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.

After lunch, I stripped off my suit, slipped into something more comfortable, and headed over to the hotel bar where I sat for a few hours with Jeffrey Ford, John Picacio, Sarah Pinborough, Shawna McCarthy, Gordon Van Gelder and others until I was pulled aside by Stephen Jones to brainstorm about his follow-up volume to Zombie Apocalypse. Ideas are percolating, which you will see the result of at the end of next year.

After that, it was off for dinner at King’s Fish House with Ellen Datlow and Shawna McCarthy (both of whom I’ve known for years) and Amanda Clark and Corry L. Lee (both of whom I’d just met). As for which member of that quartet repeatedly knocked over her wine, forcing me at one point to leap up at light speed … well … I’m doing the gentlemanly thing and remaining mum.

Later, back at the dead dog party, I saw Nalo Hopkinson for the first time that weekend, and threw myself at her feet to beg forgiveness for having bailed on dinner the night before. Luckily, she as magnanimous. I met Charles Tan, chatted with Pat Murphy and Deborah Smith, and generally yucked it up until the room closed at midnight. That didn’t mean the party was over, though, for we all gathered outside the bar … which was also closed. But Mary Robinette Kowal and Jeremy Lassen brought along enough of the right sorts of beverages to make sure we were all happy.

I stayed for an hour or so, in addition to chatting, breaking away to wander around a bit with Nina Kiriki Hoffman photographing the statuary that dotted the hotel complex. But I hadn’t yet packed, so I eventually had to stumble back to the hotel proper with Nina and a few others, and managed to stay awake long enough to stuff my suitcases.

Monday morning, I woke with just enough time for another breakfast at Hash House a Go Go (I went for the griddled french toast dipped in banana cinnamon cream with pecan maple syrup this time), which I had at the counter alone until Derryl Murphy showed up with Michael Skeet, Lorna Toolis, and Annette Mocek, and I joined them at a table. But far too soon I was forced to head off for the airport.

Still, that wasn’t the end of the con. Because as I was going through TSA security, I found Rhiannon R. Rasmussen-Silverstein ahead of me on line, and we talked until my plane boarded.

I’m sure I’ve left out a ton of brief meetings, because a complete recounting of a con is impossible when you know hundreds of people. Maybe someday I’ll set myself the challenge of keeping track of EVERY person I speak to over a con weekend. (But probably not.)

And that’s enough out of me about World Fantasy Con!