Boskone 57 - Boskone 2020 - This Year's Boskone

I've said this a lot, but it bears repeating:

When I was a teenager, the whole chain of events that ultimately led to me becoming JABbermaster started out when I was staying at the Boskone hotel, by chance and serendipity and coincidence.  So I'm happy that I've been able to go to Boskone for near on each of the past fifteen years now, participate on the program, and pay it forward.  And even happier that I have several clients as a direct result of my attendance at Boskone.

And a quick thank you to the people on the Program Committee for Boskone.  The final schedule email they sent is 100% ready just to paste as is.  It doesn't have people's email addresses hiding in it or other things needing to be edited out.  So that's pasted below, exactly as I got it.  

I hope I'll get to see some of you, and the Kaffeeklatsch I have is always a great opportunity for one-on-one in an intimate setting.  As always, I have a great bunch of co-panelists.  One of my panels I even get to share with two of my clients.  This is a good convention for people who love reading sf/f, with a lot of people who come back year after year.  Join the jamboree, and I'll hope to see you there.

JOSHUA

BOSKONE 57, the 2020 BOSKONE -- Scheduling the JABbermaster

Editing from Agent, to Editor, to Publisher

Format: Panel

15 Feb 2020, Saturday 14:00 - 14:50, Marina 2 (Westin)

Writing is only half the work when crafting a story, novel, or article. Once the words are on the page, what happens next? Our panel discusses the review, revision, rewriting, and more needed at each stage of the process before the finished piece lands in the hands of a reader.

Melanie Meadors (M), Joshua Bilmes (JABberwocky Literary Agency), Beth Meacham, John Kessel (North Carolina State University), James D. Macdonald

Troubleshooting Troublesome Manuscripts

Format: Panel

15 Feb 2020, Saturday 15:00 - 15:50, Marina 2 (Westin)

Our intrepid authors come together to share tips and tricks for tackling the most notorious issues that arise when writing and editing their work. Find out how to fix hidden plot holes, dangling loose ends, and the endings that just won't end!

Joshua Bilmes (JABberwocky Literary Agency) (M), Matthew Warner (Deena Warner Design LLC), Steve Miller (Liaden Universe), Sharon Lee (Liaden Universe), Tabitha Lord (Association of RI Authors)

Kaffeeklatsch: Joshua Bilmes

Format: Kaffeeklatsch

15 Feb 2020, Saturday 18:00 - 18:50, Galleria - Kaffeeklatsch 2 (Westin)

Joshua Bilmes (JABberwocky Literary Agency)

Game to Fiction/Fiction to Game

Format: Panel

15 Feb 2020, Saturday 20:00 - 20:50, Burroughs (Westin)

Game designers have to come up with an interesting world and compelling story in much the same way as authors who write fiction. So, what does it take to adapt a game to fiction or fiction to game? What new opportunities does the process create? What obstacles need to be overcome?

Gregory Wilson, Dan Moren (M), Joshua Bilmes (JABberwocky Literary Agency), Auston Habershaw, Mur Lafferty

Killing Characters

Format: Panel

16 Feb 2020, Sunday 10:00 - 10:50, Burroughs (Westin)

Why would you create wonderful characters and then ruthlessly kill them? Perhaps it inspires a hero to action, or it makes the narrative more poignant. It might be that you’re tired of these characters or their story arcs have reached their ends. At any rate, what are some of the more creative ways (Reichenbach Falls?) of killing characters? What are the problems relating to creating an interesting death? Major and/or minor characters? Are there rules? Is it moral? Fair? Does the writer have a responsibility to the readership? (And what are the repercussions of this?) Should you plan for a possible (or surprise) comeback?

Teresa Nielsen Hayden (Tor Books), Cadwell Turnbull, Joshua Bilmes (JABberwocky Literary Agency), John Chu (M), KT Bryski

Play Mistborn!

Format: Gaming

16 Feb 2020, Sunday 11:00 - 12:50, Harbor III - Gaming (Westin)

Game on! A semi-cooperative resource-management game, Mistborn: House War is set during the events of Mistborn: The Final Empire, the first novel in the bestselling fantasy series by Brandon Sanderson. Join Brandon's agent Joshua Bilmes for a special demo of this fun new board game!

Joshua Bilmes (JABberwocky Literary Agency)

Boskone Schedule

Excited to be heading up to Boston on President's Day weekend for Boskone 56.  It's forty years this day that I was staying by coincidence at the Boskone hotel, got free samples of the recently launched Omni magazine as a result, and started on the road to reading sf/fantasy that led to everything else.  

Starting bright and early with my first panel at 4pm on 15 February, I've got a great schedule, with lots of great co-panelists.  I'll also be doing a demo of the Mistborn: House War board game, which Crafty Games was gracious enough to donate to the convention's games library, and doing a Kaffeeklatsch with Barry Goldblatt, which is a great chance to be part of a very small group getting advice from two really good agents.   I hope I'll get to see some of you.

In part because I've attended Boskone with fair regularity the past dozen years, I have a lot of clients who are in the Boston area.  Dan Moren, Auston Habershaw, Greg Katsoulis, Suzanne Palmer, Kenneth Rogers, Neil Clarke of Clarkesworld, Toni L. P. Kelner and Steve Kelner are among the JABberwocky authors you can see at Boskone this year.   I'll be meeting with an author I met last year, who's currently in revision on a promising military sf novel,   And in 2017, Boskone's where I met up with Nick Martell for the first time, and a year after that I sold his first novel.  Networking and con-going can be a big part of finding early success in this business.  If you miss me at my panels, you might find me in the dealer's room, at the art show reception, or hanging out in the hotel's lobby bar.

The Life Cycle of a Book

Format: Panel

15 Feb 2019, Friday 16:00 - 16:50, Lewis (Westin)

Most of us just see the finished product on the shelf. However, there are lots of little (and big) steps associated with getting the book to the store. What's the life cycle of a book, from submission to publication? It's not as simple as "the author writes it, then the publisher prints it." What are the direct, indirect, and associated steps involved in the production and publication process — from editing to marketing, selling, reviewing, reprinting, and more?

also on the panel:  Gene Doucette, Andrea Corbin, Nicholas Kaufmann, LJ Cohen

Editing Your Manuscript for Submission

Format: Discussion Group

15 Feb 2019, Friday 17:00 - 17:50, Griffin (Westin)

Join our panel of editors and agents for a discussion on what they look for in a submission. Is submitting to an agent different from submitting to an editor? Are they seeking the same or different things on first reads? Do you submit a precis, a chapter or chapters, the whole manuscript, or other material and, if so, to whom and when? How do you prepare your novel for submission? What are some tips and tricks on how to cut, embellish, or shape a manuscript?

also on the panel: Joshua Bilmes (joshua@awfulagent.com), Auston Habershaw

Mistborn: House War Game Demo

Format: Gaming

16 Feb 2019, Saturday 12:00 - 12:50, Harbor I - Gaming (Westin)

Game on! A semi-cooperative resource-management game, Mistborn: House War is set during the events of Mistborn: The Final Empire, the first novel in the bestselling fantasy series by Brandon Sanderson. Join Brandon's agent Joshua Bilmes for a special demo of this fun new boardgame!

The Great Agent Hunt

Format: Panel

16 Feb 2019, Saturday 17:00 - 17:50, Marina 3 (Westin)

Finding an agent can be a bit of a mystery. Whom should you contact? What should you say? How much of your manuscript should be finished before you call? And what about established authors who have to change representation? Our pro agents share their experience and advice on the key steps in your agent-finding process.

also on the panel: S L Huang , Barry Goldblatt (Barry Goldblatt Literary Agency), Christopher Golden, Lauren Roy

Stereotyping Authors

Format: Panel

17 Feb 2019, Sunday 12:00 - 12:50, Harbor III (Westin)

Some authors get known for writing only one particular type of fiction: hard SF, or urban detective fantasy, or grimdark milSF mystery nurse romance … This sort of branding can bring a writer great success — while plunking them straight into a pigeonhole. Some find it quite difficult to escape. But breakouts are possible. Our panelists discuss the ups and downs of becoming a "known quantity," and how it affects the arc of their careers and the fiction they publish.

Ginjer Buchanan, Christopher Golden, Darlene Marshall

Kaffeeklatsch: Joshua Bilmes and Barry Goldblatt

Format: Kaffeeklatsch

17 Feb 2019, Sunday 14:00 - 14:50, Galleria - Kaffeeklatsch 1 (Westin)

combined with Barry Goldblatt of the Barry Goldblatt Literary Agency, bgliterary.com

San Jose - here I come!

My second WorldCon in San Jose, and it's starting next week.

Here are some things I remember from ConJose in 2002:

John Hemry/Jack Campbell and I went looking for lunch, and we walked and walked and walked on a kind of hot day, and we never exactly found the restaurant.  John still holds this against me.  And I kind of can't blame him.  But, like -- there was barely MapQuest in 2002, let alone the wonder of Google Maps.

Tobias Buckell isn't a client of mine any longer, but I had the honor of representing him at the start of his career, and we had a pretty long chat at the Starbucks in downtown, around the corner from the Waldenbooks now long since gone, about the wonderful novel that became Crystal Rain.  The Starbucks is still there, and I'll think fond thoughts of Toby and Crystal Rain every time I pass by.

It was an adventure getting to the party floors at the Fairmont, finding the secret stairs to walk up and up and up because the elevator service wasn't up to it.  Sadly, this is a familiar story at lots of conventions.  Rarely do hotels have elevator service designed for peak hours.

The Marriott didn't exist yet.

Those were the days when you could still head out and catch a mall bookstore, a B&N, a Borders, more -- all in close proximity.  I visited sooooo many bookstores in 2002.  Borders in Milpitas and Los Gatos and Fremont and Emeryville and Dublin and San Ramon and here and there and lots of other bookstores besides.  The store in Milpitas, not far from the Cisco HQ, was a fabulous store for science fiction and fantasy.  And back then, the front of the store wasn't being sold off to the highest bidder and was still largely determined by what was doing well at each store, so you knew the moment you walked in that you were in science fiction heaven.  L. E. Modesitt visited as many or more bookstores as I did, and however many I went to in 2002, but he had a car.

Still around, the Barnes & Noble on Steven Creek Pkwy, which I took the bus out to, and which was an amazing store as well for science fiction and fantasy.  I kind of miss when my life was a little less busy, a little simpler, and I could more easily explore the world beyond WorldCon when I went to a WorldCon.

Meisha Merlin did exist.  

In any event, it's sixteen years later with one World Fantasy at San Jose between now and then.

Maybe you can help me create some new memories this year?

There are three JABberwocky authors up for Hugo Awards this year -- Marie Brennan, Suzanne Palmer and Brandon Sanderson.  The last time I was in San Jose, I had read some Brandon Sanderson but not yet Elantris, and we weren't officially author/agent for another six months.  

My 2018 schedule:

Friday, 11am, 211C in Convention Center

Negotiating Book Contracts

Saturday, 3pm, 211B in Convention Center

Kaffeeklatsch

This event will require an advance registration through the convention

The link on internet to my schedule page is here:

https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/worldcon-76/en/worldcon-76/participants/1300/Joshua+Bilmes

For another couple of days, I've opened an express line for querying me.  If you are going to San Jose, and if you put WorldCon in your schedule line, we'll give top priority to looking at queries.  What better way to find a great new manuscript for me to take on, and maybe even talk about it at the Starbucks just like I got to talk about Crystal Rain with Tobias Buckell sixteen years ago.

Find my query guidelines here.

I'd love to have more panels on my schedule, so more definite places where you can hear me speak, find me after, collect a business card -- that sort of thing.  But I'm going to WorldCon to be part of it.  I'll be around the Dealer's Room when I can be, so maybe you'll find me roaming about there.  If you're a SFFWA member, I'll pop into their hospitality suite.  I'll be hanging at whatever hotel bar all the publishing people end up hanging at.  I like to visit the different bid parties or publishing parties, so sometimes at night it's just a question of being in the right place at the right time as I rotate from the bar to the SFFWA suite to the bid parties to a publisher party.  And wherever I am, unless I'm in a meeting I'm there to meet people.

WorldCon, Baby!

WorldCon!!

The Boston Me Party!

I'm always excited to be at Boskone.  I wouldn't have my current life if not for getting sample copies of OMNI Magazine in the Boskone Dealers Room in the late 1970s, which got me hooked on sf/f and ultimate led to the current version of me.

This year is even double extra super special with a Ruby Snap cookie on top, because my client Brandon Sanderson is the Guest of Honor, and we will be doing some program items together.

List of items below, with rooms, times, descriptions, and fellow panelists.  And hopefully not the email addresses for the fellow panelists.  I have one item with my client Walter Jon Williams, will be doing a demo for the Crafty Games Mistborn: House War board game, and of particular interest, will be part of the rare opportunity to hear an author, agent and editor discuss together what makes a successful writing career, as I'm joined by Brandon Sanderson and editor Moshe Feder, who made the decision to push Tor to offer on Elantris.

The Death Star

Friday 16:00 - 17:00, Marina 2 (Westin)

*Spoiler Alert!* Destroying the Death Star, in one of the most iconic battle scenes in film history, was the Rebel Alliance's main goal, and gave our story its happy ending. A single point of weakness brought down this architectural and technological giant. Join us as we discuss the Battle of Yavin, and ultimately the defeat of the Death Star. We might even weave in a little Rogue One!
40th Anniversary: Star Wars: A New Hope

Mary Kay Kare, Deirdre Crimmins, Joshua Bilmes, Julie Holderman (M) , Brendan DuBois


Indie Pub Your Backlist

Saturday 10:00 - 11:00, Marina 2 (Westin)

Do you have old stories that were published ages ago, now lingering in drawers, gathering dust — not getting read? Independent publishers can be a great resource for letting your stories see the light of day again, and drumming up interest from new readers. We'll discuss ideas on revitalizing your backlist and finding indie publishers for your unpublished early gems.

Walter Jon Williams, Joshua Bilmes (M), Richard Shealy, Juliana Spink Mills , Craig Shaw Gardner


_Mistborn: House War_ Game Demo

Saturday 11:00 - 12:00, Harbor I - Gaming (Westin)

Game on! A semi-cooperative resource-management game, Mistborn: House War is set during the events of Mistborn: The Final Empire, the first novel in the bestselling fantasy series by Boskone Guest of Honor Brandon Sanderson. Join agent Joshua Bilmes for an early look at this exciting new board game — launching this spring!

Joshua Bilmes, Brandon Sanderson


Guest of Honor Brandon Sanderson: Building a Career

Saturday 13:00 - 14:00, Harbor III (Westin)

Even a prodigiously talented author doesn't become a success alone, or overnight. Boskone 54's Guest of Honor, Brandon Sanderson; his agent, Joshua Bilmes; and his editor, Moshe Feder, discuss how they have worked together to sculpt and craft the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author, "Brandon Sanderson," that we know today. All three luminaries share their stories of navigating the shoals of the publishing world as they built friendships and careers within the speculative fiction industry.

Brandon Sanderson, Joshua Bilmes, Moshe Feder


Contracts and Talking Terms

Sunday 10:00 - 11:00, Burroughs (Westin)

Literary contracts can be tricky to navigate. We'll reveal what's behind those mysterious clauses and terms hidden in plain sight. When is a deal too good to pass up — or too good to be true? Discover what's okay to publish, learn to avoid legal landmines, and ask questions about what you most want to know.

Joshua Bilmes, Victoria Sandbrook, Kenneth Schneyer, E. C. Ambrose (M), Michael Stearns

The Eternal GenCon of the Dodecahedral Mind

I'm excited to be a special Agent Guest of the GenCon Writers Symposium this year!

So many of our clients and friends are going, and I'm on a lot of different program items, so I'm looking forward to being very busy for the four days of GenCon.  Here's my official schedule for the Symposium with most program items at the Westin.  If you're planning to attend, I hope you'll show up.

Thursday August 4, 10AM -- Self-Publishing 101
Cabinet room

Thursday August 4, 1PM -- Part Time Writer, Full Time Life
Chamber room

Friday August 5, 12 noon -- Traditional Publishing
Cabinet Room

Friday August 5, 2PM -- Elevator Pitches
Congress 1

Friday August 5, 4PM -- Pitching Your Novel
Caucus

Saturday August 6, 2PM -- The Role of Agents
Caucus

Saturday August 6, 3PM -- Q&A w/Joshua Bilmes
Caucus

Saturday August 6, 4PM -- Role of Editors
Caucus

I'm also doing some pitch sessions, and I don't know if space is remaining or not.  Check directly with the Symposium organizers using the details here.

There are so many other great speakers, including our clients Jody Lynn Nye, Tim Akers, Jay Posey and Marie Brennan.

Ten days after GenCon ends, I'll be in Kansas City for WorldCon.  Stay tuned for more information on that.

Balticon 50!

The first convention I attended as a pro was Balticon in 1989.  Elizabeth Moon was told she'd be winning the Compton Crook Award.  I got the OK from Scott Meredith to attend and celebrate, hopped on Amtrak, and arrived in Baltimore on a very rainy Friday night.  I got added at the very last minute to a couple panels; Groo was discussed on one of them.  Elizabeth and I had breakfast on the Sunday, and I got the steak and eggs.

We've gone on to represent many other Compton Crook winners and nominees, and it's always nice to return to Balticon, which I've now gotten to do for several consecutive years.  This year, the convention returns to the Inner Harbor for the first time in a while.  Wegmans, no.  Light Street Pavilion, Yes.

Here's my known schedule:

Friday 9pm - Pride of Baltimore room
Tales from the Slush Pile
co-panelists include Mur Lafferty and "Space & Time" publisher Hildy Silverman

Friday 10pm - Parlor 9029
Why Ant Man and the first Thor Movie Are Good

Saturday 5pm - Parlor 9059
The Fine Art of Rejection

Sunday 9am -Guilford
Coming to the Negotiation Table

Sunday 5pm - Guilford
So You Want to be an Agent

Balticon website

& the program is also available using "Balticon50" on the Grenadine Event Guide app.

Other JABberwocky clients attending include:

John Hemry/Jack Campbell
Jody Lynn Nye
Dan Moren

And of course you'll find me around the Dealer's Room, the bar, maybe in the Games Room.  Games are good.

I'll hope to see lots of you there.

And if you're interested in querying me, Guidelines!

Norwescon !!

I'm super excited to be going to Norwescon this year.  It's my first time going to this convention, and my first time in Seattle in almost ten years, which is way too long to be away from such a beautiful city.  I'll have some great company.  My long-time client Tanya Huff is a Guest of Honor at this year's Norwescon, and my more recent discovery Adam Rakunas is a finalist for this year's Philip K. Dick Award for his excellent debut novel WINDSWEPT.  DAW Books, which publishes Tanya Huff and many of our other authors, is the publisher honoree.  There will be lots of other JABberwocky clients around,  and I'll be joined by my JABberwocky colleague Sam Morgan.

I'm going to be on two panels on Saturday, March 26:

Sat 1:00pm - 2:00pm - Cascade 9
First Page Idol
Phoebe Kitanidis (M), Frog Jones, Nicole Dieker, Paul Constant, Joshua Bilmes

Sat 3:00pm - 4:00pm - Evergreen 3&4
Comic Book Movies
Rafeal Richardson (M), Paul Constant, J. Rachel Edidin, John Lovett, Joshua Bilmes

It's a great opportunity to meet up with me, and I hope I'll have a chance to say hello to some of you at Norwescon.  Of course, you can also submit your query letter to me; guidelines here!

Boskone 50 - My Schedule!

I'm eagerly looking forward to being at Boskone 50 from February 19-21 at Boston's Westin Waterfront Hotel.  My road to being a science fiction fan, and thus to JABberwocky, started in the Boskone dealer's room in the late 1970s.  And I've got my fingers crossed that we're about to sell a first novel for an author I first met at Boskone a few years ago.

My full schedule is below.  In addition, you'll often find me hanging around the dealer's room or schmoozing in the hotel lobby, and it's one of the best events during the year to get some good quality time with me.

Hope to see you in Boston!

The Perfect Pitch

Friday 16:00 - 16:50, Burroughs (Westin)

Pitching a story can be intimidating, especially if you're new to the field or must change agents/editors. This is your chance to find out what agents, editors, and publishers want from their current writers, from writers fresh to the market, and from writers transitioning to someone new. Hear from the pros about what—and what not—to do when preparing the perfect pitch. (If there even is such a thing...)

Joshua Bilmes , Melinda Snodgrass , Michael Stearns


Mistborn: Final Empire Discussion Group

Saturday 10:00 - 10:50, Harbor I-Discussion Group (Westin)

Mistborn: House War is a semi-cooperative, resource-management game set during the events of the first Mistborn novel by Brandon Sanderson. Join agent Joshua Bilmes for an early look at the game and a lively discussion about this exciting new board game that is coming out in 2016!

Joshua Bilmes


Rebooting Comics

Saturday 17:00 - 17:50, Harbor I-Discussion Group (Westin)

DC has released two revamps of their comic book line in the past 5 years, with “The New 52” and now “DC YOU.” What about Marvel’s single “All New, All Different” changeover? Which reboot really clicks? Let's have an informal discussion group chat about the reboot.

Joshua Bilmes


Digging in with Military Science Fiction

Saturday 20:00 - 20:50, Griffin (Westin)

Is military SF the most enduring category within science fiction? If so, why? If not, it certainly has endured. What is it about this subgenre that gives it such staying power?

Christopher Weuve , Joshua Bilmes, Charles Gannon, Walter H. Hunt , Vincent O'Neil

Balticon Schedule

I'm always excited to be going to Balticon.

My first convention as an agent was the Balticon where Elizabeth Moon was presented with the Compton Crook Award for Sheepfarmer's Daughter, and taking things full circle this year, E. L. Tettensor was a finalist this year for her debut novel Darkwalker.

Here's where you'll find me this weekend:

Friday May 22, 17:00 5pm
A Glimpse Behind the Curtain - The Business Side of Writing (Salon C)
there's a lot of ground to cover in a panel like this, which will be a rich reward for people who can get to Balticon early in its run.

Saturday May 23 17:00 5pm
Beyond Creative Commons (Tack)
the program book says this is a panel about moving from free pod-casting to selling your audios.  I hope I'm supposed to be the moderator, since I may have more questions than answers.

Saturday May 23 20:00 8pm
Tales From the Slush Pile (Tack)
My iPad has lots of bad queries ready to be read!  Learn what not to do, so you can do it right yourself.

Sunday May 24 14:30 2:30 pm
Dragons of Dorcastle Book Launch (Concierge Lounge)
PARTY!
Join "Jack Campbell" (the NYT bestselling pen name for John Hemry) as we celebrate the e-book and POD release of his new novel "The Dragons of Dorcastle," an Audible studios original for audio publication that's now available direct from JABberwocky in other formats.
And along for the ride -- Joshua Palmatier, with Temporarily Out of Order from his "Zombies Need Brains" and his own "Shattering the Ley"
PARTY -- FOOD -- FREE FOOD, actually!!

Sunday May 24 19:00 7pm
How to Incorporate Critique (Chase)
You've gotten your feedback.  Now what?
Revising a novel is as important as writing it in the first place, so this is a must-attend for people hoping to find themselves on the JABberwocky client roster.


Balticon is one of only a handful of times during 2015 when I'll be at a convention, and when you can meet up with me in person and find the key to opening my closed door to queries.

The Ghost of WorldCon Past

As I get ready to head down to San Antonio for LoneStarCon 3, the World Science Fiction Convention, some reminiscences of LoneStarCon 2 in 1997...

First and foremost, having WorldCons in Texas is good!  Both times in the life of JABberwocky that I've gone to San Antonio for a WorldCon, I have had a Hugo nominee on the ballot.  In 1997, it was Elizabeth Moon's Remnant Population for Best Novel, and this year Brandon Sanderson's The Emperor's Soul for Best Novella.  I have to confess I wasn't expecting a win in 1997.  The competition was amazing, with Kim Stanley Robinson winning and novels by Lois McMaster Bujold and Robert J. Sawyer as well as Bruce Sterling to split the Texas vote.  (Several years later when Elizabeth was a Nebula finalist for Speed of Dark, I was rather more optimistic and told her at breakfast the morning of that I felt she has as good a chance as anyone and better have a speech ready, which was good advice!)  I'm not as up on short fiction as I used to be and can't handicap the field as easily this year, but I feel Brandon Sanderson has a good shot at winning for Emperor's Soul.

JABberwocky was very different in 1997.  It was just me.  In the early years of JABberwocky, I made just enough to get by and to have a little bit above break-even that I could afford to go to a WorldCon.  Now, there are six people at the agency, and I won't have to watch my pennies on the trip quite the same way.

A good example:  in 1997, I walked to LaGuardia to catch my flight, a little over four miles.  I also stumbled in the median crossing Astoria Blvd., broke my glasses and had to spend my earliest hours in San Antonio going to get them fixed.  And then continued for many years to walk to LaGuardia, without incident.  This year, I will take a car service.  In part because I now live a mile further away, in part because I will have a heavier bag since I will be gone longer.  But in no small part, because my time is now as valuable to me as my money, and it's a lot harder to justify walking to the airport.

There are some drawbacks, however.  In 1997, I didn't have a lot of clients at the convention.  I was able to take some time to sightsee, such as the sightseeing is in San Antonio.  I absconded to the movie theatre in the RiverCenter mall to see GI Jane.  This year, anything that I do like that, I'm going to have to do on the days before or after the convention gets underway.  I've got many clients to meet.  I've got a group of 20 for the JABberwocky dinner, which is the kind of event I never could have afforded in 1997.  I have an Important Dinner with an Important Client, his Brilliant Editor & Major Publisher.  Back in 1997, I wasn't Important Enough for such things.

In 1997, I was excited that I would get to place a first-time visit to a Borders!  Now, I will reluctantly try and get to the local B&Ns, just kind of because, and am instead saving my excitement because I might be able to pay first-time visits to two Whole Foods Markets.

In 1997, Eos had a big soiree at some restaurant on the Riverwalk to celebrate the arrival of Eos.  Now, Eos is Voyager, and if they are having a party, no one told me.

In 1997, there was a Bantam Books party at a Country Club.  It was outside of town and they hired vans to take people there.  I was expecting it to be in the 18th Hole restaurant thing at a Country Club.  Instead, vanloads of New Yorkers got out of the bus and discovered to their surprise that the "Country" in this club was country music.  This year, Bantam Spectra Del Rey Ace Roc DAW are having a combined party, the first major joint event of all the newly merged sf/f imprints.

I met Adam-Troy Castro on the plane out.  We ultimately became author and agent.

Those are some of my major impressions of the 1997 trip.  It will be interesting to see in 16 years what lasting impressions and memories I have of LoneStarCon 3.

WorldCon Schedule

I am attending LoneStarCon 3, the 71st World Science Fiction Convention in just a couple weeks, and I am putting my full schedule below followed by some comments and annotations.

One important thing to mention ahead of time:  I'm not open to query letters, but both I and my assistant Sam Morgan will be at the convention, we are always excited and interested to meet people, and often do agree to open the door a bit for submissions from people we meet.  Besides getting to hear me speak on several panels with a lot of other knowledgeable people in the field, I have a Kaffeklatsch this year which means a select group of people will get some extended quality time with me.  Opportunities like this don't come around often, and I hope you'll take advantage of this.

So here's the schedule:


How to Obtain an Agent
Thursday 14:00 - 15:00
You've written something. You're pleased with it. You're finally ready to shop it out. You think it might get published. How do you search for an agent? How do you recognize a real agent? What pitfalls do you need to avoid?
John Berlyne  , Joshua Bilmes

Self-Promotion: Everything You Know about it Is Probably Wrong
Thursday 16:00 - 17:00
Done properly, self-promotion is an important part of building a career. Poorly executed, self-promotion can do more harm than good. How is the conventional wisdom wrong? What are the more advisable but underrated neglected approaches?
Julie Barrett (M) , Gini Koch , Joshua Bilmes , Genese Davis , Teresa Nielsen Hayden

The Business Side of Writing
Thursday 19:00 - 20:00
So you've written a novel. What's next? How do you get an agent, get published, market to readers, network, avoid scams... writing was only the beginning!
Janet Harriett (M) , Mark Oshiro  , Joshua Bilmes, Genese Davis, Steven Diamond

The Role of the Agent
Friday 14:00 - 15:00
What does an agent do? Do you need an agent to get published?
Teresa Nielsen Hayden (M) , Eleanor Wood , Joshua Bilmes , John Berlyne

But Why Can't You See My Genius?
Saturday 13:00 - 14:00
Let's face it; nobody likes rejection, but every writer is going to get rejection letters at some point. Why the rejection? Why don't they love you? Your work may be wrong for the publisher, may have arrived on the wrong day, or it may simply be the 350th angsty vampire novel the poor sorry slush pile reader has seen that week. How can you turn a rejection letter into a "hell yes!"
Beth Meacham (M), Michael Underwood  , Eleanor Wood, Mary Robinette Kowal  , Joshua Bilmes

Publishing Intermediaries in the Digital Age
Saturday 14:00 - 15:00
Agents. Editors. Publishers. All obsolete in the digital age, right? We find out how useful these experts are and what services they can provide to authors and other creators.
Steve Jackson (M), Tom Doherty, Irene Gallo, Joshua Bilmes , Betsy Mitchell

Kaffeeklatsch: Joshua Bilmes, Ginjer Buchanan, William Ledbetter
Sunday 11:00 - 12:00
Ginjer Buchanan, William Ledbetter , Joshua Bilmes

And now some annotations:

On the Kaffeklatsch, I think this means there are three people doing separate, not that we're doing a joint sitting at the table.  But who knows!

Three of my panels are on Thursday when a lot of people are just arriving, getting settled and registering.  Sorry about that!  I am sure there will be some overlap between the 2pm panel on Tuesday and the panel on Friday.

Especially since my 2pm panel on Thursday is with our British partner agent, John Berlyne.  John said once that he first met/saw me, or at least I think he says this, when I was on programming at the WorldCon in Glasgow several years back.  John and I are on two panels together, and I'm also on two with Eleanor Wood.  I respect Eleanor quite a bit; we have some similar tastes and I quite envy some of the great authors she represents.

My panel on Saturday is particularly star-studded.  Many hours have been spent playing Munchkin at the games nights/days I host once a month or so, and we have Steve Jackson to blame for that.  Tom Doherty is the founder and publisher of Tor, and I know less about publishing than Tom has forgotten! To have both him and Tor art director and tor.com mastermind Irene Gallo on a single panel, I may just hide underneath the table.  Betsy Mitchell gave me my start in publishing 30 years ago, and I am super-excited that it looks like we will be doing some business together now that she is the Strategic Advisor for SF and Fantasy for Open Road Media.

If you can't make my panels, I'll be around otherwise at the convention.  Maybe you'll spot me in the dealer's room (everyone goes to the dealer's room, everyone!), or between drinks meetings at the hotel bar.  I'll be tweeting from the con, so if you aren't following us at twitter.com/awfulagent this might be a good chance to start so you'll have some idea what's up.

WorldCon is one of my favorite conventions.  I'm dreamed of going since I was a teenager, hitting up my father for $20 to buy a supporting membership to vote for the Hugo Awards.  Who'd'a'thunk that I get to go as a professional, and be on programming, and if I'm really really lucky have clients of mine nominated for Hugo Awards.

Besides Sam and I, my VP Eddie Schneider will be at the convention.  He's not on programming, but I'm sure you'll spot him around and about.

Bouchercon

The World Science Fiction Comvention is always exhilarating and exhausting for me.

Bouchercon is a little different. Named for the mystery fiction critic Anthony Boucher, it is the World Fantasy of the mystery genre in that it is a heavy networking convention, a busy bar scene for the professionals, but without the membership cap, and more fans, and people who actually go to panels.  It isn't near as exhilarating for me as a WorldCon, but I also have fewer clients, so there's a little less scheduling pressure.  And while there's a strong bar scene at night, there aren't the room parties and hospitality suites that are such an important part of the scene, social and business and fannish all in one, at the major sf conventions, so it doesn't require as much after hours time.

So I had clients to see and award ceremonies to attend, I was also able to use the weekend to see some of Cleveland and really, most importantly, to recharge the batteries a bit after an exhausting September with so many long days in the office that I didn't have energy at night to dig into the reading pile.

So, seeing Cleveland:

I saw my first game at Progressive Field, the baseball stadium formerly known as Jacobs Field, the home of the Cleveland Indians.  I'd gotten tickets on Stubhub when there was still a chance the Indians could make a wild card run, possibly the best seats I've ever had for a ballgame in the third row behind home plate.  Expensive for Cleveland, but a bargain by NYC standards where you can pay $100 for a bleacher seat at Citi Field.  In retrospect I overpaid because the Indians collapsed, fired their manager the week before, weren't in it, and they were playing the Chicago White Sox who had just been eliminated from the AL Central race.  The ballpark fits in nicely at the edge of downtown. It was nice, but with three levels of suites even the first row of the upper deck looked awfully high up and I'm not sure how happy I'd be seeing a game from there.  I got to see the Chicago White Sox hit 5 homers, several of them quite impressive, including Dan Johnson becoming only the 15th White Sox player and 4th visiting player in Jacobs Field history to hit 3 homers in a game.  Paul Konerko needed 2 hits to tie Frank Thomas for #3 on the all-time White Sox hit list but got only one.  Ketchup, Mustard and Onion all seemed to be cheating in the footrace.  All in all, it was a nice evening.

On a free afternoon, I visited my 136th and 137th Whole Foods Markets, in the rich eastern suburbs.  It was a gorgeous fall day, and the two stores were located around 4.5 miles away from one another, providing a nice excuse to have a very pleasant stroll on a very nice day.  The Whole Foods at Cedar Center is very, very nice.  The one in Chagrin is a a former Wild Oats location, a little bit smaller, but pleasant enough.  And in the same mall as an outlet of Malley's Chocolates.  I got some "good luck" boxes for my award nominated clients, and some to save for when everyone is back in the office next week.

And after the convention was over, I walked down Euclid Ave. in the rain out to University Circle where Case Western is located along with many of the major Cleveland cultural institutions, with a detour to Shaker Square, the second oldest planned outdoor shopping area in the country, or so the sign said.  It's a nice area, the cultural insitutions set in a parklike setting, a very attractive Little Italy tucked alone one end.  The day would have been nicer if it wasn't raining, but I felt as if I'd really gotten my feet on the ground in the city.

I only needed a couple spare hours to walk 1.5 miles out to West Side Market, which is nicer than Lexington Market in Baltimore but maybe not quite as nice or diverse as Philly's Reading Terminal Market.  The bakeries were "enh," but there were lots and lots of fresh fruit vendors and meat vendors and cheese vendors and etc. etc.  The market is celebrating its centennial this year.

Cleveland was one of the very first cities in the world to build a train line out to its airport.  This was quite nice, $2.25 for a quick ride from the airport to the heart of downtown.  There are a couple other light rail lines heading out to the rich eastern suburbs.  Cleveland is also one of the cities that is using BRT, or Bus Rapid Transit, as a substitute for light rail. The "Health Line" runs several miles from downtown past the Playhouse Square theatre district, Cleveland State University, and then to the Cleveland Clinic, the Case Western University Hospitals, the Stokes Hospitals, etc. etc., thus having its name.  BRT uses fancy looking buses, limited stops, prepaid boarding that allows all door exit/entry, dedicated bus lanes, and other features, to make it an attractive alternative to standard bus service.  In a big city like New York, you've got to have subways that can avoid traffic.  The problem with BRT for really high density locations is that none of these things change the fact that you're stuck in traffic with all the other traffic, this is why LA really needs to have the so-called "subway to the sea" running under Wilshire Blvd., instead of the Metro Rapid lines that sit in Wilshire Blvd., even in the DC suburbs I don't think BRT would work as a substitute for the "purple line" because there's too much traffic too much of the time on the East-West Highway for anything that's going to share the traffic lanes to be really appealing.  But on the I-270 corridor in suburban DC, or in someplace like Cleveland where you can have traffic but not absolute killer traffic, BRT probably is a cost-effective substiture for laying rails.

But there's plenty not to like about Cleveland.

Everyone at Bouchercon got to go to to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Thursday night for the opening ceremonies courtesy of Amazon's Thomas & Mercer mystery pubilshing imprint.  I wasn't impressed with the Hall of Fame.  It didn't have an actual Hall of Fame with information on all of the inductees, the Hall area had glass inscribed signatures of all the inductees and plaques on the newest class, but not on everyone.  The exhibits didn't do much for me at all.  I've listened to plenty of rock and roll in my life, I'd expected to like this more, I was disappointed not to find much to like at all in the museum.

Like other cities, every bit of Cleveland is carved into a district, the Warehouse District and the Flats and the Gateway and Playhouse Square and Midtown and Fairfax and University Circule and Civic Center and this district and that district.  But let's say that the renaissance of Cleveland is still a work in progress.

Bouchercon was being held in the heart of downtown, the Civic Center/Tower Center Districts.  Tower Center is the tallest buidling in Cleveland, above a rail crossroads.  With some hotels and a cheesy mall and a movie theatre and a casino, there's some life here.  But, the only restaurants in the mall were food court, Houlihan's, Morton's, and Planet Hollywood.  In fact, the restaurant options are very limited.  A small restaurant row on E. 4th St.  Lots of sports bars near the baseball stadium and arena.  The Warehouse District has some eateries.  Further afield, you could find a handful of places in the Playhouse Square district.  But honestly, just not a lot of "there" there.  And downtown living was concentrated almost entirely in the Warehouse District which is full of renovated old warehouse buildings that now house yuppie lofts with a few new builds, and then there's the Flats district on both sides of the river with a lot of housing on the river's west bank.

On the other hand, the downtown area also didn't give this sense that you can get in parts of Philly or Baltimore that you'll go one block from the fancy museum and find yourself in a combat zone.  And the Playhouse Square district is full of many beautiful theatres, all in active use, believably the second biggest concentration of active theatrest outside of NY. And the cultural institutions out in University Circle are among the nicest cultural campuses you're going to find.

And the architecture!

The arcade where the Hyatt is, it's the most beautiful old shopping arcade, stunningly gorgeous.  And there are the Colonial Shops across the street. And you can peek in beautiful old office building after glorious old department store and spectacularly restored theatre, place after place after place of incredible beauty.  This is an asset that you don't have in a lot of other downtowns.

The convention itself...

The opening ceremonies at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame could have been better done.  If the program book had said "Hall open at 7, ceremony starts at 8," maybe there woudln't have been this flood of people arriving right at 7 when the doors weren't even open, so that it took until 7:45 for the line to finally die down, with the earliest arrivals sitting for an hour waiting for the ceremony to begin when they could have been visiting the galleries.  And there wasn't any official announcement or indication that there were going to be awards presented at the opening ceremonies.

The dealers room didn't have a Larry Smith or anyone selling a wide mix of new releases.  Mostly used/rare dealers selling mostly books by Bouchercon attendees.

Announcing raffle winner after raffle winner after raffle winner after raffle winner before the presentation of the Anthony Awards wasn't such a good idea.

There was some weird architecture to the hotel, with a new ballroom attached to the old original ballrooms in the hotel, which was erected in 1918.  Some oddities, like of the Grand Ballroom was sectioned into A and B parts, getting from A to B meant taking the stairs down a level and walking to another escalator up.  On the other hand the ballroom had a beautiful balcony seating area.

But by and large, people were having a good time.  The panels were well-attended.

And really, I can't complain too much about a convention where a client of mine wins two different awards!

Charlaine Harris hadn't been optimistic going in about her chances of winning in the Non-Fiction/Related categories for either the Macavity or Anthony Awards for her Sookie Stackhouse Companion.  Understandably so, in a way, you think of these awards as going to major important works of non-fiction, this isn't a category where I'd want to be competing for an Anthony against a Pulitzer-winning author like Michael Dirda of the Washington Post.  Add to that, we were all very close to the Companion, which had been a lot harder to put together than had been anticipated going in.

So were were all surprised and delighted on Thursday night when Charlaine and The Sookie Stackhouse Companion were announced as the winners of the Macavaity.  With the one surprising win, we had to think more seriously that maybe there would be an Anthony Award in our futures as well, but still, I think we were all still a bit surprised to come up with a double victory when the Anthony winners were announced on Saturday.

It's a little strange to say about an award in a non-fiction category, but I do think part of the success of the Companion is because it has a great novella by Charlaine, "Small Town Wedding," that is certainly the best piece of Sookie Stackhouse short fiction, if not one of the best pieces of Sookie fiction, period.  And when you add to that all of the excellent non-fiction in the Companion, the timetables and concordance and interviews and recipes, it is a potent brew.

I had lunch with Charlaine Harris and her personal assistant Paula Woldan at the Chocolate Bar, an interesting idea for a restaurant in a nice setting at the century-old Arcade shoppng area, but not actually a nice restaurant.  My alfredo badly needed pepper, the cupcakes were like fresh-from-freezer Sara Lee.

Another lunch was with Joe Clifford Faust at Skyline Chili, an Ohio institution where they serve chile atop spaghetti and then top it all with generous handfuls of shredded cheddar.  I think I prefer the New York equivalent of chili mac, where chili and macaroni and cheese reside on the same plate.  Afterwards we went to a comic book store in Parma that had been around for an impressive 28 years.

Jeri Westerson and Toni Kelner were the other current JABberwocky clients at the convention.

Jeri has ten award nominations for her first four Crispin Guest novels and was up again here.  I don't think we were surprised that she didn't win, but her Crispin Guest books are awfully good, and it would mean so much to me to see her win one of these some year.  Jeri travelled far afield to go to a library event and a bookstore event.

Toni is launching a new mystery series under a pseuodonym that promises to be a lot of fun, and she continues to help Charlaine edit wonderful paranormal anthologies, the most recent of which is An Apple for the Creature.

I had drinks with Rochelle Staub, a muliple award nominated author for Who Do, Voodoo.  We look forward to having Rochelle on our client list!

There were multiple publisher cocktail parties or receptions, so I had my full of cheese cubes and chicken tenders.

So that's a quick glimpse at Bouchercon.  I've got to tell you, there are worse jobs I can have than this one.

Chiconic Fatigue Syndrome

I've had supporting memberships for World SF Conventions, WorldCons as they are known, dating back over 30 years. When I was just becoming an sf fan and devouring a goodly chunk of sf/f (Analog, Omni, Asimov's, the occasional F&SF, novel after novel) voting in the Hugos was a major temptation. Reading the progress reports and looking over the program books instilled a certain sense of community, of belonging to a larger community even though I was just a high school kid in a small town in New York City. Imagine how nice it is to have a job where I now get to attend WorldCon as part of it! And ChiCon, the 70th WorldCon, is the 18th I've actually attended.

The experience of attending WorldCon as a pro is very different than the WorldCon I dreamed of 30 years ago, however.

I get to be on panels, I don't so much get to attend them.

This year, I thought all my panels were reasonably successful. The one on business advice for writers at 3pm on the first day of the con when everyone was settling in had the kind of crowd you might expect when half the convention hasn't even picked up its membership badges yet. Having the "getting an agent" panel at 9am the next morning wasn't ideal either, it's WorldCon and people go to parties and who wants to have to wake up for a 9am panel? I was also on a panel on e-books.

I grew up wanting to vote on the Hugos and waiting around ten years to finally attend an actual Hugo ceremony.

Alas, I have learned over 26 years in the business that I am rife with internal conflict about awards. I love for my clients to be nominated for awards, I love for my clients to win awards, I just wish that this could all happen without my ever having to attend an award ceremony or banquet or dinner ever ever again. So much bad food, so many bad speeches, the occasional bad table full of bad conversation partners. And more often than not, the person you want to win -- doesn't !!

This year's Hugo Awards were not bad as such things go. Connie Willis can be a great toast"master" but sometimes there can be too much Connie, because when you have someone as good as Connie you want to take advantage. John isn't Connie, he wasn't uproarious, but there also wasn't too much of him. They made an interesting decision to have John do most of the presenting which may have saved a good 15 or 20 minutes of time introducing presenters for 12 more awards.

Alas, they did not take the equally radical decision of doing away with the clips for the long-form and short-form dramatic presentation awards. Each took ten minutes to present, all told, which is an eternity. Around 16 awards all told, if every one of those takes ten minutes and you add in the other stuff you're looking at a three hour ceremony. If you don't think the Hugo Awards should go on for three hours, and they most certainly should not, you have to do away with the damned clips for the dramatic presentation. If you're going to leave in the ciips, then I want people to read one-minute excerpts from the nominated pieces of fiction. Believe it or not, the Hugos are supposed to be a literary award, so none of these damned clips for the dramatic presentations.

My guy won! Well, one of my guys. Though the glory is in both instances reflected since the nominations were not for literary work represented by the agency, we had our client Jim C. Hines nominated for Best Fan Writer, and our client Brandon Sanderson is one of the masterminds of the Writing Excuses podcast that was up for Best Related Work. And Jim Hines not only won, but in the voting breakdowns we see he won quite quite handily. And then he did something very well, and said he would recuse himself from this category in future years, so he won't become like Locus and take home a statue every year for twenty or thirty years.

There wasn't any of that music playing at the 30-second mark, so the winners could give thank you speeches that went on pretty much just as long as they pleased. This can be unfortunate. But... I'll take this approach over the Oscars and their 30 second limits. Yeah, there were some over-long thank yous at the Hugos this year, there were also some really touching and moving speeches like Jo Walton's accepting for Best Novel, and John Picacio for Best Professional Artist, that were only possible because people had the time to speak passionately and from the heart.

I am a bad person. During an award banquet, usually held in a brightly lit hotel ballroom, I will quietly read a text-rich magazine (fewer page turns) during the speechifying. In the darkened ballroom for the Hugos, the iPad was quite delightful, and I think I read 15,000 words of a submission. Lest you think I wasn't paying attention -- I assure you I can read a good 40-50,000 words in the time the ceremony occupied, so that's 25K of paying attention to the ceremony. I had the brightness all the way down, and had the cover held tight over the screen. With all the people that have their phones out to tweet and text and whatever, as we are wont to do in the modern age, I hope I wasn't upsetting the atmosphere of the room.

Just to say, was it just me, or was the dealer's room a little quiet and mono-cultured this year? Something seemed to be missing.

The parallel con that I attend now vs. the con I dreamt of attending as a wee lad consists of a lot of time spent in meals and meetings with clients and editors. Since my business has grown, some of those meals have to breakfasts, which are always way too early for my tastes. I hate paying for overpriced booze at hotel bars. On days when I have a breakfast, a lunch and a dinner on my schedule, and then visits to the party suites filled with M&Ms and Doritos (this year, prawn-flavored Walker Crisps on account of the 2014 London bid) I am certainly eating too much, especially since there isn't a lot of time for exercise during a WorldCon. Oh well! I did find an Argo Tea cafe a few blocks from the hotel and did a couple meetings there, I don't actually like tea or coffee and Argo is really really big on the tea, but it's nice to get out of the convention hotel. There was also this little sunken park on an ancient golfing burial ground a couple blocks from the hotel, and we did a couple meetings there on a nice bench under a nice shade-giving tree with a wonderfully designed fountain providing that nice relaxing burbling sound of water.

I don't understand people who travel to these conventions and decide they can't leave the hotel or convention center. Yeah, you want to do your business, but you're in Chicago, a world capital, one of the major cities of the US, get out and see the world! In my early days of attending WorldCon with way fewer clients I could do some of this during the days of the convention and not feel too guilty, now I have to add on a day or two but I did get around. Especially the Wednesday before, 15+ miles of walking around Chicago to take in 3 Whole Foods, 2 Costcos, and a Cubs game. Not the usual tourist stuff, but it was 15+ miles of walking around and seeing the city and the weather was gorgeous.

It was my first time at Wrigley. I enjoyed it a lot. The park is full of atmosphere and history. Strange in some ways, they have an organ but all of the music seemed to be a little bit of organ music grafted on the same rhythm track for every song that sounded like some special kind of Christmas music. Definitely strange. The stadium got really really loud, I could hardly hear the person next to me. The game to most people was an afterthought, so many people going to see Wrigley and not that many who cared whether or not the Cubs won. The concourse had the feel of a carnival midway, which is definitely not the feel you get from most of the modern stadiums.

Thursday night Adam-Troy Castro had a launch event for his new book at the Magic Tree children's bookstore in Oak Park. Previously I had gone to Oak Park to add the Borders there to my list of conquests, a Borders conveniently near to the River Forest Whole Foods. I did visit the Whole Foods, but I also walked around and saw other parts of the neighborhood. I need to make an Oak Park day the next time I'm in Chicago to admire more of the Frank Lloyd Wright houses, maybe even visit the Hemingway birthplace and museum.

I'm going to stop here, there's more I could say but maybe I'll do another WorldCon post later, or maybe not.

Lunacon

Blog posts may be shorter and less frequent over the next several weeks, because it's a very busy time for both the business and for me.

This past weekend, I was off at Lunacon, along with Jabberwocky VP Eddie Schneider and two of our clients, the Author Guest of Honor Tanya Huff and fantasy author Peter V. Brett.

There's history to Lunacon, which like most of the major sf conventions in the Northeast has been held for fifty or sixty years, with roots dating back to the dawn of sf fandom. The convention has been held in Westchester in recent years. It has a decent attendance, a decent dealer's room, maybe too many program tracks. It didn't seem this year to have a lot of aspiring authors. Neither Eddie nor I passed out many business cards. Old-fashioned authors can sometimes get lost in the cross-platform Long Island convention I-Con that is upcoming this weekend where the media guests are more central, but that's also a much larger convention that does seem to have more people with interest in JABberwocky wares. I've historically gone to I-Con which is further away but an easy one-seat ride on the LIRR. So that's ahead this weekend, and we'll see how the two compare.

As to Lunacon, I was on six panels. I added at the con to one on financial planning for writers and creative professionals, did a panel on contracts that was good experience for an upcoming workshop I'll be doing at Dallas Ft. Worth Writer's Conference, Tanya and I spoke on the author/agent relationship, something on Marvel/comics in a post-Disney age, romance and sf, and a Blood Ties/vampire panel. Attendance ranged from a handful of people to 35 people for the vampire panel.

The hotel is a little desolately located in corporate Westchester, though you can get to downtown Port Chester in a few minutes by car or a half hour walk. It's called the Escher hotel not entirely inaccurately because the various wings from various add-ons join in some interesting ways. I hate eating hotel meals, and not much choice at this con. There was a $24 dinner buffet that wasn't bad, interesting that on Friday when likely to have fewer people than on Saturday there were some creative maybe not so cheap dishes like a lamb stew and coconut rice with pigeon peas, then Saturday's it's very cafeteria chicken, mac 'n' cheese etc. Tasted OK, but you can tell they're keeping an eye out for the profit margin.