Well, well, it seems I’ll be doing three conventions this year. I’d planned originally on one, but then I found out about MadCon 2010, in Madison, Wisconsin, which is ostensibly Harlan Ellison’s last convention. He claims. Not that I’m inclined to disbelieve him, but…
I’ve been asked to participate in programming at Context 23 in Columbus, Ohio. I’ve heard many good things about this convention and some friends have been pestering me to attend for a long time. I’ve been reluctant to do conventions that cost me anything out of pocket unless something really special is going on, because, well, I don’t have a book coming out or anything else to promote. But one friend is conducting workshops there and another (also conducting workshops) has made still another friend an offer to do the driving for the three of us and so I decided, what the hell. Confused? Don’t be. I’m not.
Way back in 2002 I attended another Columbus convention. Marcon. My then-editor at Meisha Merlin was invited by them to be their editor GoH and he suggested maybe I should attend as well and we could do a release party for Metal of Night. I agreed. It entailed my going through a flight from Purgatory, which turned into a good story around drinks. But then upon arrival we both sort of realized we’d made a mistake.
Marcon is a fairly large convention. The reason? It’s predominantly media. Within two hours we noted half the cast from Earth:Final Conflict, Virginia Hey from Farscape, the ever-energetic Richard Hatch still (then) on his endless circuit to get Battlestar Galactica remade, and a number of other media guests. The reading-and-writing component was in the minority. One good thing about that con was I got to meet Dr. Demento.
Going through the program book, I came upon an add for Context. The tagline read “the convention for those of us who actually read the stuff.”
So now I’m going. I have to fill out the programming questionaire. Who knows? Maybe before then I’ll have sold a new novel and have something to brag about. What? It could happen.