I just got back last week from my road trip to WorldCon Seattle. I hadn’t initially intended to go – well, initially initially, yes. But because of the expense and distance and all that, I’d decided to cancel the trip a couple months ago.
But since then, a few new writing-related things have happened, and so I changed my mind and headed to WorldCom to see what I could make happen there. Due to some sage advice from good friends, I made a concrete plan of things I wanted to accomplish, and figured out how to do each of them. And voilà , I was off to the con.
It was amazing. I’m so glad I went, even with the major case of con crud, a.k.a., the flu, that I had when I returned.
For starters, we sold a ton of books at the Liminal Fiction table, not in the least because of someone who came by at the last minute and bought a copy of every single book on the table. But even before that we had done pretty well, so I was quite happy in terms of books sold.
But WorldCon is also about making connections. So many people I know from Facebook and from our various sites came up to see me – it felt like it was a queer con. Bill Tracy even set up a “queer the con” scavenger hunt to get folks around to many of the queer booths in the dealer room. There were people from Liminal Fiction and QueeRomance, Ink, authors from the queer sci-fi anthology, and from our hopepunk anthology as well, and so many more.
There were also a bunch of great industry contacts. I got to meet Isis, the new executive Director of SFWA, who is an amazing and simply lovely person.
And there were table talks – small, face-to-face events you could apply to, where you could meet agents, famous authors, and other industry experts. It was a lottery system, and I didn’t get into the first couple I applied to. But about halfway through the Con, I discovered a simple fact. If you show up, they will often let you in.Â
I also attended a number of panels, gathering some great information on screenplay, writing and other aspects of the trade that are important to me right now.
Oh and I met the tribbles guy! David Gerrold, who wrote the famous “The Trouble With Tribbles” episode. Thanks to my friend Brian Buhl, I got to have dinner with him on Thursday night.
Was it worth it? 100%. I only wish it had gone on a little bit longer. I am having WorldCon withdrawl!
Oh and a special shout out to my friend Steven at Water Dragon Publishing, who drove up and back with me and split the hotel expense, which really made the whole thing workable financially.
I’ll be going next year, and hope to build on everything I learned this time around.
See you all in Anaheim!