Eeriecon 7 ReportApril 22-24, 2005April 21 - The night before Eeriecon, I was invited to an author signing at Borders Book Store in Buffalo, with Eericon Guest of Honor Allen Steele, and guests Anne Bishop and Lynn Flewelling. We started at about 8:30 and had a Q&A session with the gathered crowd that lasted over 90 minutes. There were Lots of questions, from "What should my 13-year-old daughter who loves to write do to improve her writing?" to "What was the worst advice you've ever been given as a writer?" Allen said that he had once been told by his mentor to put all of his ideas into one story. Allen said this was like making stew by emptying the refrigerator. I said I'd actually tried that with chile to disastrous results, but that it worked well with egggs. After the Q&A we all signed books. I signed quite a few, including several for a young fan named Sam who bought all of my books that Borders had. Gotta love Sam. April 22 - Our whole family headed to Niagara Falls around noon on Friday. It's less than an hour trip from our house, but after several false starts, and two (too) long errands, we ended up checking in a little after 2:30. After decompressing, we all got back in the car and went to the Niagara Aquarium. It's pretty small, but still a lot of fun. We got there just in time for the Sea Lion show and left shortly after the Seal feeding. Other highlights included flounder with their odd eyes one side heads and the Lion Fish, which floated majestically in their tank, oblivious to all the shutter bugs in line to take their picture. After the Aquariu, we went back to the convention for the evening sessions. The Kids bought lots of crap at the People and Things Auction (to help fund future Eeriecons), and then came one of my favorite parts of the convention - The Late Night Talk Show. Edo van Belkom sat in for Rob Sawyer to interview the Guests of Honor and other Special Guests (including yours truly). I wanted to talk about the No Longer Dreams anthology and my upcoming novel, but Edo was more interested in the Heroes of Battle D&D book that comes out next month. April 23 - I got up early to have breakfast with Guest of Honor Julie Czerneda (and her retinue of fans). It was packed and I ended up sitting with one of Julie's fans who had traveled all the way from Seattle to see her at the convention. We spent all breakfast talking about my home away from home - Seattle. After breakfast, I sat down with my friend Pat York, whom I hadn't seen since last Eeriecon. She ended up inviting me to a Writer's Retreat this summer (which I hope to attend). After Breakfast, I had to get ready for my long day of panels. I had a reading at 10:30 a.m., and George (who had bought one of my books at Borders the night before) joined another good friend of mine, poet David Clink, to listen to me read from Blood Royal, my upcoming novel from Black Library. Unfortunately, I had brought the wrong binder, so I switched to "Essence of the Dragon," one of my Malhavoc anthology short stories. Afterwards, I had to race downstairs for three straight panels. My first panel was World Building in 60 Minutes with Guests of Honor Allen Steele and Julie Czerneda, and another friend of mine I hadn't seen since last Eeriecon, Lynn Flewelling. Julie moderated and ran a tight ship, keeping Allen Steele in check for most of the hour. Allen has LOTS of good anecdotes and I think we could have all listened to him the whole time, but luckily Julie let the rest of us answer some questions as well. After World Building, I went to World Destruction. Not with a Bang was a panel on how the world will end. Nancy Kress and I brought the fiction angles to the table, but the panel belonged to the two Dr. Daves - Professor Dave DeGraff an astronomy and physics instructor from Alfred College who is also an SF writer, and the retired Dr. David Stephenson, who has used radar to observe meteors and built systems for deep space probes. My favorite part of this panel was learning that every deep asteroid impact on every world has a corresponding mountainous region on the other side of the planet (or moon). Cool stuff! I then went to a panel on Myth and Legend as Inspiration, where James Allen Gardner, my friend Al Katerinsky (who has a character named after him in my next novel), and I talked about our favorite myths and legends. Al, with his very big brain that remembers everything, was the hit of this panel. But in the end, we all fell back on the work of Robert Sawyer (who was absent from Eeriecon this year because he was on a book tour). All three of us mentioned a different work of Rob's that uses mythical figures or religion as a central theme. I finally got a break at 2 p.m. and played with my kids for a while at the pool while my better half sat in on a panel with a bunch of other spouses, including Roger Czerneda, Roberta van Belkam, and Carolyn Clink (Rob Sawyer's wife). I heard that quite a bit of dirt was dished that hour. My last panel for the day was Short Vs. Longer Fiction, with Lois Gresh, Darrel Schweitzer, James Allen Gardner, Allen Steele, and Pat York. This quickly became the Allen and Darrel show as both men have years and years in the business and know just about every short fiction editor out there. I actually learned a lot about where I should send my short fiction. Right after this panel, we all had to rush back upstairs for the game show. What Line's Mine is a staple at Eeriecon. A panel of nine or more authors all listen to quotes from stories and vote on who wrote them. You get ten points for getting it right and lose twenty points if you miss on one of your own quotes. Cheating is not only allowed, it's encouraged. I didn't cheat much last year and came in near the bottom. This year, I cheated shamelessly, but still could do no better than second behind Carolyn Clink. I think she only missed one. My one claim to fame this night was that I never missed one of my quotes - but only because I kept voting for mine as a defensive move. I only absolutely recognized one quote. All of the others I voted for because I just wasn't sure. I figured it was better to guess myself than risk losing twenty points. Only once was I wrong. I guess I know my own style, if not the actual words. After a dinner with my wife, Daneen, my writing pals, Al and Herb Kauderer, and the Clinks, Herb, David, Carolyn, and I settled in for a long night of poker. We eventually got up to ten people playing Texas Hold'em around a big round table. I won one round, raking in all the chips early when several people went all in, and then never looking back. I then bowed out on the first hand the next two games, and ended up dealing until almost 3 a.m. It was great fun and now I'm hooked on free internet poker. April 22 - After my long Saturday, I took it easy on Sunday. We got up late (for me - 9:30 a.m.) and packed up. Then after eating some cold pizza in the consuite, Daneen and I went to David and Carolyn's magnetic poetry session. This is another staple event at Eeriecon, but it was the first time I had been able to attend. Poets David Clink, Carolyn Clink, and Herb Kauderer showed us all up (especially Herb, who came late but composed one of the longest and best poems of the session). Roger Czerneda, who professed to never having done magnetic poetry before, also delivered one of the best poems of the hour. But I was pretty happy with my first poem. The second one was done to be silly (I liked a couple of words on my metal platter and built something strange around them). I present them below as my homage to Eeriecon 7, along with Daneen's response poem to my oddity (which brought gales of laughter from the assembled poets).
Daneen's Response to ScoreHow you waste away love. |
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