Once I picked up my badge and bag of goodies at registration, I wandered the restaurant looking for friendly faces and found David Hartwell, Kathryn Cramer and their kids about to dive in for breakfast. They invited me to join them, and though I wasn’t hungry, I sat for chatted with them as they ate. We talked about the plight of Paul Williams (go donate now), plagiarism in the romance, horror, and SF fields, and the subtle differences between the crowd at a World Horror Convention and those who show up at the Stokers.

Out in the lobby, I ran into Roy Robbins, publisher of my chapbook The Hunger of Empty Vessels:

If you’re reading this post at the Stokers, head to the dealers room and go buy a copy from him. If not, why not hurry over to the Bad Moon Books site and order one?

The opening ceremonies began at noon, and Lisa Morton told us that this was the largest crowd a Stoker event has ever pulled. Jeff Strand then introduced the many Guests of Honor—pictures of whom you can see if you check out my ever growing flickr stream—each of whom said a few words and promised to be available throughout the weekend. We were released back into the wild a few minutes before 1:00 p.m., at which time the dealers room opened.

I didn’t get to check it out because F. Paul Wilson was supposed to read at the same time, so I hustled over the catch him perform a story titled “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” which he’d co-written with his daughter for an anthology of stories by famous horror writers and their kids.

After that, I signed Liz Scott’s armpits, which I hope will make sense once I tell you that each year she wears a hooded sweatshirt and gets all the writers to sign her. I chose to do something a little different this year, putting Scott under one armpit and Edelman under the other.

After that, more schmoozing, and now I’m back in the room to get changed for dinner.