There was no Instagram 10 years ago when we gathered in New York City for the 2007 Nebula Awards weekend—but if it had existed, the festivities might have looked something like this.

Hanging out with John Kessel

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My wife has been attending the New Jersey Romance Writers Convention for decades, and for many years, I’ve been tagging along, using that trip as an excuse to head into Manhattan and hang with friends. The most recent trip was different from all the rest, though, in that now, I have a podcast (one which you can help grow bigger and better via your Patreon support), which means you can eavesdrop on all those lunches and dinners.

This first to be recorded this visit took place at the Ukranian restaurant Veselka, which turns out more than 3,000 pierogi each day, and has been around since 1954. My guest that afternoon was editor Ellen Datlow, who for more than 35 years has brought readers amazing stories in magazines such as Omni, on sites such as SCI FI Fiction, and in anthologies such as Fearful Symmetries, The Doll Collection, and more than 90 others.

We discussed why reading slush is relaxing, which editors she wanted to emulate when she began editing, how she winnows down her favorite stories for her Year’s Best anthologies, the complexities of navigating friendships when making editorial decisions, how Ed Bryant challenged her to become a better editor, and much more.

Here’s how you can listen in on our conversation— (more…)

I’d never expected to return to Alinea. It’s not that repeat visits aren’t worth it, but I don’t get to Chicago often, and even though I had an amazing time there during the 2012 Worldcon, when I do get to that city I only have so many free nights, and there are many other intriguing restaurants which I’ve yet to try—Grace, Elizabeth, Moto, Schwa … the list goes on.

But Ellen Datlow desperately wanted dinner there during this year’s Nebula Awards weekend, and asked me to use my good karma and Internet-fu to get her a table. I’d assumed that once I snagged the reservation, I’d simply turn the table over to her, but after I had us on the books (within seconds of when reservations began to be taken for the month of June), the temptation of eating again at one of the world’s top restaurants was too great.

Which is how I found myself stepping through the unmarked front door of Alinea last Thursday night with Ellen, Barry Goldblatt, Sam Miller, Cat Rambo, and Sheila Williams. (Yes, unmarked door. Unless you know it’s there, you don’t know it’s there.)

And here’s what, for the next four hours or so, we ate. (And you’ll have to forgive me for not going into detail on each course, but rather relying on the text from Alinea’s own menu, handed to each diner at the end of the meal. After having posted five other food reports from the Nebula Awards weekend over the past few days, I’m all out of superlatives. Simply assume that everything was wonderful.)

Surf Clam
sunchoke, cucumber, lilac

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There was no Instagram back in 2004—but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from Instagramming the 2004 Nebula Awards weekend!

Early tomorrow morning, I leave for San Jose to attend the 2014 Nebula Awards weekend. So what better time than now to take a few peeks at the same event held a decade ago in Seattle.

Slightly younger Robert Silverberg meets much younger Robert Silverberg

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The Nebulas Awards banquet was held last night in San Jose, and usually, I’d have been there. But this year, I wanted to attend the the March George Formby Society Convention in Blackpool, and so something had to give—which meant the Nebulas as well as this year’s World Horror Convention in New Orleans were out.

So I amused myself this weekend by looking back two years to my photos from 2003 Nebula Awards weekend and sharing them on Twitter, but thought I should gather them together here as well.

So get ready to flashback to a gentler, more innocent time …

Scott Edelman (with butterfly) and Bill Shunn

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I ran across this photo over at Locus of me and Andy Duncan and Ellen Datlow (with Wil McCarthy in the background) at the 2001 Nebula Awards in Los Angeles, and all I could think was … now there’s an image in desperate need of a caption!

So, friends, it’s up to you to provide one. What could it be that we’re discussing so intently? And more importantly …

What exactly is Ellen measuring with her fingers?

I arrived home from the Reno Worldcon late Monday night, and as you can tell by the absence of recent posts, I failed to live up to Edelman’s Schadenfreude Rule of Convention Reporting, which states that all blogging must occur while a con is still in progress, so you can see what you’re missing while it’s still going on. If you were following me on Twitter or Facebook, you got a taste of the action, but I was just having too much fun to pause to tell you about it here until my return.

Well, now I’m back, and it appears I still don’t (and won’t) have time for a lengthy con report, so these few highlights will have to stand in for the long weekend. Here are my 12 favorite Worldcon moments:

Singing along with Dr. Demento

I started listening to Dr. Demento’s warped radio show in the early ’80s, which is how I first learned about everything from “Fish Heads” to Weird Al. So I made sure to catch the opening night presentation of some of his most-requested songs, which he shared via audio and video clips. He also sang “Shaving Cream” live while hundreds of us in the audience sang along to the chorus, which, you’ll forgive me, had me a little giddy.

Never heard of “Shaving Cream”? Here’s Benny Bell’s original version of it from 1946. Now imagine 500-800 fen (I’m no good at counting crowds) singing along. If you weren’t there, you missed a good time.

Dinner with John Scalzi and Cory Doctorow

After yucking it up with Dr. Demento, I headed off with John and Cory for dinner at the Atlantis Steakhouse, where we dined on aged beef, had a great conversation, and realized that Renovation was the second consecutive Worldcon to be held in a city with legalized brothels. (What’s that? You don’t remember prostitution being legal in Melbourne. Well, it was.)

By the way, we only discussed this hypothetically. No. Really. I mean it. (more…)

I dreamt that I came downstairs within my actual house and stepped into my actual kitchen (not a common occurrence in my dreams, as they so often take place in previous houses or apartments or in residences I’ve never seen in real life but am not surprised to be living at in dream) into an extremely sunny kitchen. Irene is sitting directly under one of the skylights, ablaze in a beam of sunshine. I tell her that I’d just that moment received an e-mail from Marvel Comics hiring me to work as a proofreader for a week. She seems a bit puzzled, and it’s only when I see her expression that I am, too, for it’s only in that instant that I think—how exactly as I supposed to be commuting each day from West Virginia to Manhattan? Or if I stay in a hotel, won’t that cost more than I’ll earn? That issue arose as if I’d never thought of it before, and trying to figure out how the job was supposed to work, I woke. I’m often thrust from dreams when I realize that there’s something I haven’t realized before.

I also dreamed that I was giving a symposium on how to get published, not at a science-fiction convention, but on a college campus. I’m standing in front of an audience in an auditorium and rattling off markets. When I try to tell them about a writer who’ll be editing three themed anthologies, his name escapes me, and as I stand up there saying things like, “oh, you know who I’m talking about,” all I can remember is the name of his son, and so I say that it’s River’s dad, and then his name comes back to me—Tim Pratt. Now in real life, Tim isn’t editing anything fiction-related (as far as I know), so don’t start sending him your manuscripts! But in the dream, he was. And as those in the audience scribbled down the information, I moved on to other actual markets.

And still I continued to dream, though I’m not sure whether the next scene can be considered an entirely new dream or an extension of that second one …

I was hanging with Paul Di Filippo on a college campus, each of us stretched out on different couches on the first floor of a massive dormitory. And as we lounged there, for some reason I was thinking of what would happen if the building with its hundreds if not thousands of students were to be cut off from the rest of the world. I suggested that everything would soon turn all Lord of the Flies inside.

“Nah,” he said laconically, and with a smile. “I’m sure everything would be all right.”

“Why?” I asked. “Is that because people from Rhode Island don’t ever go all Lord of the Flies?”

Which is the first time I realize that the campus is in Rhode Island. I don’t hear Paul’s answer, because then I wake.

In the night’s final remembered dream, Maureen McHugh steps up to me carrying a baby. In the dream, it seems to be hers. She sits down, and then I suddenly notice Ellen Datlow is also there, and instead of any of us ever saying anything, we instead watch as Maureen feeds the baby Cheerios, because all we’re capable of is oohing and aahing over the cutie pie.

And then I wake for the final time and put an end to dream.

I headed into Baltimore this afternoon to hang out with Ellen Datlow after she finished rehearsing for Edgar Allan Poe’s funeral (which will take place Sunday), and sat with Kristine Dikeman while Ellen and the other participants ran through the staging of their eulogies.

What I enjoyed most of all—aside from catching up with Kris in hushed whispers while the director and/or stage manager put the living and dead through their paces—was seeing John Astin rehearse his role as MC. I’ve loved his work, as amazing as this might sound, since before he was Gomez Addams, back when he starred in a show called I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster.

Once Ellen was done practicing her walk across the stage and talk into the microphone, she and I and Kris headed over to Fells Point (where the two of them were staying) and had dinner at John Stevens Tavern. There we are below after we discussed zombies, steampunk, steampunk zombies, collaboration, stalkers, and many other things I’m far too tired to remember. (The 200-mile round trip does take its toll, after all.)

Check here to see further photos—though the bulk of them won’t appear until after the actual funeral.

And now I’d better get some sleep if I have any hope of making it to the Baltimore Comic-Con tomorrow!

Gary K. Wolfe opened his room at the Intercontinental late yesterday afternoon to hold a wake for Charles Brown. And while many moving and tearful things were said by his many friends, which I will leave unreported as I believe that for the most part what happens at a wake should remain at a wake, one comment Gary made stuck with me.

Once the room was filled, he stood on a ledge by the window (inside the glass, of course) to get our attention and begin the proceedings. Some began to shout “Jump! Jump!” … because, as we all know, those of us who gather at Worldcon once each year are three-year-olds at heart.

In response to this, Gary pointed at Ellen Datlow and Gardner Dozois, seated on the edge of the bed, and said:

“The science fiction editor says ‘Don’t jump.’ The horror editor says ‘Jump.’ That’s all you need to know about those genres.”

The more I think about it, the more I like it.