Travels: the con continued
Friday morning, I headed back to the con for a 9am panel on how to get your stories into anthologies, which was largely a litany of editors' pet peeves (which include being programmed at 9am) and a discussion of the relative merits of themed vs unthemed anthologies from the viewpoint of both publishers (themed anthologies sell better) and editors (letting writers write what they want tends to give you better stories). I caught a taxi rather than lug my suitcase over a kilometre of uneven paving, and checked into the Monteleone (the hotel, not the editor). My reading at 10.30am actually had an audience, even if most of them were booksellers who wanted me to sign copies of my novels and the stories in some anthologies. It was fun to read 'Honest Ghosts', which is set at a con in New Orleans, at a con in New Orleans, and it went over well.
The 2014 WHC Committee put on a lunch buffet - salads, bread, sliced meat and cheese, local potato chips, and small fancy cakes. Judging by the length of the queue, few horror writers can resist an offer of free food; I am no exception, and it was well worth the wait. Thanks, Portland people!
The next panel was on "Selling Your Short Story", with editors including Ellen Datlow, Tom Monteleone, and John Joseph Adams. This, like the 9am panel, focused on what editors do and don't want to see. It finished with a list of good markets for short horror fiction: unfortunately, when I returned to my room and checked these out, most of them are currently closed to submissions.
Caitlin Kiernan's GoH interview was fascinating. She was asked about recurring themes in her work, and was explained that one reason why all of her work includes unreliable narration is that all narrators are unreliable; even when we don't mean to lie, we forget too much and fill in the blanks, and we inevitably distort the truth just by turning it into a story with a beginning and an end. She also talked openly about mental illness, suicide, homelessness and writers' block: unlike many writers, she actually dislikes writing and doesn't even like "having written". Her real ambition, which she achieved briefly, was to be a paleontologist. I've admired her work for many years, and it was wonderful to finally get a chance to meet her.
It was also fantastic to catch up with Beth Gwinn, who I haven't seen since a long-ago World Fantasy Con where she took the best photo of me that anyone has ever done. Thanks, Beth!
The Mass Signing was split into two one-hour shifts, with only the GoHs signing for both shifts. This enabled them to use a smaller room, and gave attendees a better chance of getting the signatures they wanted. This gave me a chance to speak to Caitlin Kiernan, Robert McCammon, Joe McKinney, and the adI\orable Amber Benson, who is a long-time horror fan as well as a writer and film-maker and all-round utterly lovely person, and would be a great guest for Supanova (hint, hint).
My only panel at the con was on Saturday morning, at the reasonably civilized hour of 11am. 'The Art of the Collection' was a discussion of the importance of single-author short story collections, but also the common problems - and having been on the last judging panel for the Bram Stoker Award for collections, I'd seen enough of them recently to be able to list some of the endemic weaknesses (collections brought out as soon as the author had written enough stories, but not enough good stories; collections that led with stories that wasn't good enough to keep us reading the rest; collections by unknown authors with titles and/or cover art that didn't inspire any enthusiasm; etc.). While all the panelists could name collections that they'd loved, I pointed out that when I'd put most of the collections I'd judged for the Stokers into job lots to auction off at Swancon and GenghisCon, they'd fetched less than a dollar apiece (one writer in the audience was enormously relieved to hear that his collection was still sitting on my shelf), and I suggested that the best time for an author to bring out a first collection was shortly after the release of his/her first novel. One of the highlights of the con so far, for me, was when one of my fellow panelists, Loren Rhoads of Morbid Curiosity fame, expressed disappointment that no-one had optioned The Art of Arrow Cutting, because she thought it would make a great movie. It's moments like that that make me feel that flying to New Orleans was worth the effort.
Not that I don't love New Orleans, of course (despite its disappointing shortage of bookshops). After the panel, Danel Olson took Lucy Taylor and I out to lunch at Antoine's, a restaurant that has been operating since 1840 (barring a hiatus after Katrina), run by the same family for six generations, with some staff who are fourth-generation. The crab ravigote was excellent, and one of the waiters gave us a guided tour. ("This is the Maison Vert - it's still called that, even though it was painted beige years ago and we have three other rooms that actually are green. People here don't like to admit things change." "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. What happens in New Orleans, stays on the internet.") Danel and I then wandered about the French Quarter for a few hours, checking out interesting shops and architecture, before returning to the con. Thanks, Danel!
This was the first day since I arrived that I didn't eat a po-boy, but I can heartily recommend the catfish and crawfish etouffee at the Red Fish Grill. I suppose it's possible to become tired of a city where even the police station advertises T-shirts for sale, and as I said, there really aren't enough bookshops here... but if I could teleport, I think I'd come back to New Orleans every other day just to eat.
The 2014 WHC Committee put on a lunch buffet - salads, bread, sliced meat and cheese, local potato chips, and small fancy cakes. Judging by the length of the queue, few horror writers can resist an offer of free food; I am no exception, and it was well worth the wait. Thanks, Portland people!
The next panel was on "Selling Your Short Story", with editors including Ellen Datlow, Tom Monteleone, and John Joseph Adams. This, like the 9am panel, focused on what editors do and don't want to see. It finished with a list of good markets for short horror fiction: unfortunately, when I returned to my room and checked these out, most of them are currently closed to submissions.
Caitlin Kiernan's GoH interview was fascinating. She was asked about recurring themes in her work, and was explained that one reason why all of her work includes unreliable narration is that all narrators are unreliable; even when we don't mean to lie, we forget too much and fill in the blanks, and we inevitably distort the truth just by turning it into a story with a beginning and an end. She also talked openly about mental illness, suicide, homelessness and writers' block: unlike many writers, she actually dislikes writing and doesn't even like "having written". Her real ambition, which she achieved briefly, was to be a paleontologist. I've admired her work for many years, and it was wonderful to finally get a chance to meet her.
It was also fantastic to catch up with Beth Gwinn, who I haven't seen since a long-ago World Fantasy Con where she took the best photo of me that anyone has ever done. Thanks, Beth!
The Mass Signing was split into two one-hour shifts, with only the GoHs signing for both shifts. This enabled them to use a smaller room, and gave attendees a better chance of getting the signatures they wanted. This gave me a chance to speak to Caitlin Kiernan, Robert McCammon, Joe McKinney, and the adI\orable Amber Benson, who is a long-time horror fan as well as a writer and film-maker and all-round utterly lovely person, and would be a great guest for Supanova (hint, hint).
My only panel at the con was on Saturday morning, at the reasonably civilized hour of 11am. 'The Art of the Collection' was a discussion of the importance of single-author short story collections, but also the common problems - and having been on the last judging panel for the Bram Stoker Award for collections, I'd seen enough of them recently to be able to list some of the endemic weaknesses (collections brought out as soon as the author had written enough stories, but not enough good stories; collections that led with stories that wasn't good enough to keep us reading the rest; collections by unknown authors with titles and/or cover art that didn't inspire any enthusiasm; etc.). While all the panelists could name collections that they'd loved, I pointed out that when I'd put most of the collections I'd judged for the Stokers into job lots to auction off at Swancon and GenghisCon, they'd fetched less than a dollar apiece (one writer in the audience was enormously relieved to hear that his collection was still sitting on my shelf), and I suggested that the best time for an author to bring out a first collection was shortly after the release of his/her first novel. One of the highlights of the con so far, for me, was when one of my fellow panelists, Loren Rhoads of Morbid Curiosity fame, expressed disappointment that no-one had optioned The Art of Arrow Cutting, because she thought it would make a great movie. It's moments like that that make me feel that flying to New Orleans was worth the effort.
Not that I don't love New Orleans, of course (despite its disappointing shortage of bookshops). After the panel, Danel Olson took Lucy Taylor and I out to lunch at Antoine's, a restaurant that has been operating since 1840 (barring a hiatus after Katrina), run by the same family for six generations, with some staff who are fourth-generation. The crab ravigote was excellent, and one of the waiters gave us a guided tour. ("This is the Maison Vert - it's still called that, even though it was painted beige years ago and we have three other rooms that actually are green. People here don't like to admit things change." "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. What happens in New Orleans, stays on the internet.") Danel and I then wandered about the French Quarter for a few hours, checking out interesting shops and architecture, before returning to the con. Thanks, Danel!
This was the first day since I arrived that I didn't eat a po-boy, but I can heartily recommend the catfish and crawfish etouffee at the Red Fish Grill. I suppose it's possible to become tired of a city where even the police station advertises T-shirts for sale, and as I said, there really aren't enough bookshops here... but if I could teleport, I think I'd come back to New Orleans every other day just to eat.