How a book saved my ass

[Burgold]

Last year at Mars Con I sold to a guest a copy of A Climbing Stock, telling him my novel was in the mold of Spaceballs and Princess Bride. He told me those were his two favorite movies and if the book didn’t measure up he’d find me and kick my ass.

 

I am proud to report that he found me and told me that not only did he love it, but gave it to his mother and then nephew to read. He spent about five minutes going over things he loved.

 

I think my ass is safe.

 

Second cool moment at this year's Mars Con involved giving back to one of my favorite contemporary fantasy authors.

 

Catherynn Valente’s works bring me  joy. Her clever and intricate wordsmithing, sense of humor, and the humanity of her stories appeal to me in a big way. I’ve been a reader of hers since I worked on a piece about NANOWRIMO for NPR and almost managed to include her as one of the guests. It didn’t work out then because of timing, but she was very nice. In any case, after corresponding with her a few times, I decided to check out her works. And from Fairyland to Space Opera, I have found pleasure, smiles, and more than a few chuckles. So, it probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise that I was delighted to find out that she was going to be one of the Guests of Honor at a science fiction convention that I was also scheduled to attend.

On Friday to my delight, she found my author table at Mars Con. She carried her baby with her and wore the kind of mischief and twinkle in her eye that I hoped for. We spoke very briefly about this and that, but before she left, I took one of my comedy magnets from my table and presented it to her. I wanted to give her a token for all the joy her writings have given me.

Each of the magnets are a one panel comic strip with a pop culture mash-up. This one featured Wonder Woman and Jiminy Cricket with the Amazonian warrior saying, “My conscience is not a male bug!”

She looked at it, read, smiled and then chuckled, and said–

“That’s really great!”

I smiled warmly. It felt like I was giving something back to someone whose works had given me so much.

[Chachie]

I just did a search on Mars Con. So it's not really about the planet Mars...?

 

BTW- I very much relate to meeting an author whose work is important to you. I had the pleasure of corresponding by email with Zecharia Sitchin about 8 years ago. Meant a lot to me.

[Burgold]

1 minute ago, Chachie said:

I just did a search on Mars Con. So it's not really about the planet Mars...?

 

BTW- I very much relate to meeting an author whose work is important to you. I had the pleasure of corresponding by email with Zecharia Sitchin about 8 years ago. Meant a lot to me.

No, it's a mid-sized SFF Con. Lots of cosplay (adult Halloween) author panels, books and what not. It takes place in Williamsburg, VA each January. Despite its size, this year 1,400 guests came, it has this family/intimate feel to it. The organizers are just warm sweet people. Despite the three hour drive to get there it's one of my favorite conventions to go to as an author.

This year, I moderated panels on world building and pitching stories and sat in on panels about how to write humor, revitalizing fairy tales, and how to build high stakes in YA fiction. I got about seven hours of sleep over the entire weekend. I was so tired I was probably lucky I drove home safely.