I returned late Monday afternoon from a magical weekend at the Imperial Hotel in Blackpool, where I attended one of the George Formby Society’s quarterly conventions. I met in the flesh many friends I’d already made through Facebook and Twitter, made many new friends, sung with a group atop the famous Blackpool Tower, bought my first banjolele (which I’ll tell you more about another day), saw some of the best live ukulele performances of my life, and was generally filled with so much joy that my face hurt from smiling so much.

Oh, and I performed “When I’m Cleaning Windows” in public for the first time.

Those who’ve been following my brief ukulele career (it’s only been about 15 months, remember) will have seen my overwrought thrashing out of that song early last year. But playing in front of others was going to be a lot different, even though the folks in Blackpool were about the kindest, gentlest, least judgmental bunch you’ll ever meet.

I didn’t dare do it on the big stage—that will come in the future once I’ve gotten my brain and fingers around the Formby style of playing—but luckily, the convention holds what’s called an Up and Comers session so that those of us who are still trying to figure out what the heck we’re doing can perform just for each other, rather than in front of the uke masters, who can be intimidating even though they don’t mean to be.

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So you couldn’t make it to the World Fantasy Convention this year—or perhaps you could make it, but wasn’t able to figure out a way to be omnipresent—and are pissed? Don’t worry. There are at least three readings you didn’t have to be present to witness.

And here they are …

F. Brett Cox

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On Sunday, September 2, 2012, Adam-Troy Castro, lover of spicy food and author of the Gustav Gloom novels, slipped away from the Chicago Worldcon and traveled to Bricks, where he attempted to eat a painful pizza, which consists of spicy pepperoni, purple onion, fresh jalapeno, garlic, tomato sauce, mozzarella, and lots and !LOTS! of hot sauce.

I was one of his sadistic friends who journeyed to witness (but not to partake in) this act of masochism. But just because you weren’t there, doesn’t mean you have to miss the madness.

Check out Adam’s agony below.

If the poor guy’s pain proves to be too much for you to watch, just skip ahead to 15:50 to learn how it all turns out and see him sum up his ordeal.

I wish I could have shared the following videos while Chicon7, the 70th World Science Fiction Convention, was still ongoing, as that would have hewed to Edelman’s Schadenfreude Rule of Convention Reporting. But alas, I was far too busy. (Future posts will show you just how busy.)

First up, on Thursday, August 30, Adam-Troy Castro read his short story “My Wife Hates Time Travel,” recently published in Lightspeed. Since you weren’t there, you don’t get any of the chocolate chip cookies he was handing out in support of his new novel Gustav Gloom and the People Taker—which should teach you to show up in person next time.

And then, on Monday, September 3, I read “A Most Extraordinary Man,” a sequel of sorts to Saki’s “The Open Window,” which will be published in the anthology The Monkey’s Other Paw: Revived Classic Stories of Dread and the Dead from NonStop Press. (more…)

The 2012 Nebula Awards banquet was held Saturday, May 19, 2012, at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City. So why am I only getting around to sharing video of the event with you now?

Because the file you’ll see below was 4 gigabytes, and expected to take 15 hours to upload to YouTube with the puny Internet service I get here in the backwoods, meaning I’d only want to start it chugging along if I had plans to be away for the day and not expecting to have to do anything else online. And since yesterday was going to be an offline, wandering the world kind of day, I was finally able to get the video up.

Unfortunately, the battery of my Flip camera died after slightly more than an hour, right in the middle of Connie Willis accepting her Grand Master Award. I recorded the remaining half hour using my iPhone, but its microphone is so poor that those speaking on stage are barely audible. I may upload the rest someday, but believe me, unless I can tweak the audio, it’ll seem like pantomime.

But what you can see here is choice. Walter Jon Williams is entertaining as always, astronaut Mike Fincke is inspiring, and the tributes to Octavia Butler are moving, so I hope you still enjoy what’s there.

On another note—if you’re aware of a camcorder as convenient to slip in a pocket as a Flip that delivers equally as good picture and audio quality but with a longer lasting battery, let me know!

Why, yes, I did record Saturday night’s Nebula Awards banquet, but as the file is larger than six gigabytes, which in my neck of the woods would require about 20 hours of my total bandwidth to upload, making it impossible for me to use the Internet for any other purpose, like, say, earning a living, you won’t get to vicariously experience that night until the weekend, when I can start it uploading and then wander away from my keyboard for the day. (On the other hand, if you want to relive last year’s ceremony, you can watch a video of it right now.)

Meanwhile, here’s a different, hour-long video which might appeal to you—though not if you’re looking for long speeches from writers thanking their editors, agents, critique groups, and spouses.

Back at the beginning of our recent Peru trip, on April 29, 2012, our first morning in Cuzco, our tour guide took us to the main square, the Plaza de Armas, to watch what she said would be a military parade. But it proved to be much more than that. Also marching were trade unions and university students, who made up the majority of the participants. I enjoyed most watching the faces of the thousands of those who marched. Some were deadly serious, some bored, some joking, some weary.

And now, prepare to travel to Cuzco, and see a microcosm of a country’s future in the faces of its students …

Also—I have uploaded all of my photos of Peru to Flickr. Haven’t had time to caption them appropriately yet, but perhaps you’ll find them interesting anyway.

And that should be the end of my Peru posts. We now return you to our regularly scheduled program of posts about writing, comics, science fiction, food … and, of course, the ukulele.

Back in 1990, I was one of the first people interviewed by Fast Forward. (I was interviewed again in 2010, which you can watch by checking out the archives here, but since that’s only last year, stepping into the time machine won’t be quite as interesting as what’s below.)

The show is currently run by Mike Zipser and Kathi Overton (who recently dug out the video you’re about to see). John Pomeranz conducted the 21-year-old interview. How has time changed us? Well, here’s what John and I looked like together 17 years later at the 2007 Worldcon in Japan.

What did I learn when looking back at the episode (during which I share the stage with writer Judith Eckerson)?

First, that I sure said the phrase “and so forth” a heck of a lot! Sure glad I broke myself of that habit. (more…)

It’s hump day (though can it ever truly be considered hump day when you work seven days a week?), which means that Sunday in San Diego seems very far away. And yet I don’t want to leave you hanging as to the end of World Fantasy Con.

I didn’t have much of a Sunday morning. With the pre-banquet cocktail party beginning at noon, and me having both stayed up and slept late the night before, there was neither point nor time to have a full breakfast. So I grabbed some nibbles in the con suite (which I’ll say again, was well-stocked and well-run), sold a few more copies of What Will Come After out front of the dealers room to some attendees who’d let me know in advance that they’d wanted them, did some minimal schmoozing, and then headed back to my room to get suited up.

While hanging out at the bar, I was stunned to discover when the ballroom doors opened that the best table in the house, directly in front of the podium, hadn’t been reserved for a publisher, and was therefore free for unaffiliated attendees like me to grab. Which I did, resulting in a good angle for me to record the entire proceedings, which you can see below.

Also at my table were Karen and Charlie Newton, Mark Kelly, Terry Weyna, and a few others I was meeting for the first time, and whose names unfortunately didn’t stick. If one of those names happens to be yours, feel free to slap me around the next time you see me. (more…)

I woke Saturday morning at World Fantasy to a city in which I’d already eaten at every Man v. Food restaurant. What to do? Luckily, the locals had all raved about a place called Hash House a Go Go, which supposedly prepared amazing breakfasts—well, amazing everything—so that’s where I headed to start the day with Bill Shunn, Laura Chavoen, and Eileen Gunn.

But everything good comes with a price—and the price was that there was a 90-minute wait before we could be seated. Since it sounded like the food would be worth it, Bill and Laura were up for it. But Eileen had to be back by 12:30. So I returned her to the hotel (which apparently had a major problem I didn’t hear about until today) and got back to the restaurant with plenty of time still remaining to chat with Bill and Laura in the warm California sun while trying not to feel too guilty that my wife was back in the West Virginia snow.

I ordered the pancake of the day—banana coconut—which surprised me by coming with a few pecans, too. It also surprised by BEING THE SIZE OF A HUBCAP!

I assure you that I did NOT eat the entire thing. I was thinking of taking it back to the con suite, but pancakes do not travel well, and besides, we wanted to have a postprandial walk around the neighborhood, and so didn’t box up any leftovers. It was a good thing we took that walk, too, because it allowed Laura to see her first Bird of Paradise in the wild. (more…)

Back in August, I announced a competition inviting people to create movies of at least three minutes in length from any section of my Shakespearean zombie play “A Plague on Both Your Houses.” The clip could be in any style—live action, claymation, puppets, whatever. The winner of the Blow the Top of Scott Edelman’s Head Off Really Cool Zombie Filmmaking Competition would get $200, plus a signed hardcover copy of my zombie collection What Will Come After.

I’d planned to announce the winner during the World Fantasy Convention, but the all day/all night schmoozing took so much out of me that I didn’t have the brain left to draft this announcement. Now that I’ve recovered (sort of), I’m pleased to share the news that the winning entry was submitted by Drake Tucker of Phase2Films.

That entry, embedded below, was far more ambitious than I expected. Tucker and gang chose to film a populous and complex scene—the masked ball at which Carlo, the living son of the Mayor of New York City, first meets Dolores, the daughter of the King of the Zombies. The submitted piece has a post-apocalyptic Road Warrior vibe to it, yet also made me laugh in places. Plus I loved the choice of how they conveyed Dolores’ undead manner of speaking.

My hat—or should I say, the top of my head—is off to you! Congrats!