Festival of Mystery II and Stalking Stories

Mystery Lover's Bookshop's 14th annual Festival of Mystery Monday was a big success. Festival book sales were up 14 percent from last year, hopefully a sign that in the tough economy people are turning to books for entertainment.

My stack of books waiting to be read doubled after my visit to the festival with books from Jane K. Cleland, Shirley Damsgaard, Kathryn Miller Haines, Stefanie Pintoff, Marcia Talley, and Heather Terrell. I'm anxious to get through them. As I do, I'll blog about the great reads I'm sure to find.

After laughing with a friend regarding my stalker status mentioned in the last blog post, I thought an explanation might be in order.

As a student in the University of St. Andrews creative writing program, my classmates deemed my quote of the year: "I don't do drugs. I rarely drink, but occasionally it's fun to stalk people."

They suggested I use it as an opening line of a book. They published it on a web site that listed our bios. They wouldn't let me forget it.

The quote sparked from the Dunhill Links celebrity golf tournament held on the Old Course in St. Andrews in October of 2004. I heard there would be quite a group of celebrities, so my roommate and I got up early and hiked it out to the tenth hole. As we got there, a van pulled up next to us. The side door slid open and out hopped Hugh Grant. Our mouths dropped, and we followed him without a thought.

Eventually, we took a pretty horrible picture with him, and he wasn't the friendliest of blokes. But he could have been having a bad day. Who knows?

Then, we watched Dennis Quaid golf a bit. He was friendly and gorgeous. He golfed alongside Greg Kinnear, who might not be the best golfer ever. He hit the golf ball into a massive crowd of people.

Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Douglas were also there, but my best and most significant stalking experience was with Kevin Costner.

When we first saw him, he was pulling a little kid out from the crowd to take a picture with him on the green. At the next hole, he leaned against the fence and chatted with the locals. From only a few feet away, I could see a bug crawling up his shoulder to his neck. The way I saw it, if a bug was crawling on me, I'd want someone to let me know.

So I interrupted his conversation to tell him he had a bug on his shoulder, and to my incredible surprise, he leaned toward me silently asking for me to swipe it away. So I did. Then he grabbed both of my hands, and with his face inches from mine said, "Now, I better not see that bug on ebay." I laughed.

He went back to golf, and I took a few steps back from the fence to have a minor freakout. I wish I could say I was cool and nonchalant around celebrities. (As I racked my brain to find a celebrity I've been cool around, it took a few seconds, but I did not freak out in any way when I was only feet away from Prince William several times. Ha!).

Anyway, I went for a drink at the pub with my writer friends later and told them the story. They couldn't believe I just spoke to Kevin Costner like that. I should have kept my mouth shut, but at some point I mumbled, "That was nothing," and thought back to my first incident with celebrity and how cops were involved.

To hear about the genesis of Stalker Tamara, check back soon...