Pete's TavernFriday, December 4, 2015
Black Orchid Media Fest
A Melange of Rex Stout & Nero Wolfe
Audio and Video Clips
from Radio, Television, & Movies

6:00 to 10:00 PM
Pete's Tavern
(just south of Gramercy Park)

Click here to see the Media Fest Program
(reprised in April, 2016, due audience demand)


2015 Attendee GiftSaturday, December 5, 2015—Black Orchid Assembly
Orchid2:00 to 4:30 PM
Arno Ristorante
141 West 38th Street

Click here to read the Assembly Program
Speakers:

Steve and Jan Schwartz: "Growing Orchids Can Be Easier Than You Think "

Rebecca Stout Bradbury, "A Personal Biography of Pola Stout"
(click to view the slide show)

John Roche, "Write WHERE You Know: How Setting Can Serve as a Main Character In Your Mystery"

Ettagale Blauer, The Village Voice Caper: "SWM, weighs 1/7th of a ton"
(click above to read the documents of the case)
Once upon a time, the Village Voice newspaper, a New York institution, was notorious for its personal ads.  
One day, members of the Wolfe Pack Steering Committee dreamed up a personal ad for Mr. Wolfe.   


Black Orchid Center Piece

 

Saturday, December 5, 2015 — Black Orchid Happy Hour — 4:30 to 6:45 PM
with scrumptious appetizers
Arno Ristorante

 


Saturday, December 5, 2015—Black Orchid Banquet
Theme: The Fiftieth Anniversary Publication of The Doorbell Rang
6:45 to 9:30 PM
Arno Ristorante

  • Keynote Speaker Terry Teachout is an American critic, biographer, librettist, author, playwright, and blogger. He is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal, the critic-at-large of Commentary, and the author of "Sightings," a column about the arts in America that appears biweekly in the Friday Wall Street Journal. Click here to read Mr. Teachout's address,"Better Than Holmes?"
  • Banquet ProgramA meal inspired by the Wolfe Corpus, with wines -- click here to read the full banquet menu and program.
  • The annual Nero Award presentation to the author of the best American mystery novel. 2015 winner is John Verdon's Peter Pan Must Die.
  • The Black Orchid Novella Award, presented jointly by The Wolfe Pack and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine to celebrate the novella format popularized by Rex Stout, was awarded to Mark Thielman for "A Meter of Murder."
  • Another superlative centerpiece for each table by Jan Schwartz (see centerpiece photo above based upon FBI Nobody Knows)
  • Yet another Augean quiz (click here to try the quiz yourself)
  • The usual toasts, songs, and frivolity (published in the next issue of The Gazette)
  • And for the attendees:
    • Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine for July/August 2015 with last year's Black Orchid Novella Award winner's story, K. B. McAbee's “Dyed to Death”
    • A copy of the Nero Award winning book, Peter Pan Must Die by John Verdon
    • Nero Wolfe Book Plates (self adhesive)

December 7, 2015—Black Orchid Brunch
Start: 11:00 AM
Pete's Tavern

Photos of the Events and Festivities

The Assembly: Joseph Goodrich, Jonathan Levine, Ellen Krieger
The Assembly: Joseph Goodrich, Jonathan Levine, Ellen Krieger