2009 World Fantasy Report

(Electric Velocipede #19 on the Night Shade Books table at World Fantasy)

This is pretty long, and a lot of it is devoted to talking about with whom I had meals. You can skip down to the highlights at the end of the post if you want.

Thursday October 29

I leave my house at 7:00a to drive to my parent's house in Oconomowoc. On the way there, I miss/overlook/am distracted by driving and don't notice that the speed limit is 55mph. A $175 speeding ticket later, and I'm back on the road. I get to my parent's house and we rush off the Milwaukee airport.*

Everything is delayed. With bad weather from TX to WI (I'm flying to Houston) my flight is late to leave AND we're told the flight will take a half-hour longer than scheduled. Since I had barely 50 minutes of connection time, it's likely I will miss my connection.

No surprises, I do miss the connection.

I'm told by the nice woman in the airport (and I was nice, honestly nice, she didn't make me late and yelling at her only makes her day harder and adds stress to mine) that I can get to San Francisco that evening but I've missed the last flight to San Jose. I decide to stay overnight in Houston and catch the first flight out at 9:30a.

I'm overprepared for the trip, but now everything has fallen apart.

Instead of reading submissions or editing, I go to bed at 11:00p and get my first full night's sleep in more than a year.

Friday October 30

I arrive in San Jose at 12:00p, the same time as the one panel I was on. I get out of the cab and am greeted with a bear hug from Chris Roberson. It's like he's on the welcoming committee. And hey, given that Chris is World Fantasy's biggest proponent, I guess he is. I check in, register for the convention, drop off my stuff, and head down to the bar.

While this isn't strictly true, some of the first people I see are Jonathan Strahan, Ellen Datlow, and David Hartwell who were all on the panel I missed. I get (deservedly) varying levels of chiding/crap from the three of them.

The afternoon is a blur like all first days at a convention are. Seeing all your friends you haven't seen in a year, meeting a bunch of people for the first time, learning where everything is in the hotel, etc. I got a lot of belated and in-person congrats on the Hugo win.

Getting in late means all my well-crafted Friday plans are thrown out the window. My panel? Arrived too late. Interview with John Joseph Adams about Lightspeed? He's sick an unavailable. Oysters with Minz? Couldn't find him. And so on. There's a liquor run with Allison Baker and Mark Teppo (and I forgot my jigger so we have to improvise) at some point.

I head out for 'Moroccan' with Jason Williams, Jeremy Lassen, Mark Teppo, Chris Schleup, Fleetwood Robbins, Kris O'Higgins, and Ross Lockhart. It's an all-you-can-eat buffet with free sangria. (it's actually where I was supposed to go the next night, but I wrecked those plans)

After too much food and too much sangria (wherein the serving staff was bringing us pitchers and trays of shots of sangria AND drinking with us by the end of our meal) we stumble back to the hotel.

I go to a reading for Jetse's web magazine (he was giving out Scotch) and then up the Night Shade Books party. Upstairs is Locus and Tor. Across the hall is...I've forgotten, but they had a TON of pizza (seriously, about 40 pizzas were delivered to them). At some point Allison starts making sidecars in the bathroom (video here).

Allison wrecks a whole bunch of people.

I'm up until 5:00a or so with Chris Roberson, Allison Baker, Jason Williams, Jetse de Vries, and others. Chris and Allison have a room on the same level as the pool so they have an outdoor seating area. (I know I ran into Jeremy Lassen, Amelia Beamer, and Liz Gorinsky somewhere in there) I've been up for more than 24 hours straight at this point. I get back to the room and crash.

Saturday October 31

I don't wake up until almost 12:00p. I head out to lunch at Gordon Biersch with Chris Roberson, Matt Sturges, Dave Justus, and we are later joined by Allison Baker. I was supposed to lunch with my agent Kris, but he was feeling the effects of the night before too strongly to be up to eating.

I honestly don't remember what I did that afternoon. I suspect I spent time between the bar and the dealer's room. I know at some point I talked to Kristin Livdahl of Rabid Transit Press (they had their new book: Under the Mere by Catherynne M. Valente) and Victoria Blake from Underland Press (she had Jeff VanderMeer's Finch, Brian Evenson's Last Days, Will Elliot's The Pilo Family Circus, and more with her). While hanging out in the bar, I help Gigi Gridley pick out her shoes (via text message) for her birthday party.

Dinner was oaxacan at Mezcal, where we had excellent moles and Chapulines (grasshoppers). In attendance was Mark Teppo, Daryl Gregory, Adam Rakunas, Nancy Hightower, Fleetwood Robbins, Chris Schleup, Alex Irvine, Alex's brother-in-law, and the brother-in-law's friend.

We get back right around the time the Gigi's birthday party is supposed to start, so Teppo and I head upstairs for that.

And then, I don't know. I just wasn't feeling it. I didn't want to be around people. I didn't want to drink. I didn't want to talk. I head back down to the room and work on the computer for a bit. I turn on the tv and lay back on the bed.

I went to sleep and it wasn't even 10:00p.

Sunday November 1

I make myself stay in bed until 7:00a. When I get up, I'm promptly reminded by Teppo that it's actually 6:00a due to 'falling back.' Mark's WELL under the weather. But he soldiers on and goes to breakfast with me. After breakfast he decides to go back to the room and lay low.

I go to find Garth Nix and interview him.

My camera isn't working the way I expect it to, so the interview will be done via e-mail later. We grab a latte and sit outside for a bit. John Picacio and his wife Traci join us and we have a nice visit (that sounds like something my grandmother would say!).

Now I just burn time while I get ready for the banquet. I show up, dressed slightly fancier than the year before. However, nowhere near as fancy as these guys. (that's l-r John Joseph Adams, Graham Joyce, Rob Bland, Jeremy Lassen, Jim Minz, and Ross Lockhart)

Without a doubt this is the best WFC banquet meal I've ever had, although the competition is not tough. It's actually pretty good. Most of the meal I get to listen to Graham Joyce talk about the kick-ass year he's been having. This is a good thing. My favorite moment is when this year's judges are being thanked for their efforts and being asked to stand up and Chris Roberson doesn't just stand up, he jumps into the air with his hands held high. I saw a photo of it somewhere, but I can't find it right now.

When the awards start, my category is up first. I don't expect to win, and I'm pleased to see Michael Walsh take home the award. He's been doing great work for years. Locus took a photo of me trying to wrest the award away from Michael, so watch upcoming issues for an image of me being a 'sore loser.' LOL

More time in the bar, getting no sympathy for the World Fantasy Award loss as I won the Hugo a few months ago. Nonetheless, people buy me drinks anyway. The Packers lose to the Vikings. Garth Nix insists that I help him eat some of the food he's ordered so I eat a slider. I don't want to be impolite.

We head out for tapas, we being Jim Minz, Paolo Bacigalupi, Jason Williams, Chris Scleup (who is apparently my new meal companion), Fleetwood Robbins, Alex Irvine, and Bill Shunn. We get plate after plate after plate after plate of tapas.

And then we're back at the bar. I go to bed fairly decent because I have a 6:15a flight the next morning.

Monday November 2

I get down the lobby around 4:30a to wait for Nora Jemisin and Daryl Gregory to catch a cab to the airport. Jeremy Lassen is there going on and on about Clive Barker naked. He sees me and insists on pouring me a vodka tonic. I take a sip to be polite.

For the record, I don't see Chris Roberson on this day and it feels a little empty for that.

We get to the airport with plenty of time and then, see ** below.

Post Con Thoughts

This was a strange WFC for me. I almost didn't want to be there. My body just wanted to rest. I had no desire to hang out and drink/talk/whatever. I just wanted to sit in the room...honestly, I wanted to head home.

And that's pretty shitty of me.

I only see these people once a year, and I love them all to death, and I wasn't taking advantage of being together. And now I won't see them again until next year in Columbus.

I'm not sure how I feel about the convention. I do know that my travel trouble getting down there screwed things up for me. I also know that there's a lot going on at my full-time job that I wasn't able to leave behind for this trip.

Definite highlights include:

• seeing Jason Williams again
• meeting Zoran Zivkovic (for too short a time), Kij Johnson, Bill Willingham, Brendan Connell, Gail Carriger, Damien G. Walter, Deb Biancotti, Nancy Hightower, Matt Sturges, Adam Rakunas, Dave Justus, Tim Powers, Sean Williams, and I'm sure more people that I'm forgetting at the moment
• re-introducing myself to Liza Trombi (so embarrassing!)
• Allison's sidecars (Teppo has instructed Allison that she isn't allowed to mix him drinks any more)
  
• introducing Norman Partridge and Jeffrey Ford to each other
• listening to Tim Powers spin tales of adventures he had with Phil Dick
  
• giving Jetse a bear hug that lifted him off the ground
• seeing Jeremy in the lobby at 4:30a when I was leaving for the airport and he was still up from the night before
• talking to all the people I haven't seen in forever like Tempest, Teppo, Chris Roberson, Allison Baker, Bill Shunn, Derryl Murphy, Rani Graff, Gigi Gridley, Deb Layne, Kristin Livdahl, Jeff VanderMeer, Victoria Blake, Ann VanderMeer, Jim Minz, Jude Feldman, Heidi Lampietti, Alex Irvine, Chris Schleup, Fleetwood Robbins, Steven H. Segal, Deanna Hoak, Kris O'Higgins, Peter Straub, Garth Nix, Tim Akers, Paolo Bacigalupi, Daryl Gregory, Amelia Beamer, Alan Deniro, Tim Pratt, Mary Robinette Kowal, Jeffrey Ford, Norman Partridge, John Douglas, Laura Anne Gilman, Jay Lake, Liz Gorinsky, Ken Scholes, Neil Williamson, Patrick Swenson, Robert Freeman Wexler, and....many many many many more (I know I've forgotten someone, or some ones). Most of them I didn't get nearly enough time with.
  

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* When I booked the flight, it was half the cost to fly out of Milwaukee versus flying out of Moline. At the time, I thought I was being thrifty; it's not until later** that I realize how this will backfire on me.

** On the way home I realize that I will be flying from San Jose to Houston (4 hours) and then Houston to Milwaukee (3 hours) and still need to DRIVE from Milwaukee to home (4 hours). What a crappy day.