Tuesday, August 07, 2007

TrinocCon Report

Well, short report because I was only there for one day. It was a small con with a big Guest of Honor (George R.R. Martin). My first panel of the day was with the GoH, but I didn't know it until he walked into the room. Suddenly this voice in the back of my head was saying, "So that's why this room filled up fifteen minutes before the panel started..."

A group of us - James Maxey, Althea Kontis, Gray Rinehart, Alex Wilson, Ada Brown, and I - had great fun during the lunch break. We spent in inordinate amount of time playing with a grumpy, foot-tall, cast iron garden gnome Alethea brought from Tennessee and a Chicken Dance Elmo that Ada brought. There are photographs - some suitable for public viewing, some not. I'll have to review them closely and get back to you.

Dinner was more of the same, except that we added Stephen Mark Rainey, Alexandra Sokoloff and a few other folks to the madness. By the end of dinner we had the gnome dressed up in a black napkin and wielding a butter knife menacingly, dubbing him Obi-Wan-KenGnombi.

Rumor has it there were other panels and reading s and such, but the gnome wouldn't let me go. I told you he's grumpy cuss...

(BTW, for those of you who don't know the lunatics named above, James Maxey's second novel Bitterwood is out now and receiving fantastic reviews; Alethea Kontis is a book buyer for Ingram and author of several books of her own including the new Dark Hunter Companion with Sherrilyn Kenyon; Gray is the new slushmaster for Baen books, Alex and Ada have published short fiction in such venues as Asimov's and IGMS; Mark Rainey is the author of too many horror novels to count and former editor of the magazine Deathrealm; and Ms. Sokoloff is a former screenwriter turned novelist whose books are published by St. Martins. So yes, the people appearing on panels and talking to you so seriously about panel-stuff are out in public playing with gnomes and Elmo dolls, and no, there was absolutely no alcohol involved. You should see them when there's booze. On the other hand, maybe you shouldn't...)

No comments: