WorldCon Seattle
This was my first one. Got to hear Larry Niven, have a brief chat with David Brin, and shake hands with one of the authors who brought me into science fiction: Robert Silverberg. I read Across a Billion Years in middle school, and loved it so much that I only remembered returning the book to my grade school library twenty years later. Brilliant YA.
I had a very short hit list of panels, and there was no way, short of cloning, for me to get to every one I wanted. I should have researched the panel participants to qualify the panels better; some were much less interesting/ informative than I’d hoped. Lesson learned. There were good surprises as well: in a panel on self-publishing advertising, where panelists talked about click-throughs and their experiences, no other than Gail Carriger, she of the Parasol Protectorate. She dives deep into data analytics to publicize her books. Brilliant.
The con suites and outside parties sponsored by various groups were also interesting; meeting other authors in different places in their writing careers was cool — it helped calm some of the impostor syndrome that haunted me. Haunts me.
I ended up standing in the (one-hour-long) registration line with Kirsten Gong-Wong, the managing editor of Locus, and her spouse. It’s amazing how much one can learn from standing in line.
I also met with Joshua Bilmes, head of the Jabberwocky Agency, and one of his agents, regarding a contract. More on that when it’s public. The life of an agent, with all the attendant conventions and authors to meet, is exhausting. Wall-to-wall meetings, it seems.
I’ll be going to the LA Worldcon next year; I’ll be better prepared to get the most out of it.