This 12-day tour features attendance at the 20th annual St. Hilda’s Mystery and Crime Weekend, 16-18 August, 2013, followed by a tour of Yorkshire, England, visiting mystery-fiction sites and hearing from Yorkshire crime writers.

Participants will be met at Heathrow Airport on the morning of Thursday August 15 for transfer to St. Hilda's, Oxford University. We will have tour of Oxford on Friday morning and a free afternoon to explore the university before the mystery and crime weekend begins with a drinks reception, followed by dinner. The program continues with talks by mystery and crime writers on the theme "'From Here to Eternity': The Present & Future of Crime Fiction." Conference speakers are P.D. James, Peter Robinson, Martin Edwards, Penny Evans, Frances Fyfield, Tom Harper/Edwin Thomas, Val McDermid, and Andrew Taylor. Jill Paton Walsh is Guest of Honor and will give the Conference Lecture. Bernard Knight and Priscilla Masters are the dinner speakers. Natasha Cooper will chair the meeting.

We depart Oxford after teatime on Sunday the 18th to begin our tour of Yorkshire, which includes drives through the Peak District and the Yorkshire Dales and Moors. We will visit Harrogate, staying in the hotel where Agatha Christie stayed during her famous disappearance; Haworth, where we will have a talk and tour at the Brontë Parsonage; Whitby, where Bram Stoker wrote Dracula; York, where numerous writers have set their mysteries; and other sites and locations. We will have talks by writers Stephen Booth, Danuta Reah, Michelle Spring, and several others to be announced. Our last day and night will be in Cambridge. The tour ends on Tuesday August 27 with transport to Heathrow Airport.

The tour price includes transport from and to Heathrow Airport, all conference and entrance fees, speakers’ fees, all lodging, 8 lunches, 8 dinners, 2 morning coffees, 2 afternoon teas, and tips at restaurants and hotels and for porterage at hotels. Note that lodging for St. Hilda’s mystery weekend will be in a residence hall within the college, with each person having a private room that includes a washbasin but with shared bathroom/shower facilities. These facilities are large, clean, and recently modernized or refurbished, with private toilet, shower, and bath stalls.

Program Leader: Kathy Ackley, Professor Emerita of English, taught at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point for 24 years before her retirement. She has led eleven summer Mystery and Crime Writers programs and has made more than 30 trips to England.

Tour Organizer: Nicky Godfrey-Evans is a Blue Badge Guide who has been creating tours in Britain for 25 years. This is the 4th tour that she has organized in conjunction with Kathy and UWSP’s Continuing Education Office

TO BE ADDED TO THE MAILING LIST OR FOR MORE INFORMATION, EMAIL KATHY ACKLEY (kackley@kconline.com ) or KIM O'FLAHERTY (koflaher@uwsp.edu)