I’ve never thought of myself as an oblivious kind of guy, but I guess I must be, as the following anecdote will prove …

I was traveling home from last weekend’s World Fantasy Convention, and as I passed through the San Diego International Airport skybridge that connects the rental car shuttle drop-off island and the terminals, I noticed a life-sized Steve Canyon (alongside other cartoon characters) decal on the glass. Nearby was a stand stuffed with double-sided cards promoting an ongoing exhibit of cartoonists celebrating flight. I picked up one of the cards you see below, and then, since I was a couple of hours early for my flight, tried to track the thing down.

So I went to an information booth and asked where I could find the exhibit referred to on the card and advertised on the decals. Clueless volunteers sent me from one terminal to another in search of an alcove where the exhibit was purported to be, until someone finally figured out that those initial decals I saw weren’t an ad—they WERE the exhibit.

For those who won’t be passing through the San Diego Airport, here’s how the six panels looked from ground level.

You can find photos of the individual panels—featuring Canyon, Snoopy as the Red Baron, Comic-Con cofounder Shel Dorf, and more—over on Flickr.

So where does my obliviousness come in? Evidently, the passageway was decorated like that prior to Comic-Con, and so I would have passed by it back in July both coming and going … and never noticed it!

It’s hump day (though can it ever truly be considered hump day when you work seven days a week?), which means that Sunday in San Diego seems very far away. And yet I don’t want to leave you hanging as to the end of World Fantasy Con.

I didn’t have much of a Sunday morning. With the pre-banquet cocktail party beginning at noon, and me having both stayed up and slept late the night before, there was neither point nor time to have a full breakfast. So I grabbed some nibbles in the con suite (which I’ll say again, was well-stocked and well-run), sold a few more copies of What Will Come After out front of the dealers room to some attendees who’d let me know in advance that they’d wanted them, did some minimal schmoozing, and then headed back to my room to get suited up.

While hanging out at the bar, I was stunned to discover when the ballroom doors opened that the best table in the house, directly in front of the podium, hadn’t been reserved for a publisher, and was therefore free for unaffiliated attendees like me to grab. Which I did, resulting in a good angle for me to record the entire proceedings, which you can see below.

Also at my table were Karen and Charlie Newton, Mark Kelly, Terry Weyna, and a few others I was meeting for the first time, and whose names unfortunately didn’t stick. If one of those names happens to be yours, feel free to slap me around the next time you see me. (more…)

I woke Saturday morning at World Fantasy to a city in which I’d already eaten at every Man v. Food restaurant. What to do? Luckily, the locals had all raved about a place called Hash House a Go Go, which supposedly prepared amazing breakfasts—well, amazing everything—so that’s where I headed to start the day with Bill Shunn, Laura Chavoen, and Eileen Gunn.

But everything good comes with a price—and the price was that there was a 90-minute wait before we could be seated. Since it sounded like the food would be worth it, Bill and Laura were up for it. But Eileen had to be back by 12:30. So I returned her to the hotel (which apparently had a major problem I didn’t hear about until today) and got back to the restaurant with plenty of time still remaining to chat with Bill and Laura in the warm California sun while trying not to feel too guilty that my wife was back in the West Virginia snow.

I ordered the pancake of the day—banana coconut—which surprised me by coming with a few pecans, too. It also surprised by BEING THE SIZE OF A HUBCAP!

I assure you that I did NOT eat the entire thing. I was thinking of taking it back to the con suite, but pancakes do not travel well, and besides, we wanted to have a postprandial walk around the neighborhood, and so didn’t box up any leftovers. It was a good thing we took that walk, too, because it allowed Laura to see her first Bird of Paradise in the wild. (more…)

I started off my second day at the World Fantasy Convention with my second visit to a San Diego Man v. Food restaurant. Karen and Charlie Newton joined me at the Broken Yolk Cafe, where Adam Richman attempted the Iron Man Challenge.

What’s the Iron Man Challenge? Read it off the menu and weep.

There was no way I was going to attempt this (or any other) Man v. Food challenge, though I do sometimes order the meal in question just to see what it looks like in 3-D under my nose, and return with the uneaten portion and give it away in the con suite to a hungry fan. But since I didn’t think an omelet was likely to travel well, I went with the blueberry pancakes instead.

Back at the con, I found I very rarely ended up where I intended to go. I kept bumping into friends, getting swept up in their magnetic fields, and not making it to readings or panels I’d originally planned. I had a nice chat with Pat Murphy and Eileen Gunn about Joanna Russ and other things out in the warm San Diego sun, bumped into my old Marvel boss Len Wein, and more. I chose people over programming. The only official event I ended up at was Kathleen Ann Goonan’s 4:30 p.m. reading, which you can of course catch right here.

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I know I worried in my previous post that I’d used up all the serendipity I was allowed for 2011 last Saturday, but it seems I had a little more left Thursday morning, because as I waited for my 8:20 a.m. United flight out of Dulles, who should appear at the gate but Daryl Gregory. Unlike the old days when I could hang out in the aisle and have conversations with friends in different parts of the plane other than in my own seat, we couldn’t talk our way to San Diego, but it still made it feel as if the con had started on the East Coast rather than the West.

The oddest thing about arriving in San Diego is that except for a brief visit back in 1984, every trip I’ve taken there has been during Comic-Con, when the city has been packed with con attendees, some more obvious than others. World Fantasy is small, and so doesn’t have that affect on the place. Who were all these normies I was surrounded by? Give me back my cosplayers!

I picked up my rental car and headed over to the WFC, where I grabbed lunch in the con suite, which so far has seemed both well stocked and well run. Then a quick tour of the dealers room, a blur of schmoozing, and it was off to the opening ceremonies, which if you missed, you can watch below. (more…)

I’ll be heading off to Dulles in about 20 hours to fly to San Diego for World Fantasy Con, and I realize I haven’t yet told you where you’ll be able to find me. (Well, aside from all those Man v. Food restaurants, anyway.) So here’s my official schedule.

You’ll note I only have one panel. That’s because WFC has the highest ratio of writers, editors, artists, and critics of any convention, and so unless you’re one of the Guests of Honor, you only get one slot—you’re allowed to choose a panel or a reading, but not both.

Here’s what I’ve been assigned:

Metafiction
Saturday, October 29, 10:00 p.m., Pacific 2/3
Taking literature to the next level, metafiction exposes the fictional illusion and openly addresses the devices of fiction. It takes many forms: stories within stories, footnotes that continue the story, characters aware that they are characters, and authors commenting on and even entering their own stories. Going back at least as far at the Canterbury Tales, these devices are particularly popular of late. What do they add to the reading (and writing) experience? Is the trend just self-indulgence?
with Victoria Schwab, Steve Rasnic Tem, and Rick Wilber (moderator)

Unofficially, of course, you’ll find me many other places, such as listening to Nalo Hopkinson, Robert Shearman, Eileen Gunn and others read, and the panels on “How to Survive the Coming Zombie War” (how could I not?) and “Founders of Steampunk,” and the conversation between Neil Gaiman and Connie Willis …

… and then there’s the bar.

See you there!

It’s October, which means this year’s World Fantasy Con is just around the corner. I don’t know about you, but I’ve already figured out where I’ll be eating while in San Diego. That’s because wherever Adam Richman of Man v. Food goes, I go. Which means this year you’ll spot me at the Broken Yolk Cafe for breakfast, and at Phil’s BBQ and the Lucha Libre Gourmet Taco Shop for lunches and dinners.

And if you plan to be at WFC, too, I’ll be trying to drag you along.

Check out the San Diego episode of Man v. Food and you’ll see why.

Will you be there?

I appeared on the panel “The Moral Distance Between the Author and the Work” yesterday afternoon at the World Fantasy Convention in Columbus, along with Eric Flint, Nancy Kress, Paul Witcover, Kathryn Cramer, and Jack Skillingstead.

Minutes before we were to begin, I forced my Flip camcorder on Andy Duncan, who was kind enough to record the whole thing. The room was packed, with several hundred people present, and the discussion grew so lively near the end that we almost failed to yield the room.

Here’s how the panel was described in the Pocket Program:

What do we make of good art by bad people, or at least people of whom we disapprove? Richard Wagner was a particularly vile anti-Semite, but he still wrote “Kill Da Wabbit!” and other great music. Should we listen? The official Nazi film industry made one very good fantasy film (BARON MUNCHAUSEN, to which the Terry Gilliam version owes a good deal). Should we watch this? What about an author who is a convicted child molester? Should we read his novel? CAN we read it for itself? Is it possible to truly experience any form of art as a thing until itself, rather than the product of its creator?

The whole thing is embedded below.

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Here are two more readings I attended at the World Fantasy Convention in Columbus, bringing the total up to seven. I’d planned to catch one more, but my visit to the James Thurber House caused me to miss Geoff Landis. Sorry, Geoff!

But here’s Jeffrey Ford:

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I appeared on the panel “The Moral Distance Between the Author and the Work” at the 2010 World Fantasy Convention in Columbus, along with Eric Flint, Nancy Kress, Paul Witcover, Kathryn Cramer, and Jack Skillingstead. The room was packed, with several hundred people present, and the discussion grew so lively near the end that we almost failed to yield the room.

Here’s how the panel, which is embedded in four parts below, was described in the Pocket Program:

What do we make of good art by bad people, or at least people of whom we disapprove? Richard Wagner was a particularly vile anti-Semite, but he still wrote “Kill Da Wabbit!” and other great music. Should we listen? The official Nazi film industry made one very good fantasy film (BARON MUNCHAUSEN, to which the Terry Gilliam version owes a good deal). Should we watch this? What about an author who is a convicted child molester? Should we read his novel? CAN we read it for itself? Is it possible to truly experience any form of art as a thing until itself, rather than the product of its creator?

(more…)