I’ve been there before, some three or four times, and it’s always been nothing but a ball, but being a GoH (thanks, Rose Fox!), that was completely different. Not only was my schedule super-super packed:
But I of course had a handler, a chaperone, Nightwing Whiteshade, who . . . rememberer years and years back, when I used to say I’d wear pirate shirts more if I had more pirate shirts? It’s not untrue. And now I got no excuse, since Nightwing made me one:
Anyway, the pics, the tweets, the rest of the fun:
→ The “Being Vague to Make Space for Horror” panel, Thursday night, me with my carryon parked over by the table as I was just sliding in:
→ The group reading Friday after lunch, for Datlow’s Echoes: the Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories :
Datlow’s snaps of that same panel:
→ Meeting people I’d only ever talked to through Skype and Twitter:
→ Running into so many friends, like Gemma Files:
→ And of course I signed a bajilliony books—enough to where I had to start using the hotel pen, as mine ran dry:
→ And then the Guest of Honor tea (which I brought my own iced tea to, of course):
→ And, a click later, me debut-reading the new one:
→ Couple snaps of that via Ellen Datlow:
→ And then a kaffeeklatsch, of which I don’t think there are any pics, but Darcie Little Badger was there, in this:
→ Then, or possibly before, can’t remember anymore, this panel, which was huge huge huge:
→ After which, a quick clothes change and the big interview Paul Tremblay did. Nothing but fun. Soon to be video-available, I believe:
→ That evening, then, same clothes, a great dinner (Legal Seafoods) and, for me, an ice cream cone:
→ Followed by next morning, Tananarive and me hosting the Shirley Jackson awards:
→ The SJs live and archived:
→ And I got my eighth SJ rock!
→ Itself followed by a quick off-site burrito with Paul Tremblay and JS Breukelaar, in which I tried, for the first time ever, saltwater taffy (liked it). N0 pics, but who takes lunch pics, right? Was a good burrito, too, for a non-Chipotle place.
→ And then . . . a panel I don’t have pics of, the “Writer’s Hobbies” one (on the, yes, usually-dreaded nearly-last slot on Sunday…). But, it was so well-moderated, and the other panelists were so insightful and wonderful—everything good. And the places we went, the topics we covered and uncovered. I think it was recorded, so maybe it shows up someday. But, here’s one of the panelists, anyway, so you can know it really and actually happened:
→ And, should say, the majority of the things that happened at ReaderCon this year, they were happening on the patio. Of which it’s probably best there aren’t pics:
Too, I got to hang out with my new editor at Saga, Joe Monti. Had some good food, great talk. Many plans were hatched, most of them involving world domination. We never thought to snap a pic, though. But I bet there’s some. I’ll wait for Jeffrey Ford (one of next year’s GoH’s…) and Ellen Datlow (whom I’m GoH’ing with down in Costa Rica next summer…) to post all their snaps (Datlow’s here, now).
And . . . [edit] . . . the evening Datlow and Ford and Monti and me and Ruoxi Chen and Navah Wolfe and Charles Vess, for a moment, Theodora Goss and various and sundry others were hanging around a table, I was sitting right next to Ellen, so was too close to get into the camera. But here’s a snap from Ellen’s angle, of Vess and Goss and Monti, in that order:
So, after ALL of that, then it was the loooong flight home, which, halfway through, about 37K feet up in the air, I checked ETA, and saw we were about to crash-land:
The app was wrong, though. Made it home fine, hours later. And, finally, after four weeks on the road, I’m home home home for three or four weeks IN A ROW. Which is going to be amazing. That’s the plan, anyway.
is the NYT bestselling author of 30 or so books, +350 stories, some comic books, and all this stuff here. He lives in Boulder, Colorado, and has a few broken-down old trucks, one PhD, and way too many boots. More