Well that was fun. The first night of the Nebulas was the mass autographing where everyone roamed around and greeted old friends and there were plenty of rock stars for fans (and aren’t we all) to get autographs from and to ooh and aah over. The Tales from the Secret City authors mostly congregated at one table (and we let Jayme Blaschke sit with us because he said he would cry if we didn’t). We had the most popular table because Matthew Bey (somehow mis-named Michael Bey by the organizers so the Hollywood jokes were rampant) brought cookies from Quack’s. Joe Haldeman came by and Gay Haldeman came by (at separate times) and we got to talk about cookies.
And this is where I get all emotional. Because in what other literary circle can you meet your heroes and have them be all regular people?* It’s because the science fiction community has always been about fans. As the saying goes, the golden age of science fiction is 12. Inside every fan — and every writer — remains a bit of that 12 year old. When I meet Joe Haldeman it’s not just as Patrice Sarath apprentice author, it’s Patrice Sarath who read the Forever War and it just kicked ass.
I handed out a lot of postcards with the Gordath Wood cover and teaser copy on them and autographed Tales from the Secret City as well as Lowport and Such a Pretty Face. Got to chat with Lee Martindale, CJ Mills, Stina Leicht, Kathy Kimbriel (looking beautiful in a blue drapy dress that was such a pretty color), Jessica Reisman, A.T. Campbell, and Wendy Wheeler and — and — the usual suspects.
So what else? Well, we went out to dinner in a massive group that had Paige Roberts (her erotica novel just came out) and Lawrence Person at one end and Carrie Richerson and Bev Hale at the other. The storm that had been threatening all night long hit and we walked home in the rain and lightning (Patrick Sullivan shared his umbrella). Then we ascended on Jayme’s room for homemade mead, one kind made of prickly pear and the other from jalapeno.
I didn’t try the jalapeno (don’t tell Jayme) but the prickly pear was pretty good.
Tonight’s the banquet. I will report back tomorrow!
*Actually, from what I hear the romance world is a lot like this too. But I think there’s something special-er about sf-fandom, so there. Because we started it.
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