Last week was all about the last stop on the 2010 Rotundo World Tour–Denver’s MileHiCon. So I made the climb to 5,280 feet, and the subsequent descent. Much frivolity was had. Highlights of the weekend:
The "Carrie and the Midnight Hour" panel, with my friend Carrie Vaughn, hosting a call-in show for the supernaturally disadvantaged à la her fictional heroine Kitty Norville, and featuring my phở brother Paolo Bacigalupi as a zombie rights advocate.
"Scoring in an Elevator," which dealt with developing effective elevator pitches for novels. Far and away the most useful panel I’ve attended this year–maybe in the past several years.
Meeting friends old and new (AKA hanging out in the bar for extended periods), including Ed Bryant, Electric Spec editor Betsy Dornbusch, Alastair Mayer, Lou Berger, Jason Heller, Travis Heermann, Mike Brotherton, Eric James Stone, and so many others that my weary brain can’t call them all to mind at the moment.
A Sunday evening cookout after the con, complete with football, beer, and a few writers sitting around a fire and talking about writing.
My reading, in which I was paired with my comrade-in-arms Eric James Stone, seemed to go over well. And I got to hand out various self-promotional bits at the "Speed Date an Author" event, at which I devoutly hope I didn’t make a fool of myself. Also had fun at the "Surviving Clarion" and "Guilty Pleasures" panel.
Oh, and regarding the latter–I feel I must share that not one but two other panelists were going to name Flash Gordon as one of their guilty pleasures, but I beat them to it. Memo to Flash haters: there are more of us out there than you’d like to think. Ha. Ha. Ha.
Anyway, now I’m home and feeling a bit recharged about this writing gig. So I suppose I’d better get to it.
