I woke up in time to catch Liz Hand’s 10:00 a.m. reading Saturday. Achieving vertical locomotion that early on a con morning isn’t always guaranteed for me, considering how late into the evenings I often schmooze, but I made an extra effort on account of Liz. She read an excerpt from Wonderwall, her upcoming YA novel about Rimbaud.

For some reason, usually a scheduling conflict, I’d never seen Liz read before, and so her performance was a revelation. She did more then merely tell her tale; she became her characters—a female teen runaway in modern times, the 19th Century teen runaway Arthur Rimbaud, a homeless burned-out rocker, and others.

Midway through the reading, one squirming child raised his hand, and when Liz acknowledged him, he looked at the manuscript in her hands and asked her, “Are you trying to make a joke or something? There are too many pages to read!” Which I think would make a wonderful back cover blurb. Liz continued on with her reading unfazed.

After Liz’s reading, I had intended to attend readings by Brett Cox and then Jim Morrow, but then I realized that if I went through with those plans I’d have ended up with no meal break. (Sorry, guys!) So I bailed on them both. Instead, I went to lunch with Liz, John Clute, Paul Park, John Crowley, and Nat and Karen Herold. We discussed our world travels, compared notes about our backgrounds in the advertising game, and oohed and aahed over the stereopticon and 3-D photos of Egypt which someone had just given Crowley.

After lunch, I went to John Kessel’s reading. He shared a story which Gordon Van Gelder had told John just the night before had been purchased for a future issue of F&SF. However captivating the tale was, though, I was starting to feel exhausted. I realized that the 5 1/2 hours of sleep I’d gotten the previous night and the 4 1/2 hours I’d gotten the night before that would not be enough to keep me going the rest of the day. So after John’s reading, I ran off for a 45-minute nap to avoid embarrassing myself later by nodding off during the Guest of Honor interviews.

But before I could get to my room, additional schmoozing had to occur first, of course, as with Jack Slay and Paul Di Filippo (above), and others whose photos you’ll find here.

There’ll be more reportage soon … but only after more sleep.