Interview Denied!
After the blogging panel at Philcon on Sunday, I headed up to the room where keynote speaker Catherine Asaro's reading had taken place for our scheduled interview.
Even though I headed up a few minutes after Asaro's reading had ended, I expected her to be waiting in the room, as per our arrangement. Plus, I figured she was probably still busy talking to the people who would have come up to her to ask for her autograph or tell her how much they liked her work. That's usually what happens after such readings.
So I headed up to the suite and was about to pop my head in the door when she called out, "I'm over here." She was waiting near the elevators with a couple of fans. I found this a little odd, since I'd thought our arrangement was to meet in the room and then conduct the interview there. The room was scheduled to be empty after her reading.
But when the elevator arrived, she stepped on and, along with the two fans, I followed her. She said she had to run out to her car to get a book for one woman who I surmised wanted to buy it from her.
In the lobby, she turned to me, and I thought she would suggest a place to meet up for our talk, but instead, she asked, "Did you want to interview me now?" Yes, I told her, a fact I thought I'd made clear all the prior times we'd spoken. She told me that she was too tired right now, so I suggested an e-mail interview. Instead of giving me an e-mail address, she gave me a Facebook URL and told me to go through her publicist, who she said is good at reminding her to follow through with interviews.
So I walked away disappointed, but I'm going to forward the questions to her publicist and see what happens. In the meantime, I have touched base with the very energetic Frank Wu (frankwu), who was this year's Featured Artist guest, and I'm going to interview him over e-mail. He was very enthusiastic about it, and I'm looking forward to a great exchange of ideas.
Moral:
Persistence doesn't always pay off.
