“You Can Sleep When You’re Dead”–WFC recap

The heading above should give you an idea of what to expect when attending the World Fantasy Convention, held in San Jose this year. Tis was my first time at this convention, and I went based on the never-ending enthusiasm and encouragement of two of my favorite con peeps who I hung out with at Armadillicon: Chris Roberson (talented writer and editor extraordinaire) and John Picacio (stunning artist and illustrator).

Now, I didn’t go to the con with any agenda (meet so and so, get this editor to notice you, etc). Since my first novel hasn’t sold yet, and I’m working on the second, and have just entered into the short fiction arena, I felt I had no wares to peddle so to speak. I went to go make friends and have a good time. And that, I think, is the magic of WFC.

It is, really, a giant reunion party for writers, publishers, and editors. You start your day in the bar and pretty much stay there, only venturing to the other floors for a few readings, perhaps a panel or two. Maybe you go outside to feel sunlight on your skin or find a place for dinner. But these are vampiric folk; the parties start around 6 or 7 or 8–it’s all a blur now–and continued on till 3ish or 4ish or 5ish, depending on your constitution and state of sobriety. I usually lasted till about 1 or 1:30 before wandering back to my room, exhausted and giddy from all socializing. Below is a short breakdown of said days, since I know you’re just dying for details.

Day 1 (Wed): Escaping Denver Octoblizzard

CU Boulder canceled school at 2 p.m. I wasn’t planning to fly out till Thursday morning, but I was so nervous about being trapped in Denver that I rushed home, packed, and changed my flight to 6:30 that night. We didn’t end up taking off till around 8:30, but hey, I was just happy the plane, after a long de-icing, got on that runway. I arrive in the Fairmont Hotel around 11:30. I go up to my room, deposit my bags, fluff my hair, dab on a little lip gloss, and go back down to the bar. You can sleep when your dead, right?

There I meet old friend Rani Graff, who introduces me to his publishing partner Gili Bar-Hillel and Bill Willingham, creator of the Fables comic book series (and much more). We hang out for about an hour. Poor Gili has just flown in from Tel Aviv the day before, I believe, and nods off during our conversations. We are saddened to see waitress giving last call somewhere around 12:30. Bill warns the lass that come tomorrow, the bar would be overrun with con folk until the wee hours of the morn. The waitress smiles nicely and nods, not understanding  the chaos that is about to descend upon her people.

Day 2 (Thur):

I meet a former student of mine, Zan, for breakfast. Tis was wonderful catching up with her and finding out her plans for grad school. We walk around San Jose for a little while, enjoying the sunshine, before I head back into the hotel.  I hang out in bar (suprise) with Gili, Rani, Bill, and am introduced to Joe Morrissey, senior designer at Paragon Studios. We go to lunch and discuss narrative in gaming and whether James Joyce is a genius writer or intellectual prick, amongst other things.

I walk around the rest of day, see con buddy Jon Picacio, buy his super cool book. Meet the Borderlands Books folk  Alan Beatts and Jude Feldman. I run into another friend, Joseph McDermott (affectionately known at Bad Ducky on AW). We hug, share stories.  More trips to the bar. The parties start around 8. I approach Bernard Goodman of Tachyon Publications, thinking he is Daryl Gregory. Happy accident; Bernie and I get to talking academics. There are some new books coming out that they need teacher’s guides for (I had met Jill Roberts earlier that day who gave me a copy of The New Weird, by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer). Woot! We talk for a while, then I head back down to the bar.  Sometime around midnight, I meet a very dapper Jeremy Lassen, of Night Shade Books. We head back up to the parties.

Day 3 (Fri):

By this point, I relish the quiet walk in the mornings to Peet’s Coffee for a latte and a cinnamon bun. It’s the only alone time in my day before the madness begins. But oh such madness! In the elevator I run into Brian Evenson, formerly a creative writing professor at DU when I was a grad student there. Later I see him in the  Genre fiction and The Library of America panel, sitting there with Peter Straub, Tim Powers, S. T. Joshi, and Gary K Wolfe. Pretty damn cool. 

Later, I meet Liz Argall, an Aussie comics writer living in the US.  She introduces me to the effervescent Kat Sparks, who, upon learning that I that I teach the rhetorics of the grotesque,  introduces me to Deborah Biancotti. She promises to introduce me to Anna Tambour at some point (and thus begins a quest that lasts for much of the con).

I walk around some more, realize that I somehow missed lunch. A dinner posse forms: me,  Armadillocon buddy Sanford Allen, John and Traci Picacio, new friends Jess Nevins, Jennifer Heddle, Joe McCabe, his lovely wife Sophia Quach (amazing photographer and MA art history student).  After dinner Joe, Sophia, Jess, Jennifer and I head out for some FroYo. There we have great debates about who is the  hotter superwoman–Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman or Julie Newmar’s Catwoman. At a certain point, Electra Woman and Dyna Girl make it into the conversation. 

We head back to the hotel and wander up to massive autograph signing. I’ve never seen such a thing. Hundreds of authors sitting at tables, ready to sign. I immediately think of a junior high dance, where people are just hanging around, waiting to be asked out onto the dance floor. I’ve brought no books to be signed (although I have some up in my bedroom). Shamed by such guilty laziness, I leave the room and begin to wander the party floor. The night goes on and on and ends with Alison Baker making sidecars for everyone in the giant bathroom while Jeremy Lassen whoops it up.

Day 4 (Sat)

My old DU friend Alex Irvine has made to the con, and I meet him and Ted Chiang for some lunch. We talk about agents, publishing, film options. I secretly resolve to find all of Ted’s short stories and begin reading them as soon as I get home. It’s a grand time catching up with Alex–’tis been 10 years since we’ve seen each other.

Alex introduces me to classy hipster Fleetwood Robbins, editor at Wizards of the Coast. End up at Mezacal for dinner with those two and John Klima , Chris Schleup,  Mark Teppo, Daryl Gregory, Adam Rakunas, Alex’s brother-in-law, and another friend. I eat the grasshopper bits they pass around, but refuse to touch the chorizo I ordered in its linked-ball form. Massive margaritas. I drink only half of mine in the hopes that I can walk back to the hotel in a straight line.

It’s Halloween, so there are many steampunk lads and lasses milling about on the party floor.  Alan Deniro decides to go psycho Western. I meet more people than I can remember.  Thank God the clock rolls back an hour tonight. God knows, I could use it.

Sunday (last day):

No! I don’t want this all to end! Spend some time chatting with Matt Sturges. Skip the awards banquet to have a quick lunch with fellow Coloradoan David Boop, and then hang a bit with Jennifer Heddle. Cool gal. We go up to see the awards ceremony–so wanted John K, Daryl G, and John P. to win in their respective categories.  Sigh. 

Best WF Awards moment: Seeing Chris Roberson throw up his arms like he had just done a triple twist dismount when introduced.

Then it was hugs and goodbye. My student Zan is wonderful enough to give me and pal Sanford Allen a ride to the airport. We make it just in time. On the plane ride back I sit across from Carol Berg, whom I briefly saw at the con, but didn’t have any time to really talk to. There’s no talking now–she’s already at work on another manuscript. I hate flying, so lean back and keep my eyes closed the entire way.

I come home to a very happy pup. There is con detox–trying to catch up on sleep, grading, eating healthy food again. There’s a stack of books on my coffee table. Guess it’s time to crack one of them open and start reading.

Blah blah blah

The title of this blog aptly describes what I’m feeling right now. A bit run down, stressed out, too busy, blah blah blah. I’m doing a little blog housekeeping and making a spiffy little link category just for all my Texas writer/artist/editor friends. How is it that I know more writers in Texas than I do in Colorado now? Sigh. I must get off my arse and network more at MilehiCon in October, methinks. Still, I get sad when I realize that I won’t see my Lone Star State friends till February (at ConDFW). FEBRUARY! That’s a gazillion light years away.

In the meantime, I’m busy at work on my new urban fantasy, set in Denver. It’s pretty cool, although lately I feel like I’m losing braincells by the million. Is this because I’m on the edge of turning 40? (well, technically not the very edge–birthday’s not until next July). But still, one has to wonder….

And then, of course, I’m teaching the rhetorics of the grotesque in both art and literature, which is always a fascinating journey for me. Right now, I’m trying to articulate the subtle differences between speculative fiction, this new-fangled “bizarro” lit, the New Weird, and the Grotesque. Been reading J.G. Ballard’s work (Atrocity Exhibition and Crash). Not sure what I think of him yet. I have to say that Jeremy Robert Johnson is still my favorite new author in terms of the speculative stuff. More thoughts on that later. Bed for now–am going hiking in Eldorado Canyon tomorrow near Boulder. Will have stunning pics to post soon, I’m sure.

Armadillocon Recap

An apology to all you boys and babes out there in blog land–I’ve been sorely lacking in blog posts of late. Just needed a break away from online things for a while–you know how it goes–you get saturated a bit with all the tweets and updates and just need to spend time in the physical world. Gardening. Working out. All that good jazz.

But school is starting again, and hopefully, my writing sprees will be seen once more as well. I’ve felt a tad dried up in the creativity department. Armadillocon was a pretty good jumpstart, though. For those of you  not in the know, Armadillocon is an Austin based sci-fi literary conference where writers gather to talk shop, share ideas and tips to new writers, and give each other encouragement by way of buying each others’ books. Good times.

I met an array of wonderful folk, some of whom I’m going to see again in October at the World Fantasy Convention in San Jose. First, it was great to reconnect with old writer pals Stina Leicht, who is on the verge of signing with a big lit agent, Patrice Sarath, whose second book Red Gold Bridge just came out, and veteran writer extraordinaire Martha wells.

Then I got to meet artist and Tweetie friend Jon Picacio, who had just won a Chesley award for Best Professional artist at WorldCon. I hung out in the bar and cruised the con parties till all hours of the morning with editors Chris Roberson and Rani Graff, as well as Sanford Allen, Mark London Williams, J. Kathleen Cheney, Sharon Shinn, Joe McKinney, Melissa Mead, and so on. Had a relaxing coffee break with short story writer Chris Nakashima-Brown before moderating a panel on Academic Writing on Sci-fi/Fantasy. As the panel was at 1 p.m. on a Sunday, I wasn’t expecting many people, and so was pleasantly surprised to see the room fill up. Not only that, but we didn’t put them to sleep talking academics (which is rather astounding). Other panel members were the charismatic Mark Finn, Anne-Marie Thomas, who co-wrote The Science Fiction Handbook, Jessica Reisman, and Kim Kofmel.

Mr. Cool himself, Tor editor James Frenkel was as the con, as well as his lovely wife Joan D. Vinge, author of The Snow Queen. Super fun talking to both of them. One big highlight was being an instructor for the Writer’s Workshop. I was paired with the Guest of Honor Scott Lynch to give feedback to a small gang of inspiring writers. The stories, of course, needed a lot of work, but I really enjoyed reading them and hope to see them polished and published in the near future.

Okay, this is a rather longish blog, so I’ll end it with pictures (there’s even better ones here). And I promise to start blogging like a good girl again. Really.

Babs, the con-suite sheep. Really funky and creepy when you walked into the room for the first time and saw her there.

There was also lots of snackies in the suite, as well as this giant jar of--you guessed it--cheese puffs. Remember them from your 70's childhood, and the nuclear orange powder they left on everything? Hmmm..tasty goodness (not!)

Messrs Sanford Allen, Chris Nakashima-Brown, Jon Picacio, and Mark London Williams at one of the con parties. Sanford is obviously receiving some kind of alien signal through his name tag that it's time to move on to another room.

INK

 

To call Ink a fairytale would be huge diservice to the film. The movie goes beyond the standard and over simplified evil versus good plot in way that keeps us mesmerized, mystified, and slightly creeped out. The Brothers Grimm would have approved.

Visually stunning, the story reminded me at times of  Terry Gilliam’s Tideland and Jan Svankmajer’s Alice (they too, have little girls who stumble into a wondrous kind of universe). Ink has a palpable delight that the previous films lack, and with an underground Gaimanesque Neverwhere feel to it,  makes it a truly remarkable film.

Written and directed by Jamin Winans, the creator of the short Spin, and produced by Kiowa Winans Ink is the story of a little girl, Emma, lost in a dreamscape. I’m hesitant to say more for fear of giving away too much of the plot, which plays off a Lynchian-like disjointedness. There are monsters of course, starting with Ink, a broken spirit dressed in rags who steals the Emma from her waking world. The Incubi, with their grotesque smiles, haunt our nightmares and seem to rule Ink’s most troubled desires.

Chris Kelly plays well the character of John, Emma’s father. He anchors us in the reality and paranoia of present day culture. In opposition to him is a blind man named Jacob (played by Jeremy Make). With his eyes taped shut, he is forever doomed to walk to the rhythm of both reality and dreams, knows the paths of the unspeakable and has the choice to “stop the flow” when needed. Liev (Jessica Duffy) is the storyteller, a Beatrice-like character who I didn’t quite empathize with until the haircut scene, and then I loved her.

Most of all, though, I enjoyed Quinn Hunchar’s portrayal of Emma. The first scene where she is playing with her father and begging him to rescue her from the pretend monster, I wasn’t sure if there might have been something  invisible there, tugging at her shirt. Then again, this movie is all about the seen and unseen–the haunting, cadenced movement between those worlds.

This is an ambitious first feature-length film, accomplishing an original and fresh visual narrative. The audience will forgive where it falls short, at times, in the dialogue.  It’s action packed enough to keep us invested and imaginitive to the point of really creating something….new. And in a tired world of information overload and disappearing time, isn’t that what we need right about now? To stop the flow, and remember the redemptive power of wonder.

 

PS: Ink is playing at STARZ Filmcenter in Denver until April 30th, so you still have a chance to buy tickets.