for putting this wonderful event together and for handling it so well! And a thank-you to the readers who came out to hear us talk and support us in what we do. None of this would be possible without just one part of the reading community.
If you would like to find out more about my fellow authors, feel free to click on their names under the above image to be taken to their websites. Until next time…thanks for checking in on my blog and I hope to see you real soon!
Special credit goes to Barb F. and The Mechanicsburg Mystery Bookshop for the use of some photo images in this blog post.
Comments