I’m thrilled to share that next weekend, I’ll be traveling to Denmark to attend Krimimessen 2017—an annual crime fiction festival held in the Old State Penitentiary in Horsens, Denmark. (Yes, you read that right—this crime festival is held in an old prison, aka the best possible setting I could imagine for a crime festival!)
Krimimessen will be open Saturday, 4/1 from 10 AM - 5 PM, and Sunday, 4/2 from 10 AM - 4 PM. You can find all the festival details on their website!
Image via weloveya.dk
I’ve never been to Denmark before, but it’s long been at the top of my travel wishlist, and I’m beyond excited for this trip! I’ve heard nothing but fantastic things about this crime festival, and I already have a ton of fun author and blogger meetups to look forward to.
Krimimessen is a huge crime book festival—in 2012, the festival had over 5,000 attendees! The Horsens Library is responsible for putting together the festival, which I think is just plain impressive. I’m so excited to have the chance to visit this year. Plus, to make things even better (if that’s possible!), I’m going to be traveling to the festival with one of my favorite authors - Sara Blaedel! Sara is not only a brilliant crime writer (if you haven’t already, check out her Louise Rick books), but she’s also just the most fun and kind person, and I'm so looking forward to spending time with her and listening to her panels at the festival.
More than just an opportunity to visit beautiful Denmark, this is most importantly a great chance for me to get behind-the-scenes information to share with you about the rising stars working in Denmark (and Scandinavia as a whole) right now! You might remember how much I enjoyed Jakob Melander's THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT last year—he'll be at the festival, and I can't wait to meet him in person and learn more about his books. I'm also particularly excited to see Torkil Damhaug again. I was introduced to Torkil in Oslo, Norway, at Krimfestivalen 2017, and his book MEDUSA is on my reading list.
Image via Horsens Library
Authors at Krimimessen Horsens 2017
You can find full program information for the festival linked here, but I wanted to highlight a few authors who I'm particularly excited to see!
Sara Blaedel
Yrsa Sigurdardottir
Clare Mackintosh
Jakob Melander
Jussi Adler-Olsen
Torkil Damhaug
Emelie Schepp
Katrine Engberg
I’ve been completely blown away by the warm welcome I’ve already received from the team running the festival, and from publishers sending their authors to it. Thanks to the kind publicity team at HarperCollins Nordic, I’m also going to have the opportunity to interview a couple very talented crime writers: Stuart Macbride and Gabriella Ullberg Westin. I’ll also be attending a couple meetups with authors and bloggers, which I’m so excited for!
I’d love to hear your input: which of the authors mentioned about would you like to learn more about?
I also just want to take a moment to appreciate how spectacular the setting for this festival is. I truly can't imagine a better place for a crime book festival than an old prison—it's just the perfect backdrop for this event.
Photo source: http://bit.ly/2niv3tH
I owe a huge thank-you to the team at Horsens for being so welcoming to me already. I haven't even left on my trip yet, and I can already tell this is going to be a truly fantastic weekend! Stay tuned for more updates from Horsens as I go, and make sure to follow Crime by the Book on Instagram and Twitter for daily updates on my trip. You can find me at @crimebythebook.
See you soon, Denmark! xx A