Pictures from World Fantasy Convention 2010

A few pictures from World Fantasy. I was too busy to take very many, unfortunately.


Me and my tablemate Travis Heerman, author of Heart of the Ronin, at the mass signing Saturday night.




Me and Amelia Beamer, author of The Loving Dead (which I reviewed here). Amelia also interviewed me for Locus magazine.



Me with Tom Doherty, head of Tor Books.



From left. Anthony Huso, author of The Last Page; author Brandon Sanderson's assistant (his name escapes me); Tobias Buckell, author of Halo: The Cole Protocol; Tobias's twin daughters; Tobias's wife Emily; Tor editor Paul Stevens; Marie Brennan, author of A Star Shall Fall; and me.



A treasure found in the hotel parking garage.

If it'd been an Ellison, it woulda bit me

There's an old bit of wisdom that says, roughly paraphrased, if you pick up a snake and it bites you, it's not the snake's fault.

My wife is an avid science fiction reader, but she's never been to an SF convention. When her favorite SF author Harlan Ellison was announced as the guest of honor for local convention MadCon, she decided to make that her first convention experience. We signed up for the con, including the guest of honor banquet and speech.

The banquet was scheduled for 7-9, including Mr. Ellison's after-dinner speech. To allow enough leeway, we told the sitter we'd be back by 10:30. We were lucky enough to sit with Onion writer John Krewson, which made the evening even more entertaining.

Now, for those of you who don't know about Ellison, he's legendary for both his writing and his cantankerousness (see this recent interview). I'd never met him before, but the stories that preceded him made him sound a lot like the devil, in the sense that you were better off if he didn't know you existed. Just the day before the banquet, at a local bookstore signing, he snatched a cell phone from a fan who had been filming him and stomped on it. He's that sort of extreme personality.

Mr. Ellison did not begin his remarks until about 9. Keep in mind he's both legendary and elderly, and wasn't even sure earlier in the week that he'd be able to show up. I certainly don't begrudge him taking his time and enjoying what he says will be his last convention. Hell, I got a backpat from him for being the only person in the room* who knew the source of his "Phlegm Snopes" joke. But he rambled, went off on tangents, and abused people at will (usually to their delight) until we realized he wasn't going to finish before we had to leave. Still, this was Harlan Ellison, my wife's favorite author; it seemed impossibly rude to just get up and walk out in the middle of his speech.

Then he made it easy for us.

He abruptly stopped, pointed at my wife and said "You. You're making me nervous." He added (I'm paraphrasing) that he could read body language, could tell she need to leave and that she should just go ahead and do so. She told him it was due to the babysitter, and he joked that we should bring the kids the next day so he could make them cry. Left with no other graceful choice, we departed as quickly as possible. The crowd applauded and sang us out with "Aloha ʻOe," which I suppose is better than the chorus of "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye."

We laughed about this on the way home. After all, if this truly is his last convention, we may be the last people he chases from a room. It certainly gave us a great story. Still, when she asked how I'd feel if Bruce Springsteen (one of my heroes) had done the same thing, I got a glimpse of how she really felt.

I don't talk about my wife much online, but she's a very intelligent woman, at least 20% smarter than me. She's also a person of immense dignity. I certainly don't think I should've made a scene, or engaged Mr. Ellison in any way, since the evening was all about him, not us. But I'm sad for her. She has a vast collection of Ellison books, and knows his work intimately. I can only imagine how it feels to be publicly dismissed by him.

This is not an indictment of Mr. Ellison. He is who he is, and that persona is well known. We bought the tickets; in effect, we picked up the snake. That it bit us is unfortunate, but not really the snake's fault.

Addendum

I want to give a special-shout out to the fan (I'm sorry I don't recall your name) who said how disappointed she was to learn I wasn't on any panels at the con. I was disappointed, too (being on panels is why I go to these things), but she made up for it. Fans, if you ever doubt a kind word to someone whose work you admire matters, let me assure you, it does.

Well...it does to most of us.

*It was a room full of scholars and writers, too. Come on, people, no matter what genre you work in, you should know Faulkner. I'm just sayin'.

So, at last we meet...

One massive fringe benefit of teaching at the Wisconsin Writers Institute this past weekend was that I finally got to meet my agent Marlene Stringer in person. That's right: although she's been my agent for five years and listened patiently while I whined, kvetched, bitched and wheedled, we've never actually met. Now we have, and here's the photo to prove it:

My WisCon schedule

If you're attending WisCon 33 in Madison, WI this coming Memorial Day weekend, you can find me at the following:

SATURDAY

Panel: Where is the Goddess These Days? Sat 8:30 - 9:45AM in the Capitol A room.
Rhianna Moore, Melodie Bolt, Catherine Anne Crowe and me.
Description: Previous WisCons had many program items about Goddesses and Goddess spirituality. These have been rather lacking the last few years. Is the Goddess passé, or is She so accepted there is no reason to talk about her any more? Is there any new Goddess–oriented fantasy and science fiction we might be interested in discussing?

Reading: Boll Weevils Advance From The South, Eating Everything That Tries To Stop Them Sat 1:00 - 2:15PM in Conference 2 room.
Forrest John Aguirre, Mark D. Rich, Robert F. Wexler and me.
I'll be reading from Blood Groove and The Sword-Edged Blonde; if time permits, I might squeeze in something from the next Eddie LaCrosse novel, Burn Me Deadly.

SUNDAY

Panel: Is Regionalism Dead? Sun 8:30 - 9:45AM in the Senate A room.
David J. Schwartz, Catherine Cheek, Rich Novotney and me.
Description: Modern publishing technology (e.g., the Internet, desktop publishing) seems to have created a global village and shrunk the distances between major cultural centers and the far–flung places where some writers live. Yet some Canadian writers who submit to U.S. markets are regularly warned not to focus too much (if at all) on Canada, and rural writers in any country are given similar warnings about writing about their actual milieux, yet reader appetites for fiction set in New York, New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Tokyo or thinly–disguised versions of these cities are presumed to be unlimited. Let's discuss whether reality matches this perception.

Panel: The Care and Feeding of Your Vampire Sun 1:00 - 2:15PM in the Caucus room.
Fred Schepartz, Suzy Charnas, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Jordan Castillo Price and me.
Description: How do our favorite undead heroes come to life? Vampire writers reveal their dark secrets and give a blood to fangs description of how they create unforgettable vampires.

MONDAY

The SignOut Mon 11:30AM - 12:45PM in the Capitol/Wisconsin room.
I'll be available to sign books and chat about pretty much anything. Even if you don't have a book for me to sign, stop by and say hello.

Hope to see many of you there next weekend!