It was definitely worth the trip (two hours each way of the most tediously uninteresting desert landscape on the planet). The morning session had Elmore, Peter and Chris, along with a moderator, in a fairly intimate setting, a lecture hall. Elmore signed books directly thereafter in a tent. The afternoon session was a much larger group in the ballroom of the student union. In case it wasn’t obvious, this was on the campus of the University of Arizona. The interviewer for the afternoon session was Tom Miller, a Tucson resident who writes travel books and was the person that first alerted Elmore to the “la yuma” phenomenon. Obviously a lot of territory was covered in the two hours of sessions. The audience liked hearing that the Westerns were set in southern Arizona, not because he had history there, but because he had a subscription to Arizona Highways magazine, which provided insights into the terrain, vegetation, etc. He also spoke about Djibouti, now about 100 pages done, with a bit of insight into the characters, the situation, etc.
Pictures at Flickr.
