The latest iteration of Capclave is only 11 days away! So it’s about time I let you know where you’ll be able to find me at this Gaithersburg, Maryland con.

Here’s the programming they’ve assigned me, as well of the names of the co-conspirators with whom I’ll be making mischief.

Well Worn Classics
Friday, October 7, 5:00 p.m.
Some science fiction classics are so steeped in the time they were written, they are painful to read now. In some ways, getting the technology wrong is secondary to getting the sociology wrong, as when sexism and racism rear their now-ugly heads. What classic novels show their age but are still a pleasure to read, and which make us wince?
Panelists: Scott Edelman, Barbara Krasnoff (M), Karen Wester Newton, Lee Strong

Reading
Saturday, October 8, 11:00 a.m.

Literary Inspirations
Saturday, October 8, 1:00 p.m.
What author’s works have influenced, inspired and even just amused the panelists.
Panelists: Scott Edelman, J. J. Smith, Lee Strong, Joan Wendland

Biggest Mistakes Made by Beginning Writers
Saturday, October 8, 3:00 p.m.
The panel will discuss both writing and promotional mistakes: How writers have screwed themselves over and killed their chances of making it in the publishing world by doing easily preventable things.
Panelists:Scott H. Andrews, Marilyn “Mattie” Brahen, Scott Edelman, Bjorn Hasseler, Hildy Silverman

Plus—I hope to record a few new episodes of Eating the Fantastic during the weekend.

Hope to see you there!

How terrible is the bandwidth of my Internet provider?

So terrible that the following video of Sarah Pinsker reading a short story on October 17 at Capclave would have taken me 20+ hours to upload at home, while at the same time choking all other Internet usage.

Which meant I instead waited a month to share it with you, until I was at the World Fantasy Convention hotel where I could use 21st Century Internet to upload the 1.22 Gigabyte file in a tenth of the time as my apparently steam-powered Internet.

Enjoy!

If you want to see more of what Capclave can offer, here are some videos from 2014.

Whenever I attend a convention, there’s always the official con, and then the con away from the con, which typically involves at least one great meal. And that’s the way it was with Capclave, which was just held in Gaithersburg, Maryland. I took part in four panels—three to which I’d previously been assigned plus one I was added to at the last minute to replace a panelist who couldn’t make it.

I enjoyed sharing what wisdom I could on such panels as “Building Your Audience”—which ended with me invalidating all the advice I’d given during the previous hour when I quoted William Goldman’s maxim that “Nobody knows anything”—and “Food In Fiction”—during which I explained why Rene Redzepi uses ants in his New Nordic cuisine.

While I found all of that to be fun—you know me, put a microphone in front of me and I won’t shut up—the most important panel was probably the “Tiptree Retrospective,” which was captured above in a photo taken by Barbara Krasnoff. That’s Jim Freund, Julia Rios, Sarah Pinsker, me, and David Hartwell (who’d been Alice Sheldon’s editor and had actually visited her at home) reminiscing about that great writer in this, the year in which she would have turned 100. (more…)

Capclave is only two weeks away, so if you don’t get enough of me at this weekend’s Baltimore Book Festival, come track me down then in Gaithersburg.

Here are the three panels—all scheduled for Saturday, October 10—on which you’ll be able to find me.

Tiptree Retrospective
10 a.m.
Alice Sheldon, who wrote as James Triptree Jr. was born 100 years ago. She was a complex individual who kept her true identity secret even from the many writers who communicated with her by mail. Robert Silverberg famously wrote that only a man could have written Triptree’s stories. What did she have to say and what was her best work? Why is she important to the field?

Small Press Vs. Self-Publishing
2 p.m.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of small press compared to self-publishing? Why did you choose one over the other? How will the rise of both affect the creation and distribution of books?

Building Your Audience
6 p.m.
Now that you finished your book and found a publisher, how do you get people to read it? What promotional devices work and what turns potential readers off? And, after you’ve published three or four books, what can you do to expand your readership and get readers of your newest book to look at your older ones?

I hope to see you there!

It’s been two weeks since Capclave, which means I’m violating Edelman’s First Rule of Convention Reporting by waiting this long to tell you about my experience. You remember the rule, don’t you? It’s that all convention reporting has to take place while a con is still happening, not merely after the fact, because it’s not enough that I be having a wonderful time—you’ve got to know that I’m having a wonderful time and be grumbling because you’re not with me having a wonderful time, too.

But bandwidth around here being what it is, I had to wait until the following weekend while I was traveling to upload my Capclave videos, and then we had friends visiting this week who only just left, which means it’s a rule that in this instance had to be broken.

Anyway, here’s what the weekend of October 10th through the 12th was like for me …

On Friday, my first panel was at 4:00 p.m.—”The League of Substitute Heroes and the Inferior Five”—during which we were to talk about the B- and C-level superheroes we loved, and I arrived about a half an hour before it was to begin. The ones I reminisced about the most were The Prankster, a one-shot back-up feature from Charlton with overtones of Harlan Ellison’s “”Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman,” and Brother Power the Geek, about a mannequin brought to life and given superpowers after being struck by lighting, who then lives among hippies. But I also talked up Matter-Eater Lad as well, a hero after my gastronomic heart.

My next panel wasn’t to be until 9:00 p.m.—”Ending Stories – Bang or Whimper?”—and you’d think that would leave me enough time for dinner. But instead, dinner didn’t leave me enough time for my panel! I went with friends to a nearby restaurant where the service was so slow that a meal which should have taken less than two hours took more than three. And since I was a passenger for this outing, rather than a driver, it meant I didn’t arrive back at Capclave until 15 minutes before that panel was to end. Thanks to Twitter, I was able to send out an alert using the Capclave hashtag that I wouldn’t be joining the panel, but still, I felt bad. I guess I learned my lesson—no more dinners at the Golden Bull on Friday nights!

My final panel that day was at 11:00 p.m.—”Why Do We Like Being Scared?” (And no, it’s not the latest panel I’ve ever done. Sometimes I’ve pontificated past midnight.) There was much talk of zombies. I also put out there that it might be my luck in having had a happy, untraumatized childhood which allows for me to be scared without being triggered. It’s a privilege I’ll have to consider in more depth later.

A little past midnight, I headed home. I rarely stay overnight at local cons such as Capclave and Balticon, preferring to pay for hotels only when the event isn’t drivable, even though that can lead to commutes of anywhere from 90 minutes to two hours. So I arrived home around two in the morning, and then by 10:30 a.m. Saturday, I was back on the road again … (more…)

I had a great time last weekend during my three days at Capclave, and I plan to tell you all about it after I upload the videos of the panels and two readings I recorded. But since bandwidth here is such that tossing those gigabytes up on YouTube will prevent me from doing a single other thing online for 24-48 hours, that probably won’t happen until the weekend is out. Meanwhile, you’ll have to be satisfied with a Capclave highlight that was Capclave without really being part of Capclave—

Pig face!

A couple of weeks back, Range—which I’ve been raving about here for quite awhile—added pig face to its menu. Only on Fridays and Saturdays, and only a few per night. Which meant, of course, I had to get there. Luckily, Capclave was coming.

Some of my friends were too queasy to look at a meal that looked back, but two who were as eager to dig into a pig face as I was were Mike and Beth Zipser, who you can see above, with the 18-hour sous vide pig face lovingly prepared by Chefs Mattie McGhee and Romeo Tivoli on a small platform between us.

We loved it, and quickly stripped it clean, as you can see from the before and after pics below. (For those who are into that sort of thing.) (more…)

Capclave begins two weeks from today, and a preliminary draft of the program has just been released. If you can spare time from following around the three Guests of Honor—Paolo Bacigalupi, Holly Black, and Genevieve Valentine—and would rather see me pontificate, here’s where you’ll tentatively be able to find me—

The League of Substitute Heroes and the Inferior Five
Friday, October 10, 4:00 p.m.
While many people are familiar with Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Iron Man, the X-Men, and the Justice League; Marvel and DC have many other second and third tier superheroes. When DC started the Vertigo line, they had some success with reviving more obscure characters in a newer, darker, often antiheroic persona. This brought them both success (Sandman) and failure (Kid Eternity anyone?). Which more obscure and or silly DC and Marvel superheroes would you like to see revived and revamped? For instance, the Head of Programming believes it’s time for a revival of ‘mazing man, Queen’s own superhero.
with Robert Greenberger, L. Jagi Lamplighter, James Maxey, and Jay Smith

Ending Stories – Bang or Whimper?
Friday, October 10, 9:00 pm
So many short stories start out well but end abruptly or just trail off, leaving the reader to wonder, what’s the point. Why does this happen and how can writers avoid this fate? How do you determine your endings? Is a twist ending a cheat?
with Pamela K. Kinney, Dina Leacock, Alex Shvartsman, Ian Randal Strock, and Allen Wold

Why Do We Like Being Scared?
Friday, October 10, 11:00 pm
Fear probably developed as a survival mechanism. We fear things that might hurt us. Yet many read horror, go to slasher films, ride roller coasters, and climb cliffs. Why? What does this say about us and our psyches?
with Holly Black, Annette Klause, Dina Leacock, and Jon Skovron

Mass Signing
Saturday, October 11, 7:30 pm

Reading
Sunday, October 12, 1:30 pm
At which I’ll try to read my most recently sold story without crying …

Hope to see you there!

And be warned that at some point during the convention, there will be durian.

It shows where my priorities are that I told you all about Saturday night’s dinner at Range before I shared anything about the rest of my weekend at Capclave. But then … you already knew that about me, didn’t you?

When I arrived at the Hilton in Gaithersburg Friday night, I quickly discovered that there was no parking available. I circled the lot multiple times, as did dozens of other cars, to no avail. This had never happened before at a Capclave. Blame Guest of Honor George R.R. Martin, who attracted a horde of new attendees. (I was told later that night that the con sold three times as many walk-in memberships as usual the first day of the con.) Thankfully, a hotel employee at the front desk allowed me to use employee parking, or else I’d be wandering the lot still.

I bumped into Michael Dirda, Howard Waldrop, and Ellen Brody in the lobby, and they invited me to join them for dinner before my 9:00 p.m. panel. I’d already eaten during my drive, but I joined them anyway for a lively conversation during which we discussed Stan Lee’s date with Patricia Highsmith, the unfilmed (and entirely fictional) seventh season of Leave it to Beaver, and more.

Then came my panel titled, “J. K. Rowling Wrote an Adult Mystery,” which wasn’t really about Rowling per se, but instead the issue of pen names, writing in multiple genres, and whether the latter required the former. You can tell where I come down on the issue by the fact I’ve used my own name on all my writing, even the two unauthorized biographies I wrote about professional wrestlers. I’m agin’ ’em.

And then I rushed back home. It may seem odd to drive 90 minutes each way in order to spend two hours at a convention, but that’s all work (I couldn’t spare using another vacation day) and finances (I try not to splurge on hotel rooms when a con is commutable) allowed. Which meant the next morning I headed back to do it all over again. (more…)

If you’ll be at Capclave over in Gaithersburg, Maryland next month—and are into late-night after-dinner programming—here are three panels on which you’ll be able to find me pontificating.

Luckily, my reading occurs at a far more civilized time …

Friday, Oct. 11, 9:00 pm (Salons CDE)
J. K. Rowling Wrote an Adult Mystery
Why do authors switch genres or markets and how does it affect their career? Do they need a different pen name for each new genre? Is it better to focus on getting good at writing one genre or experiment? What are the reasons authors write outside the areas for which they are best known?
with Catherine Asaro, Betsy A. Riley, Darrell Schweitzer, Jon Skovron

Saturday, Oct. 12, 12:30 pm (Frederick)
Reading

Saturday, Oct. 12, 10:00 pm (Rockville/Potomac)
Name Drop and Quote Panel
Nothing but bragging rights here as the panelists drop names and share quotes as they discuss the best experiences, novels, stories, and conventions they have ever seen. Or not.
with Andrew Fox, Steve Stiles, Ian Randal Strock

Saturday, Oct. 12, 11:00 pm (Rockville/Potomac)
Grumpy Old Pharts Panel
Back in my day… experienced curmudgeons square off. And get off my lawn!
with D. Douglas Fratz, Darrell Schweitzer

Hope to see you there!

On Sunday, I moderated the final panel at Capclave, “Endings: Varieties of Wrapping Up,” during which I wrangled Brenda Clough, Ann Crispin, and Bud Webster. Actually, hardly any wrangling occurred. The four of us have known each other for at least twenty years, I think, so there was plenty of comfort there, and we could have easily talked for an hour on almost any subject.

In fact, we chattered so seamlessly that I never found an opportune moment to quote one of my favorite story endings of all time. If I’d done so, it would have stopped the flow of conversation, so I didn’t bother, and so I’ll share it here with you instead.

It comes from Jessica Amanda Salmonson’s “Time-Slit Through a Rice Paper Window,” which continues to amaze me, and which I published way back in 1984 in the Summer 1984 issue of Last Wave.

Here’s how her story concludes:

A few days later (we are time traveling again) Kohachi is home with his mother. There is much ado about the marriage preparations and the invitations which must be sent out. A servant is replacing the torn windows in the rice paper screens and doors, so everything will be spiffy for the celebration. We won’t be able to see through the time-slit much longer. What will happen to Kohachi after we are gone? Perhaps he has a good life with his bride, winning a few more duels in his life. Perhaps there is a war and he goes off to that and dies, or else is a success and becomes a wealthy warlord. Possibly the son of someone he killed comes and duels with him and wins. It is difficult to know what occurs in the life of the people in a story after the story ends. If we have any hearts at all, we must suffer thinking about it. That’s why stories sometimes say “happily ever after” or else kill all the characters off, so that we won’t have to worry about it. As for Kohachi, we have no idea what happens to him after this. We can always hope for the best.

I know I’m biased, but twenty-seven years after I first read them, those words still give me the tingles.