World Fantasy 2007 Official Con Report

In which I am quite frank about my feelings on the convention and on being nominated for an award (apologies for the length).

I'll steal Chris Roberson's line here and also say that World Fantasy "is the hub around which my year turns." As far as my genre world experience goes, this is certainly true.

Typically I leave WFC on a huge down. I know that after days of being immersed among awesome friends and great conversations I head back into my normal, non-genre life. I know that after a WFC weekend, it can be months before I interact with these people again. To go from such a high to such nothing is difficult at best, soul stifling at worst. The past two years I left WFC extremely depressed. Last year I felt so down I even considered closing the zine to avoid feeling that way again.

"Poppycock!" some people would say. "I roll my eyes so far back in my head at your foolishness that I can see the people behind me!"

And they would be right. (she always is; and so is this one, who would also mock my down feelings; not to mention these two who always make me smile no matter how I really feel) It's absolute rubbish to take such a good thing like WFC and ruin it by moping about for weeks afterward. As it was, I didn't allow myself to enjoy being nominated. I went into Sunday evening looking to be depressed. Thankfully there were still good folks around who I could enjoy Sunday evening with and head into Monday feeling all fuzzy and loved.

OK. Enough feelings crap. Here's the report. I'm going to avoid name dropping except where it's necessary for the story. Pretty much I'll mention who I ate with.

THURSDAY
Up until 1AM making postcards for the Robert Wexler chapbook. Because I have nothing better to do. I start the weekend claiming I was up late finishing up some things. By the end, I can admit that I was working on yet another thing I thought I needed to do.

Up at 4AM and out to the airport for my 6AM flight. Everything goes well. All my flights are on time. However, my ride from Albany to Saratoga is running late. I run into the inestimable Patrick O'Leary near baggage claim and ask him what he's doing. My thought was to take him to lunch. He looks at me and says, "I'm just going to pick up my rental car. Do you need a ride?"

Why yes. Yes I do.

Patrick and I drive to Saratoga Springs, grab some lunch, and then head into the convention proper by 1PM. I have too much stuff with me and I go register for the convention before I get into my room. This gives me even more stuff to lug around. However, soon I am free of all my stuff and can begin to network. One of the first people I get some time to talk to is my editor, who I seemed to be constantly sneaking up behind all weekend long. (What was that about?) Anyway, she states to me that she does not want to stay up until sunrise every night like the last two conventions we were at so that she's a zombie at her noon meetings. I agree to help her (since Jeremy Lassen appeared to agree to help, but really had evil intentions to keep Juliet up late) in her quest for rest.

Not surprisingly, I spend some time in the bar. Eventually I head out to eat with Chris Roberson, Allison Baker, and John Picacio. We have a great dinner in which Allison does her best to dissuade me of the idea of publishing books. She's very persuasive, but I think I still think I want to publish books.

Back to the hotel and straight into the bar. Or was it up to the Aussie party? There was a lot of drinking that I did. Enough drinking that, at 3:40 in the morning, we (Jeremy Lassen, William Shunn, and Liz Gorinsky who would not let me take her photo) thought it was a good idea to walk up the street to Compton's for 4AM breakfast. This is one of those silly fun moments that you have when drinking. We had a blast standing outside the diner in the cold waiting for the lights to come on so that we could have breakfast. I got a bacon-and-cheese omlette with a side of bacon. By the end of the weekend, the people of Compton's truly hate us. I got back to the room, still tipsy, at 5AM, which officially makes it...

FRIDAY
I sleep until almost 10AM. Now you and I both know that 5AM - 10AM is five hours, but that also five hours of drunken sleeping is like two hours of real sleeping. So far for the convention, I've gotten three hours, and then two hours of sleep.

Looking good! By the time Sunday rolls around, I won't need any sleep.

Friday is not looking up to be a good day. I feel awful. I had been up until 2 or 3 in the morning most of October getting all the crap done that I felt had to get done in preparation for WFC. I was already strung out. Add on top of that, traveling, drinking, and even less sleep. It was shaping up for disaster.

I had lunch planned at noon with the lovely lovely Tempest Bradford. I had made shirts for her. They say "tempest says read electric velocipede or she will come to your house and smack you around." People liked them.

At this point, I do not feel nauseous nor do I have head pains, but I definitely think I am suffering some sort of hangover. Certainly sleep deprivation.

Nonetheless, Tempest and I head out for lunch at a Thai Sushi place. I was not sure that Thai Sushi was going to be right for me. I do not feel...correct. It's like there is something wrong with my body, but I can't pinpoint it. We're in the restaurant for about five minutes when I decide I'm getting a bento box and that's that.

It was delicious.

Back to the hotel and time to prepare for my 4PM High Tea. As noted elsewhere, John Joseph Adams played erstwhile emcee to my High Tea. In the notes I had written up for this event back in June, I had said that this would be a great place/time to talk about the history of the zine and give some reason why people were there. Good thing John read my notes, too I guess.

After tea, it was dinner with James Frenkel, David B. Coe, and J. V. Jones. Dinner was absolutely lovely. But when I got back...there was no fun to be found. There was a big sucking void where fun had been all day. The bar wasn't fun. The few parties just didn't cut it for me (which was too bad because Shimmer Magazine and Senses Five Press were both throwing parties, and I've had fun at their parties before).

The night was beginning to look like this. And shit, even though that's a photo of me...does that look like fun? No. Not at all. I was just getting more surly as the night wore on, and it was early.

So I went to bed. At 10:30. Unheard of! I guess Jeremy went to bed early that night, too, and people kept asking after us. Before I laid down to sleep, I set an alarm to call Juliet and make sure she got to bed early.

She had asked me to help her out. I take responsibility seriously. If she wanted to get to bed at decent times (for a convention) and was leaning on me to help her, then I have to help. In college, we had a list of guys the girls could call if they needed a walk home. I was one of those guys.

So I make my call and get back to sleep. It's now...

SATURDAY
I wake up with Minz's incredibly loud wake-up call at 9AM. I feel much better. I slept (with one small interruption) from 10:30PM to 9AM. I don't sleep that long, ever. Minz takes me and Duane Wilkins out to breakfast.

Tonight is Johncon. The best night of the con. The night I've been waiting for since Wiscon. But hell, there's almost twelve hours to prepare.

Juliet Ulman takes me out to lunch. We have big, juicy, messy burgers. You can't eat those with just anyone.

When I get back, Bill Shunn, Mark Teppo, and I head out to buy liquor for Johncon. Here is our conversation for the next hour: we need X. should we get the biggest bottle of X they have? yes. did you know they made a bottle this big? no.

And so on.

Our theme is 'Drink the Rainbow.' We're going to make seven drinks and challenge Johncon party people to drink them all. Our secret weapon is Bill Shunn's Jack Rose, which we rename Infrared, which you have to drink after you finish the rainbow. We test-drive two of the colors and the Infrared. I am flying after three drinks.

People are going to get wrecked.

We slip down to the lobby, feeling impervious, and seek out trouble. We decide we need food. Thankfully Jetse de Vries is there to save us. He wants something fast and greasy. We hit a pizza place up the street. It's fast and greasy. But good.

Then it's time to prepare in earnest. Mark does most of the work. He mixes up the drinks, letting Bill and I do the maths for proportions. I devise a plan to head up the hall and steal beer from Tor. We make it the price for entrance to Johncon.

I won't try to describe Johncon. I was cheered, twice, and--I'll say it--it felt damn good to have a room of people cheering for you. It was good times. The photo at the top of the post is from Johncon. From what I hear, it was considered the party of the weekend. It had flaws. Most notably, we WAY overbought on booze. But we can fix that for next time.

Johncon ended the first time when we all headed out to Compton's for breakfast (they open at 3AM on the weekend), but it started up again shortly thereafter when Minz came back to the room at 4AM with a dozen people in tow. I went to the lobby so I didn't yell at people and make them feel bad.

I crawled back upstairs at 5AM, and by that time, it's already...

SUNDAY
I can't sleep. I can't stop thinking about the award. I'll admit here: I really want to win it. REALLY. WANT. TO. WIN. IT. And I'm terrified of either outcome. I devise a speech about passion that I'll deliver if I win. Then I start to get sick to my stomach thinking about it.

I get up and head out. I need something to do. Too bad it's Sunday, and there's nothing going on.

I eat breakfast alone. From the con suite.

I walk around outside for a few hours.

Nothing helps. I can't stop thinking about the award.

I don't want to win it any more.

I need something to do.

I. WANT. TO. WIN.

Obviously, I'm not helping myself. Every time I come near the con, people want to talk about the award.

I don't want to talk about it.

I want to walk out the door and not come back.

(scroll back up and read the line about rolling eyes...it applies here, too)

I try to stay away from people, but they keep finding me.

I don't enjoy the banquet. I'm not sure what sort of company I am for everyone at the table.

Thankfully, my award is first.

I don't win.

I could get up and leave at this point. I just don't care about any of the other awards. Is that bad?

After the ceremony, I mope around a little. I just want to go. I miss my family. I'm tired of being here. I don't want to watch people celebrating. I'm basically a sore loser.

Then dinner.

The food was great, but it was too long (almost three hours) and I did not enjoy myself. When I got back to the hotel, I couldn't wait for it to be the next day so I could get the hell away.

Then a curious thing happened. I dragged some folks up to my room. We still had a lot of liquor left. We had some drinks, and started up some conversations. We acted like houligans. It was fun. I was reminded of why I come to this convention. What I like about it. And I was determined to take that away with me this year.

I've been pretty energized about stuff since I got back. I wish I could see people next weekend, but that's ok.

I'll be in NY in January, and I'll see some of you then. I'll see more of you in May for Wiscon.

And I'll see all of you in Calgary a year from now.