Now that was very much what I want a con to be like.<\/p>\n
Maybe it was coming to ArmadilloCon– my hometown con– both with a certain comfort level as well as two books on the market, but I really had a fantastic time at this one.<\/p>\n
The Writers’ Workshop was my primary “work” for this con, of course, and being the one running it was my new level of responsibility– my next step of “do something daunting”. \u00a0I feel the whole thing went very well, though, and I heard plenty of positive feedback from both teachers and students.<\/p>\n
The rest was something of a whirlwind of panels and bar chats and signing books. \u00a0Saw many great people I don’t get to see often enough: Stina Leicht, Amanda Downum, Skyler White, Michelle Muenzler (she of the infamous cookies), Dantzel Cherry, Derek Johnson, Martin Wagner, Patrice Sarath, Nicky Drayden, Rick Klaw, etc.* \u00a0I met in person people I had only interacted with online, like Caroline Yoachim and K.B. Rylander, and met brand new awesome people, like Ken Liu, Justin Landon, Wesley Chu**, and Marguerite Reed. \u00a0If you get the chance to see Marguerite on a panel sometime, somewhere, I highly recommend it.<\/p>\n
I signed books– the dealers room sold out of Murder of Mages<\/em><\/strong> and had only one Thorn<\/strong><\/em> in stock when I left. \u00a0I read from Murder and debuted the opening of The Alchemy of Chaos<\/strong><\/em> in my reading. \u00a0At least one person in the room immediately went to Amazon and pre-ordered.<\/p>\n Stina was the Toastmaster for this con– and did a bang up job of it if I do say so myself– and as is the tradition for ArmadilloCon, the Guest of Honor bios are written by other people. \u00a0I was asked to do Stina’s, so that was another Slightly Daunting Task that I had. \u00a0(Of course, that was well finished by the time the con rolled around.) \u00a0But Stina loved her bio, especially in how I had (utterly inadvertently) paralleled William’s Rolling Stone article in the movie\u00a0Almost Famous<\/strong><\/em>, which is one of her favorite movies. \u00a0That mattered the most to me.<\/p>\n I also met several aspiring professional writers who I see a lot of promise in. \u00a0One thing I love about ArmadilloCon, and I saw it even more so this time, is it is a con that is not only highly SF-Lit focused, but one that is very friendly to the aspiring professional. \u00a0This is an important thing, I think, in helping the field grow. \u00a0It’s why things like running the workshop and running it\u00a0well<\/em> matter to me.<\/p>\n To those people, remember what I said about myself: I went to that workshop for the first time in 2005, and got my manuscript covered in red ink. \u00a0And now I’ve got two books out, two more on the way, and many more intended. \u00a0The mountain can be climbed.<\/p>\n So now, it’s back to the Word Mines. \u00a0I kind of had a “week off” after delivering\u00a0Import of Intrigue\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>to recover and prep for the con, but now it’s time to get back to work. \u00a0Book Three in the Thorn<\/strong><\/em> saga needs to get cracked into, after all. \u00a0No laurel resting here.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n *- I’ve surely forgotten to list many in my post-con haze.<\/p>\n **- OK, I had actually met Wes before, but this time I got to actually talk to him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Now that was very much what I want a con to be like. Maybe it was coming to ArmadilloCon– my hometown con– both with a certain comfort level as well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrmaresca.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrmaresca.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrmaresca.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrmaresca.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrmaresca.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mrmaresca.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":830,"href":"https:\/\/mrmaresca.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829\/revisions\/830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrmaresca.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrmaresca.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrmaresca.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}