As I indicated yesterday, I won’t fully enjoy the World Fantasy Convention here in Columbus unless I know you’re watching from afar and are kicking yourself for not being here. To make sure you’re doing just that, here are two additional readings I attended Friday.

First up, K. Tempest Bradford, who is accompanied in the reading of her short story by Mary Robinette Kowal.

Next, Kathe Koja, reading from her new novel Under the Poppy. (more…)

I did something a little bit obsessive this evening.

OK, a lot obsessive.

I went through the membership list for World Fantasy Con and counted the number of people with whom I shared a meal, plus the number with whom I chatted, some briefly, some extensively.

I had my reasons, though.

I’ve never taken the life I lead for granted. But two recent conversations with people not part of my convention-going life reinforced how lucky I am to have what I have.

In talking to one person, I tried to explain the experience of entering a crowded room, knowing everybody, and having to decide with whom to strike up a conversation first. (more…)

As I shared in July, Twitter changed Readercon for me. But who knew that it would affect the recent World Fantasy Con even more?

For those of you still thinking that Twitter is only about us all sharing what we had for breakfast, here are a few specific ways Twitter made my WFC better.

Live audience feedback

I’ve been on hundreds of panels over the years, and I’m used to judging the mood of the crowd by where it laughs, where it applauds, and where there’s just stupefied silence. When I was moderating a panel at the Stokers back in March, I used Twitter to poll the audience for questions and received suggestions from those on the floor as well as around the world.

But this was the first time I ever witnessed ongoing chatter as to which panelist quips audience members felt worthy of sharing with their circles of friend, thanks to updating the #wfc2009 hashtag on my iPhone.

And no, it wasn’t distracting. It was fascinating, and made the panel a richer, more complex, more rewarding experience. (more…)

I’m sure I’d have had a lot more to say about this year’s World Fantasy Con if I’d had a lot more sleep and was a lot more coherent. I’ll probably do a recap tomorrow when I feel less like these revelers at the local Dia de Muertos festival look.

Check out my flickr set to see all 90 photos taken at WFC ’09.

There may be more pictures tomorrow, depending on who and what I find in the lobby as I check out …

I am continuing to have more fun than should be allowed by law at World Fantasy, which means that I have little time left over to blog about it here. Anyone who wants to follow along will have to settle for my twitter feed, which I’m managing to keep up with in the midst of the maelstrom.

Or you can check my WFC 2009 flickr set to see what I’ve been catching the rest of the world doing.

Meanwhile, here I am with Nina Kiriki Hoffman at about 1:00 a.m. this morning in the con suite, mere moments after she applied my lovely wrist tattoo.

Nina was tattooing anyone who came within reach, so if you’d been there, you could have gotten one, too!

I arrived at the Fairmont and immediately had a powerful sense of deja vu, as this was the same hotel I spent much of the San Jose Worldcon partying at back in 2002. I missed yesterday’s opening ceremonies, and showed up too late to register, but I was immediately in a boisterous maelstrom of friends. No name badge was needed with this crowd.

I ended up going to dinner almost immediately with John Kessel, Paul Park, Kij Johnson, Leslie Howle, and Neile Graham. We ended up at a joint called Don Pedro’s, where I had a big bowl of goat soup—but only because they were all out of the fried pork skin!

Here I am on one side of the table with John and Kij:

You can see the rest of my few initial World Fantasy photos here.

I partied much too late—at least for this East Coast body&#8212and so by the time I crashed my internal clock was telling me it was 3:00 a.m. I’m sure I missed most of the fun. I look forward to being a more well-adjusted partier tonight!