It’s Wednesday, a few days since Archon, and I’m now reconsidering the convention. I didn’t have a bad time. I had some great conversations (thank you Vanessa, Jill, Rachel, Lorenzo, Tom, Selina, Lynn, and the folks who showed up at the workshops and no doubt several others I’ve neglected to name) and the art show held some nice pieces, etc.
Usually when I get done with a convention, I’m inspired. I get jazzed up and come home rarin’ to write deathless prose. Not this time. I’ve been writing constantly on one thing or another for the last six years, almost all novels. (The state of my office is indicative of this.)
But it was not a bad weekend and I was caught having a good time.
Jill Lybarger, who once long ago worked at one of the last stand-alone B. Dalton stores in St. Louis and did me great favors by keeping my books on the shelves there, and who has since moved to Chicago with her husband Dane, snapped this of me contemplating—nay, drooling over—a possible purchase of a fine first edition (signed!) something or other at Basement Books in the dealers’ room.
I’m always a bit dismayed at profiles like this. I somehow can’t quite make the connection to “That’s me!” because I’m always startled by the disconnect between my actual self and my imagined self (which is stuck somewhere about a decade ago). Looking at this you’d never know I work out. I kind of look like an aging private detective. The developing hunch (from years of leaning over an enlarger and trays and prints in darkrooms) is something I’m probably stuck with.
Oh, well. But here is an off-guard moment of me indulging myself. (I did buy one book from them—a 1st edition of Joe Haldeman’s underappreciated novel 1968.)
One for the historical record. With appreciation to Jill for permission to post the picture. Thank you.
