WisCon was intense. I was on two panels (Genre Blending and Living into Dying — aka the Death Panel), neither of which went exactly the way I expected. Both drew nice crowds, though. In the first instance, I got to mention two books I’ve loved recently: Seanan McGuire’s Every Heart a Doorway and Charlie Jane Ander’s All the Birds in the Sky. In the second case, I got to promote cemetery vacations and model my enormous skull sweater (seen at left).
The best part of the weekend was hanging out with my friend Martha, whose new book Black Light just came out. We spent a fair amount of time working the Broad Universe table in the Dealers Room, where she took this photo of me. We even got some outlining done on the story we’re working on together.
The weekend seemed very full. I got to meet Mart’s friend Paige, which was a treat, as well as several members of the Sci Fi Binders, the Queer Sci Fi group, and more Broad Universe members. I had a great time Saturday on a local ghost walk. I even found one of my books in the window at A Room of One’s Own, which is an amazing bookstore in Madison.
Last weekend was the second annual Bay Area Book Festival. I met up with members of the local chapter of the Horror Writers Association and spent Saturday selling books and talking about writing. I came away surprisingly exhausted, but I sold more books than I ever had in person. This I credit to the mad selling skills of Oz Monroe. A post on direct bookselling will follow at some point, I hope.
With Roh Morgon, Sumiko Saulson, me, Oz Monroe, Jeff Seeman, and Crystal Romeo with Carlos.
I’ve been working on this story with Mart and trying to write something for the upcoming HWA anthology, so I haven’t been getting the guest posts polished up and out into the world the way I would like. Still, there have been two happy developments:
An update on my attempt to get 100 rejection letters this year appeared on No Wasted Ink. Wendy also publishes a very helpful round up of links pertaining to the business and craft of writing on Mondays. Definitely check those out.
In that same vein, Kira Butler put together an amazing list of blogs to inspire Horror Writers. I am so honored to find Cemetery Travel alongside Atlas Obscura, Death Salon, Messy Nessy, Nourishing Death, and the rest: Inspiration for Horror Writers and the Macabrely-Minded.
Next week, Cemetery Travel is going to publish its 500th post, so I’m trying to pull something special together for that. I’ll let you know how that goes.
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I had the best time too.
Now you can say you were on a death panel! You do stay busy. Congratulations on all the in person book sales! TGIF to you!
Strangely enough, I try to set up Death Panels at every convention I visit. This was the second one I’ve been on, but I’m sure it won’t be the last.
You know what’s truly awesome, though? We have the same Spirit of the Skull sweater. Great minds, my dear.
(I owe you an email, and thank you for the mention.)