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. Which ended up being fun and comfortable, because it was just like hanging out and catching up with a friend.

Here’s my final piece of Ad Astra video, as Kathryn Cramer and I ramble 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.)

I attended Derwin Mak’s reading on the final day of Ad Astra 2011 intending to record it all, but sadly, the battery on my Flip camcorder died 10 minutes in. When I told this to Derwin, feeling sheepish about it, he said he didn’t mind if I went ahead and posted the clip of his reading anyway.

So I have.

Apologies to all for the way this cuts off in the middle of a sentence … but a little Derwin Mak is better than no Derwin Mak at all.

I’ve been so busy since Ad Astra two weekends back that with this post I’m breaking one of my rules. What rule is that? I call it Edelman’s Schadenfreude Rule of Convention Reporting. Which means …

I consider it insufficient to wait until getting home to write up how much fun I’m having. All convention reporting must occur while that convention is actually occurring. It’s not enough that I have a wonderful time—YOU have to KNOW that I’m having a wonderful time and be miserable because you’re not there having a wonderful time, too. You’ve got to be agonizing, thinking, “If only I jumped on a plane RIGHT NOW, I could be at the con ALSO having a wonderful time! Why aren’t I?”

Then, and only then, can I be truly joyful. But—the day job has demands I can’t ignore, and so you’ve had to wait nine days for this particular piece of video.

Ad Astra paired up writers to share an hour, and on April 10, 2011, after I read my short story “The Only Wish Ever to Come True,” Matthew Johnson read “Holdfast.”

And here he is!

Unfortunately, I’ll be continuing to break Edelman’s Schadenfreude Rule of Convention Reporting in the coming weeks, because I still have a few more clips to share …

I’d heard that my short story collection What Will Come After was going to be released as an ebook for those who prefer their zombies pixelated. But I don’t think I knew that Pete Crowther of PS Publishing had actually pulled it off until a number of people at Ad Astra last weekend told me they’d purchased it for their Kindles.

And it wasn’t until after Robert Shearman’s reading Sunday that I had proof.

Robert, who when we first met on Friday had told me he’d already bought an e-copy of the book, whipped out his Kindle and showed me what the book looked like on his screen.

I think that looks rather nice, don’t you? And if you’d like it looking rather nice on your own e-reader, you can order it from PS Publishing here.

In other electronic news, StarShipSofa 184 features a podcast of my story “A Very Private Tour of A Very Public Museum.” I think Jeff Lane has done an excellent performance of the piece, far better than I did myself the one time I read it aloud at Readercon. So if you’d like to hear one of my stories rather than have to read it, you know what to do.

On April 10 at Ad Astra 2011, I read my short story “The Only Wish Ever to Come True,” which had originally been published in Talebones magazine. I shared the hour with Matthew Johnson, seen sitting next to me, waiting his turn to read. I’ll upload his performance in a separate video.

I chose that story because Matthew had indicated that he’d be reading a fantasy, so I thought I should, too, so that the flavors would blend together well for any audience. Also, I’d only read “The Only Wish Ever to Come True” once before, at a Readercon, and it was unlikely anyone attending Ad Astra would have heard it before. Don’t want to be repetitive!

Anyway, I recorded the hour so that what happens in Toronto doesn’t have to stay in Toronto.

(Please note that for some reason I’ve yet to figure out, the first few seconds of the last couple of videos I’ve uploaded are wonky, but that clears up quickly before the story begins. But if anyone has any suggestions as to why this is happening, please let me know!)

Sunday morning at Ad Astra started off with me writing here about my Saturday at Ad Astra, after which I quickly checked out of my room and headed to my panel on “Why Professionalism Matters,” which was tangentially related to my Friday panel on “Using Conventions to Your Advantage.” Both were primarily concerned with not doing shooting yourself in the foot during faanish and professional interactions.

Something said by one of the co-panelists, Howard Tayler, creator of Schlock Mercenary, sparked an anecdote that hadn’t even occurred to me until he started talking about comics, and that is—professionalism matters because it allows not-quite-that-talented, yet professionally behaving creators to find work out of the disasters created by the far-more-talented, yet not as reliable creators. And I shared how I got to pick up such crumbs, getting to write issues of Master of Kung Fu and Omega the Unknown not because I was supremely qualified to do so, but because the editors knew I would deliver on time and cause fewer headaches.

Next up for me was my shared reading with Matthew Johnson. He read “Holdfast,” which had been published in Fantasy magazine, and I read “The Only Wish Ever to Come True,” which had appeared in Talebones. I’ll share videos of those two readings with you soon.

There wasn’t much time between my reading and the next event I wanted to see, an hour shared between Derwin Mak and Robert Shearman. Since I’d been warned by Glenn Grant that the lobby restaurant was slow, I headed to the basement buffet so I could grab something quick. I found Derwin there, and we ate together, catching up until it was time for his reading. (BTW, I was very pleased to learn from him that there’ll be lots of Chinese restaurants within walking distance of the World Fantasy 2012 hotel.)

Then it was off to the shared reading. I recorded Derwin with my Flip, only to have the battery give out halfway through his performance. It was only when Robert Shearman readied himself that I remembered I could also record with my iPhone. I wasn’t happy with how my iPhone had performed when recording a panel,= during the Australia Worldcon, but I thought it might work for a single speaker. And it did.

I absolutely adored Robert’s story, “One Last Love Song.” How much did I love it? So much that I’m sharing it with you even before I’m sharing video of my OWN reading! The story is from his collection Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical, and I’m sure that after you hear him read, you’ll want to buy it. (For some reason, something strange happened to first few seconds of the clip, but don’t worry—that passes before the actual story begins.)

Once the reading ended, I bought a copy of Robert’s book (as you will also do now, of course), and chatted with him as long as I could spare until it was time to get my luggage from the concierge and head to the airport with Eric Flint. Along the way, Eric and I discussed our encounters with the elder gods of science fiction, and I remembered the early conventions at which I got autographs from Arthur C. Clarke and Ted Sturgeon and Poul Anderson and Gordie Dickson—and others—all on the same day.

My final Ad Astra encounter of the day turned out to come in an unexpected place—at the border. When I explained why I’d been in the country, and mentioned science fiction, my customs agent told me all about the closing of Silver Snail Comics. I’d found a fellow fan of sorts, which helped me pass through a little more smoothly.

And that was that for Ad Astra. Which means I can now start thinking about the World Horror Convention, only 2 1/2 weeks away!

On April 10 at Ad Astra 2011, I read my short story “The Only Wish Ever to Come True,” which had originally been published in Talebones magazine. I shared the hour with Matthew Johnson, seen sitting next to me, waiting his turn to read.

Yesterday began here in Toronto with scavenging breakfast in the well-appointed Ad Astra Green Room. Who doesn’t want to start the day with homemade scones? Then, after schmoozing for awhile with the usual gang of idiots friends, it was off to my first program item of the day—my shared Guest of Honor interview with Kathryn Cramer.

Kathryn had been a Guest of Honor in 1996, and I’d been one in 2000, and since there were so many of us there—this being the 30th Ad Astra, the committee attempted to get as many possible previous GOHs to return as possible—we were paired up in twos and threes and asked to interview each other. Kathryn and I have known each other for so long I no longer remember how long, so it was a pleasant hour chatting.

I recorded the full hour, and may someday, when I’m not living on con brain, post longer selections from it, but meanwhile, here’s a taste—a few minutes during which I explain why I chose to pursue writing over acting, when at one time I was equally involved in both.

As soon as our talk ended, I rushed off to my noon panel on the TV series The Walking Dead, which proved to be livelier than expected, as the panelists had extremely different reactions to the show. For example, our moderator, Colleen Hillerup, hates zombies but loves the show anyway because of the people and the series’ soap opera aspects, while co-panelist Mandy Slater loves zombies (she’d better, considering we’re in the book Zombie Apocalypse together), but is irritated by the people, and jokingly calls the show The Talking Dead because there’s more yammering than zombies. Meanwhile, Ian Keeling and I occupied the middle ground and stayed in less controversial territory. (more…)

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!

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!