Ad Astra 25th Anniversary ReportMarch 31 to April 2, 2005March 31 - One of the best parts of Ad Astra (and the Western New York conventions like Eeriecon coming up later this month) is the chance to see Rob Sawyer and his lovely wife Carolyn. They are simply among the friendliest and best people in the SF publishing business. On Friday, my good friend Al Katerinsky and I were in for a special treat as we got to sit with Rob and Carolyn for over an hour and chat about everything from Star Trek (what a surprise) to the Davinci Code law suit. Rob and Carolyn routinely open their home to friends who need a place to stay during Ad Astra. Since Al was staying with Chat with Rob and Carolyn, we stopped by their home on our way to the convention to drop off Al's luggage. Rob and Carolyn invited us in and offered us refreshments even though they still had to get ready for the convention themselves. I had a wonderful time. We saw Rob and Carolyn again later that evening as Rob hosted a book launch party for the latest novel to come out of his small press imprint, Robert J. Sawyer Books. This was a doubly exciting event as the book Rob had chosen to kickoff the third year of his imprint was A Small and Remarkable Life by Nick Dichario, Nick is another writer friend of mine from Rochester, New York. He is, quite simply, the best short story writer I know, and it was great to see him finally get his first novel published. We all hope it will be the first of many. You can read a sample of Nick's book on his website. After the book launch, Al, Herb Kauderer, and I hosted a room party in my room. It was a party to celebrate the Thundering Word (our writing group) and we invited everyone from the book launch, which included a dozen of Nick's friends and family who had all bussed up to Toronto for the convention and book launch. The room was packed, the food and drinks flowed, and we all had a great time. The life of the party was Marcos Donnelly (another Rochester writer who wrote the first Robert J. Sawyer Books novel, Letters from the Flesh). He and his funloving wife kept half the room in stitches most of the night. As it was Friday, and most of our crowd belonged to the over 40 set, the party died early and I closed the door before 1 a.m. April 1 I had no official functions until my reading at 4 p.m. on Saturday, but as usual, my brain woke me early, so I got dressed, hit the green room for a bagel and hit the dealer room and art show before trying a few sessions. I attended the Characters are People Too session with GOHs Peter David and Kelley Armstrong, which was quite interesting. Joining the two Guests of Honor were Phyllis Gottlieb, Terrence Green, and Allan Weiss. One of Peter David's tricks for using voice to explorw character is to use speech patterns to disguise the true nature of the character (a la Yoda, who sounds harmless and comical, but is quite competent and scary underneath). Peter also likes to listen to people and plays with the cadence of his character's speech. After this session, I joined Al and Herb and about a half-dozen other members of the Rob Sawyer listserv at a List luncheon. Carolyn was also there, as was her brother David Clink, another fun and funny member of our local SF community. both David and Carolyn write SF poetry. The lunch was fun even though we had perhaps the most incompetent waitress in recorded history. I almost got away without paying as she had forgottten my bill at the end. I had to actually remind her to let me pay. After lunch, I spent some time in the Green Room resting and getting ready for my reading at 4 p.m. I had a wonderful conversation with Karl Frederick and Sarah Zettel about artificial intelligence and where the seat of human intelligence can be found. I also got to talk with my good friend Tee Morris at his vendor table for a while. Tee and I would meet again later on the Firefly panel. My reading went quite well. David Clink and Nick Dichario both showed up along with about a half dozen other people (most of Nick's crew I suspect). I read from my Golden Age SF short story as well as from Cardinal Crimson, my next Kal Jerico novel. Everyone laughed in the right places and I felt like both readings went over well (despite the extra blank pages my dumb printer had thrown in). Some time after my reading as I was trying to determine what to do next, I ran into another GoH in the hallway - Ed Greenwood. Now, I have known Ed for a while and we always love to spend time talking about the general state of Wizards of the Coast book publishing. This conversation was no different and I always find it enlightening to see the world through the eyes of one of the most successful writers of D&D fiction. Ed is refreshingly honest and yet can still make me smile about the trials and tribulations of working in this business. I left Ed feeling much better about my future. Next, Al and I atttended another wonderful panel. This one was a discussion of the pros and cons of stand-alone novels versus long-running series. Tobias Buckell (a rising star at Tor books), along with Karl Schroeder, Nancy Baker, and Rick Wilbur (another member of Thundering Word) entertained and informed the audience. Karl had an obvious prejudice against series, but nobody held it against him. In the end, it was determined that series are for the publisher and the readers, while writers almost always prefer stand-alone works as they give them more freedom (and fewer nitpickers over continuity. I realized while sitting in the audience that there are only a few types of series that can go on for more than three books without stagnating. These are those with a long story arc (like Harry Potter), those written as a serial where the main characters never change (a la Sherlock Holmes), and those with such a large world to explore that each story acts like a stand-alone with refreshing characters getting their own stories each time (the only person I know to have pulled this off is Terry Pratchett with his Discworld series). Dinner was served in the bar with Al, Herb, Herb's fiancee Isabel, Rob,Carolyn, David, Nick Dichario, Rick Wilbur, and at least two or three others I can't remember. What a wonderful time we all had. And what a room full of writing talent. I just sat and soaked it in. This convention will stand out in my mind as the weekend when I had fully arrived as an SF writer. I had made it. And it truly felt good. The only way to top off this day was to party until the Daylight Savings time change. But first, I had one last panel for the day. I had been assigned to the Firefly Retrospective panel and asked to moderate. Luckily, I had Tee Morris on the panel with me, so I knew there would never be a lull in the discussion. Joining Tee and me were a couple of local Firefly fans named Lyla Miklos and Cliff Goldstein. I was worried this panel might face an empty room (we were up against the Masquerade) or be filled with rabid brown coats (Firefly fans). The room was packed, but the fans were quite ruly. We all talked about our favorite episodes and why both the series and the movie failed to gain an audience. It was bittersweet, but still an excellent panel. After my last panel, I met Herb, Al, and Isabel to go hit the parties, including the Montreal in 2009 Hugo bid party. They had some wonderful smoked meat sandwiches. Unfortunately, we washed them down with a new energy drink called Bawlz, served in a ribbed blue bottle. the drink was okay, but the name and packaging was the center of conversation for quite some time. About this time we were joined in our party hopping by Nick Dichario, a friend of Marcos's named Ted, and a few of Nick's Rochester crew (including Rigel - named for the star not the Farscape muppet). Although Herb, Al, and Isabel, left early to get back to Rob's where they were all staying, I stayed up with Nick, Ted, and the girls until well past the time change. I dropped into bed about 4 a.m., set my alarm for 10 and dropped into a coma. But that's exactly what I had in mind for Saturday night, so everything went according to plan. April 2 - Of course, I never planned to wake up at 9 a.m. But, after five hours of sleep, my brain said it was time to get up, so I took the extra hour to pack, load, the car, and get another bagel before my first panel of the day. I even had time to take in a reading by another Ontario writer friend of mine, James Alan Gardner. Jim read his story from Jullie Czerneda's latest anthology, Mythsprings. Jim's story was this wonderfully wacky and uproariously funny piece about all of the monsters and legends of Canada coming to life and trekking across the wilderness. There were a lot of Canadian jokes. My favorite was the use of the French term for Werewolves, which was dictated by law. I laughed throughout the entire story. I then caught Julie in the Green Room and had a wonderful, if too short conversation with her. She's asked me to submit a story for her next anthology, and I hope to polish it off this next week and get it sent off to her. Then it was off to a fun panel called Learn from the Pros (before you repeat their newbie mistakes). Carl Frederick and I joined moderator Derwin Mak to talk about mistakes we've made and how to avoid them. We talked about passive voice, word choice, avoiding adverbs, and Swifties (he said swiftly). We also talked about the business: Never pay to have someone read your work. Don't let rejections make you stop writing. Lots of gems of information. It was great being on a panel with Carl again, and Derwin did an excellent job as moderator. It was a great panel all the way through. I had an hour before my last panel, and even though I wanted to see Al talk about pandemics, I needed caffeine more, so I went in search of a soda. The green room was being dismantled, so I sat in the consuite for a while before heading to my panel on panels. This one was What Pros Should Know about Cons. It was a small room with a small crowd, but it was still enjoyable, and my four years on the con circuit were put to good use in dispensing wisdom to those coming up the ladder. I was no longer the newbie. I really was the seasoned pro. And it felt good. I stuck around one more hour to see Herb's last panel, which was Delivering on the Promise of Your Story. I got to hear one last GoH speak, and he was a biggie. Joining Herb on this large panel was none other than Terry Brooks. And he was fantastic. What a wonderful speaker and completely down to earth. James Alan Gardner was the moderator and did a fine job. They talked about how to take a great beginning and make it pay off with a great ending to your story. After that it was just the trip home with a side trip to pick up some Canadian chocolate for the family (a McDermott Canadian vacation tradition going back many many decades). I also needed a Tim Horton's Iced Capucino to make it home, which of course meant I was up until about 2 a.m. again that night. It took all week to get back on track, sleep-wise (which is why this report is late and also why I don't do more than one convention per month). |
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