Ad Astra 2011 was so overflowing with Guests of Honor (since it was the con’s 30th year, the committee attempted to bring back every previous Guest of Honor) that rather than have us give Guest of Honor speeches or be interviewed individually, the con doubled (and sometimes tripled) us up for low-key chats. Here’s Kathryn Cramer and I rambling on for what’s hopefully an entertaining hour.

(And please forgive the ambient noise seeping through from the hallway. It took awhile before an audience member thought to shut the doors. But I think you’ll be able to understand us throughout anyway.)

My trip to Ad Astra began much too early yesterday. I’d set the alarm for 4:15 a.m. so I could make the 8:12 flight to Toronto out of Dulles, but I ended up waking at 4:03 and couldn’t get back to sleep. I guess the universe didn’t want me to get those extra 12 minutes for some reason!

I’d hoped to nap on the plane, but the guy sitting next to me proved talkative, which normally would have irked me, since I usually sleep through flights, but luckily, he turned out to be talkative in a good way. He was actually interesting! He was a Canadian who lives in Kuwait and works for the university system there, and we traded stories of our various world travels and what we’d learned of the differing cultures. How he got out of China after Tiananmen Square was a nail-biter. In an extremely rare move for me, we ended up exchanging contact info.

I was met at the airport by Heather King and Roxanne Learn, who got me to the con hotel where I met up with Ellen Datlow and Shawna McCarthy for our preplanned trip to Chinatown for dim sum. With all our overlapping programming, Friday before everything really got started seemed the only day for that kind of excursion. We ended up at Forestview Chinese Restaurant, which we loved—it was busy, crowded, and we were among the very few non-Chinese there, all of which is what I like to see—so I’m glad we hadn’t read the Yelp review first, because that might have scared us away. Because the food was good, and I’d return for more on a future trip to Toronto.

Then, after a visit to the Bata Shoe Museum, which wasn’t at all my suggestion, but proved not to be as dull as this non-Jimmy Choo-wearing guy imagined it would be, Shawna figured out the train system enough to get us to the stop closest to the hotel so we could grab as cheap a cab ride back as possible. (Well, it would have been cheap if not for a cabbie who kept taking wrong turns even with the use of a GPS.)

Back at the hotel, I hung in the bar for a bit, meeting Rio Youers and others for the first time, before going to the opening ceremonies, which was more formal than most because it featured an introduction by The Honourable David C. Onley, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, and friend to Ad Astra.

Then, it was immediately off to two panels. First, “Using Conventions to Your Advantage,” with Ian Keeling and Justine Lewkowitz, during which I explained that what to do was the opposite of whatever I did when I first started out. (For example, I was so ethically rigid that I deliberately avoided meeting editors, because I wanted them to judge my stories based entirely on the words on the page, and not be influenced by any possible positive encounter with me. Kids, don’t do this at home!)

This was immediately followed by a panel on “Zombies: Rise to Popularity”, with Mandy Slater, Stephen Jones, and Karina Sumner-Smith. That’s me and Karina with Steve above, and the reason we’re bookending him like that is because I’ve got the first story in his upcoming Best New Horror anthology, while she’s got the last one. So we replicated in real life what Steve’s done with his book. It was a great panel, if for no other reason than I got to hear Steve rave about my writing multiple times through the course of it. Don’t know that the audience made of that, but I loved it!

After that, I spent several hours in the green room, but that early rising took its toll, so I went back to the room, uploaded all of my Ad Astra photos so far to Flickr, and then crashed. And now a new day begins. If you’re here, come to my panel about The Walking Dead at noon!

I bought and started using a new iPhone app 15 days ago—Everyday, which prompts you to take a picture of yourself each day at a pre-set time, then assembles them into a video that comes off as a time-lapsed movie of your face. I saw it recommended somewhere, maybe Gizmodo, and it sounded like a fun idea for $1.99.

Here are those first 15 days.

I realized two things watching this.

First, it speeds by pretty quickly, and probably won’t really be interesting until many months of pics have been shot. Though if 15 days runs less than two seconds, that means even a year will be under a minute.

Second, even that’s probably isn’t enough, and to make this really interesting I’d need to do something dramatic, something that would make the changing pics come more alive. Like … grow a beard. Which I just might do once I return from World Horror in Austin, so I can see how it looks.

And actually, I realized three things while watching this. Probably the only one interested in watching pics of me speed by is … me. So instead of this being a post pushing my face in your face, think of it more as an recommendation for the app so you can buy it and do it with your OWN face.

A few weeks ago, I found a bunch of rejections from Paul Levitz for stories I’d submitted to DC’s House of Mystery, and then last week figured out exactly which stories he’d passed on. And because I’d found two of those unused plots, and have no shame, I told you I’d let you see the synopses I’d submitted.

If you can look past the typos and handwritten corrections of a pre-computer age, you’ll see the format in which I was submitting ideas to DC’s mystery line (even though the plots failed to win over Paul). Luckily, as you can see here, I had more hits than misses.

First up, “A Ghastly Tale,” which Paul rejected with the note, “No in-joke industry stories please.” As you’ll see, it was about a comics artist patterned after the EC great Graham Ingels.

Next up, “Video Vengeance,” which Paul rejected by saying, “Good little story — but would cause legal problems, I’m afraid. Sorry.” (more…)

I continue channeling my father by typing out the autobiography he sent to me a few years before his death. In the latest installment, he leaves the comfort of Brooklyn and heads off to boot camp.

Growing Up and Stuff: An Adventure
Part 4

It was only a few months later and there I was in the Navy, with groups of other fresh innocents straight from school and into a conflict for the love of country and the American way.

I managed to see romantic Eddy just before I left. He had gotten married and he and his wife were living in a one-room furnished apartment. They were happy and had a child on the way and were trying to scratch out a living and a life together.

I ran into Eddy years later on the streets of Manhattan. He was rushing to work in the garment district and had little time to talk, so we didn’t even exchange phone numbers.

I guess the years were taking their toll on him. He looked years older than his age and appeared stooped and of course still had a five o’clock shadow. We never did run into each other again.

I remember waking up on the day I was to report to the Navy. I wondered what I was getting into as I stood in front of a mirror combing my hair into my usual high pomp. After all, it had to be just right.

Here I was, right out of school, fresh from being one of the kids you see hanging around the local candy store or the kid that just delivered your groceries to you, all of us trying to grow up and find out what life was all about.

Next thing it’s the draft, thinking of my friends in the Army up to their crotches in mud. I went the Navy way and wound up up to my crotch in salt water.

I held the postcard in my hand, reading it slowly, making sure once again of the address of the place the Navy wanted me to report to. It was easy as pie. I go to the place, step forward, raise my hand in an oath. And follow a group of strangers onto a bus heading for a place called boot camp.

Boot camp turned out to be a very strange place. High fences and guards. As bus after bus rolled into this strange place, you stood around waiting for someone to tell you what to do.

Suddenly, my ears are filled with this loud sound. A voice is issuing a long string of commands loud enough to break the sound barrier, all of this without the aid of any electronic device … Oh, boy!

Here I am running around some sort of camp with people who all sounded funny to me when they talked. I must have sounded funny to them, since my main language was Brooklyn-ese. (more…)

Just to show how seriously the Marvel staff took its softball, the memo below will fill you in. VERY seriously.

The June 30, 1976 memo to the Ruling Board of the Publishers’ Softball League—which was written by co-captains Jim Novak and Irene Vartanoff (hmmm … where have I heard that second name before?)—protested a loss to MacMillan that apparently occurred due to a violation of the rules.

Reading this 35-year-old memo, what I find most fascinating isn’t the intricate plea for justice, but one of the league rules that now seems quaint, and shows how far we’ve come.

You’ll note on page 2 that rule #4 states, “All teams are co-ed with at least 4 women in line up.” That alone isn’t the interesting part—but the fact that there were so few women in publishing at the time, or so few women in publishing willing to play softball, that SEVEN of the teams, including Marvel, were allowed an exemption, IS.

That’s right. In 1976, Marvel, in addition to New American Library, Franklin Watts, New Times, Saturday Review, Screw, and the Society of Illustrators, couldn’t reliably find four women to play softball each week.

Based on the league’s current rules—a league which says that it has been “bringing you the inept athletic stylings of the book and magazine industry for more than 40 years”—no such exemptions are allowed. The current rules regarding gender balance state:

A team must have a minimum of four women in the lineup at all times. A team may play the game with six men and three women, but in that case, the team must list four women in the lineup, leave the fourth outfield position vacant and take an automatic out each time the missing woman’s place comes around in the batting order.

That’s progress, right?

For those who didn’t catch the correct answer when it was guessed, I figure I’d better announce here the identity of the comic book artist I challenged you to identify.

My first clue was that the artist’s “style became the signature look for a well-known character.”

But that wasn’t enough of a clue for any of you to solve the mystery, as all that resulted were a couple of dozen wrong answers. So I gave a second clue, this time that “this artist previously worked for a comics company that was sued by the company he or she eventually ended up defining that character for.”

That was enough to give it away. Within 15 minutes, Jacque Nodell, she of the wonderful blog Sequential Crush, popped up with the correct answer, which is … below, after the pic, in case you want one final chance to guess it on your own.

Give up? (more…)

Since I’m awake much too early thanks to much too exciting a dream, it only seems right that I start the day by harvesting last month’s dream tweets. So here are the nearly 100 dreams from March. (That I was able to remember, that is. I’m sure there were many more.)

Those dreams included appearances by fictional characters (Glee‘s Sue Sylvester , Fringe‘s Walter Bishop, Big Love’s Barb Henrickson), celebrities (John Larroquette , Rod Steiger, Charlie Sheen), and friends (John Kessel, Dennis Etchison, Barry Malzberg).

And maybe you, too!

March 2011 Dream Tweets

I dreamt that, by merely opening the latest issue of Locus, I was teleported to the magazine’s office, where I chatted with Amelia Beamer. 31 Mar

I dreamt a brobdingnagian mechanical device began to whirr, turning magnetic. As the world imploded, I ducked and let debris pass over me. 31 Mar

I dreamt that, for some reason which made perfect sense as I slept, I hung with LL Cool J and told all him about my grandfather the bookie. 31 Mar

I dreamt an SUV at the mall suddenly revealed itself as an alien construct and began firing missiles, which we dodged acrobatically. 30 Mar

I dreamt Irene and I stopped at a gas station in the middle of nowhere that was then invaded by a gang run by Machete’s Danny Trejo. We ran. 30 Mar

I dreamt I rummaged through the outdoor bins of a used bookstore and was stunned to find classic first editions on sale for $10-$15. 30 Mar

I dreamt that, as I pushed through the San Diego Comic-Con crowds, I thought I saw Duffy Vohland off in the distance. But no. It wasn’t him. 29 Mar

I dreamt I bumped into Mike Walsh in Central Park, spread out on a picnic blanket with his wife and two kids. (But does he even have those?) 29 Mar

I dreamt I arrived at a comics-related event to find Stan Lee standing calmly with thousands of people in a snaking line waiting to get in. 29 Mar

I dreamt an entire truckload of onions had spilled in a HS gym, and I was crawling around with Finn Hudson and Quinn Fabray picking them up. 28 Mar (more…)

An unsigned essay in the March 26, 1911 edition of the New York Times bemoans the fact that “mystery and romance have suffered greatly at the hands of modern science and invention,” and that the world therefore no longer has a place for such writers as Edgar Allan Poe, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and Hans Christian Andersen, who supposedly found it much easier to blow our minds in the good old pre-1911 days.

The writer is afraid that without, to use one example, the shadows cast by “heavy, sticky, leaky oil lamps,” and with instead “a savage, tactless, pitilessly even cataract of light”:

“Who will read those tales now to the family seated around the matter-of-fact radiator with its angular gills and its regular, commonplace, good-natured wheeze?”

Luckily, we have somehow gotten by, and still find things that frighten us, even though we’ve advanced quite a bit beyond the science and invention of 100 years ago.

What I found the most interesting in the piece, though, was that the writer complained about the lack of anonymity and the loss of the ability for people to reinvent themselves back then—and he or she wasn’t talking about it being caused by the Internet, but instead by a couple of far simpler technologies.

“What chance has the scion of a royal house to pose as clerk and be loved for himself alone, when commercial agencies supply you very promptly with complete details on the past, present, and ‘prospects’ of any of your acquaintances for a fee ranging from 25 cents to $1? … Telegraph and long-distance phone have blasted forever the hopes of would-be impostors.”

Which tells me that come 2111, when we’ve slid even further along that slippery technology slope, our descendants will look back on quaint 2011 and wonder how you and I didn’t realize how how good we really had it.

While reviewing the complete schedule for Ad Astra which I’ll be attending next weekend in Toronto, I noticed that my panel “Using Conventions To Your Advantage” was opposite one I really wanted to see—”Zombies: The Rise to Popularity.” So I asked whether it was possible to move that first panel so I could attend the second, and the committee was kind enough to not only make the move, but add me on the second panel, too.

As if those of who you attended weren’t going to get enough pontificating out of me already!

Anyway, here’s my revised (and hopefully final) schedule.

Opening Ceremonies
Friday, April 8, 7:00 p.m.

Using Conventions To Your Advantage
Friday, April 8, 8:00 p.m.
Conventions can be important venues for writers to meet editors and publishers. Hear stories from professionals in the field on how-to and how-not-to use your con experience to network.
(with Ian Keeling and Justine Lewkowitz)

Zombies: The Rise to Popularity
Friday, April 8, 9:00 p.m.
What is the appeal of zombies? Will their popularity live on, or will it start to decompose?
with Stephen Jones, Mandy Slater, Karina Sumner Smith, Chris Warrilow

GoH Hour
Saturday, April 10, 11:00 a.m.
(with Kathryn Cramer and Elisabeth Vonarburg)

The Walking Dead
Saturday, April 10, 12:00 p.m.
Discuss the television adaptation of the graphic novel series The Walking Dead.
(with Colleen Hillerup, Ian Keeling and Mandy Slater)

Autograph session
Saturday, April 10, 3:30 p.m.

Why Professionalism Matters
Sunday, April 11, 11 a.m.
Writing is an art, but publishing is a business. How writers and artists should act, and what they need to understand when trying to sell their work.
(with Ziana de Bethune, Adrienne Kress, Matt Moore, Mandy Slater, Howard Tayler and Gregory Wilson)

Reading
Sunday, April 11, 12 p.m.
(with Matthew Johnson)

I look forward to seeing some of you next weekend!