There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for how I ended up in a Chinese dumpling restaurant outside Toronto singing Jonathan Coulton’s Still Alive a cappella with Amber Scott to a table full of bemused women. It goes something like this:
On Wednesday my Wonderful Mother and I flew to Toronto for World Fantasy. World Fantasy is an annual gathering of writers, editors, publishers and other professionals in the field of fantasy and science fiction literature. Landing in Toronto we were treated to about forty-five minutes of stop-and-go rush hour traffic before we arrived at the flagship hotel in Richmond Hill, whereupon we walked into the lobby and straight into the Wall of Sound being generated by the small army of writers congregated around the bar.
This would be the norm for the following five nights. One of the only disappointments of this con, I must say, was the lack of bartenders. At any given time there would be no more than two staffing the bar, when at least four would have been necessary to satisfy the needs of a con full of thirsty writers. So getting service was something of a gamble, with your odds helped considerably by bringing a lasso and catching the bartender as she went dashing past. Surprisingly, no one had thought of this beforehand, so to my knowledge she passed the weekend un-caught.
But I am getting ahead of myself.
On Wednesday, it being Halloween, a local bookstore in Toronto hosted a casual meet-and-greet for attendees of World Fantasy. Sadly, though I dearly wanted to go (they encouraged costumes, something that WFC does not), we arrived too late, too tired, and utterly unable to cope with Toronto’s (nonetheless excellent) public transport system. I dressed up anyway. One of the advantages to going as a baby in a trench coat for Halloween is that the anti-costume people don’t notice you are, in fact, in a costume.
Another advantage is that, as it consists of a black wool suit and an overcoat, it is perfectly suitable for walking out of doors on a Fall night in Canada. For instead of the bookstore party we hooked up with Nancy DiMauro, an acquaintance from last year, and a few other singletons and took dinner at a nearby restaurant. Afterward we made an assault on the Wall of Sound bar, and set up what became known as the Great Table Amoeba of Wednesday Night. Wherein we joined several of the bar’s silly little circular tables together and stole chairs from the bar so we could have an ever-expanding circle of friends and friends-of-friends. Since Reg wasn’t open yet, I took it upon myself to draw people little temp badges. We soon ran into difficulty, however, as we had no way of affixing them to our persons. However, it being a Canadian Armistice Day (or week, perhaps?) my mother simply went to the front desk and made an appropriate donation, returning with a handful (held carefully) of the little faux poppy pins. Problem solved! Unfortunately I did not have the presence of mind to snap any pictures of these badges, and so they must be left scattered, errant reminders of the Great Table Amoeba of Wednesday Night. However, we made a good deal of new acquaintances that night, and it got the con off to a decidedly friendly start.
I found on Thursday that the Art Show would not open for artist set-up until four o’clock that evening—merely two hours before it opened to the public. As the first of the programming did not begin until two this left me with an unusually empty morning. After spending some of it writing and some of it mucking about in the gym, I eventually went back to Reg (having picked up my badge the night before), to ask where the sign-ups for Friday’s Flash Fiction Reading were. As it happened they were nowhere, and a list was started specially for me. After that, having exhausted my supply of entertainment for the morning, and with still over two hours to pass, I volunteered to help Reg hand out badges.
This turned out to be enormous fun. WFC has boxes and boxes of folders, each labeled with a name, each containing a special program book. When a person came to pick up their badge they would state their last name, at which point I would hunt up the appropriate envelope, match it with the respective name tag, fit the tag into its holder, and pass both items back to the attendee.
In retrospect I realize this does not sound like much fun, but trust me, it was. It was a great way to meet people, and the other volunteers were fantastic company. Especially Angela. Hello, Angela. I know you are reading this. How are you?
Angela and I hit it off at once. One of my few regrets of this con was that she seemed always to be either stuck behind the Reg table, or bartending at the con’s Hospitality Suite (more on this wondrous place later), so we never really got to hang out much. On the other hand, this made her easy to find. I well remember a conversation we had up in the con suite, when the topic had run around to television shows and I brought up Supernatural.
“Yeah, that’s a fun show,” said Angela. “But have you seen the fan fiction? It’s all Wincest stuff.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s really annoying, because Dean and Cas are totally meant to be!”
“I know, right?!” she said.
We have been friends ever since.
I want to pause here and mention the dedication of the volunteer staff of this con. All the WFCs I’ve been to have been exceptionally well run, and I believe this is due in part to the energy of the volunteers. As a thank you I drew up some special volunteer badges during a panel. I even remembered to snap a photo of one:
Thursday evening was dominated by the Art Show setup, which always makes me cranky. It’s more work than you would think, especially when you have sixteen pieces to hang. But it was fun to meet some of the other artists; I walked right past a round man with long curling gray hair before I realized it was Charles Vess and promptly had an attack of fangirl nerves from the safety of behind another panel. We also met Howard Fox, who not only had the panel right next to Vess, but did not allow himself to be upstaged. Go click through to his website to see why. Go on, I’ll wait.
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Right, okay. Pull your jaw back up and keep reading. So when I was setting up, Howard came over and began chatting with my mother (who was standing helpfully to the side, helpfully not helping) (this is the kind of help an artist needs when setting up her art panels). After a time he leaned in and actually looked at the art I had hung.
“So, I see you draw a little.” he said.
Having not actually seen any of his art, I replied with mock humility; “Oh no, well, I scratch upon a paper from time to time.”
“Well keep it up,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll improve.”
Later (much later), when I finally finished and went around to look at the other work that had been hung, I found Howard standing in front of a painting that would have put any old master to shame.
Now most people, when confronted with such a sight, would drop to the ground to grovel before such an art god. But because I am still a brat at heart I did this:
Me (to Howard): “So, I see you paint a bit.”
Howard: “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
Me (glancing at the painting, then back to Howard): “Well, you certainly have a lot of talent, and I’m sure that if you just keep at it one day you’ll be able to do something really astounding. I think it’s really great what you’re doing—after all, doing art is really its own reward.”
Howard: [stares blankly]
Me: [pats him encouragingly on the arm and grins]
Howard: [stares blankly]
Me (dropping the grin): Seriously man, that is f*cking amazing.
And I got the biggest, bested, full-throated laugh anyone could hope for. Because the painting was amazing. It was so amazing, I simply couldn’t express it in the ordinary way. Fortunately Howard is the kind of person who can take a joke like that.
I was very pleased to see that his painting won the Member’s Choice award—though disappointed it did not get Best in Show. But awards are, like the judges that assign them, arbitrary. Truly, I think the real winners were the people who got to see that painting in person.
Speaking of seeing things in person, I just want to put in a quick note here about the masterpiece that Charles Vess displayed: it was a massive watercolor and ink painting with all sorts of little details you could get yourself lost in, while at the same time containing huge swathes of flowing robes and clouds. It won the Judges Choice award, showing that in this case the judges were not without good sense.
Thursday evening we were treated to dinner by my father’s cousin and her family (husband and son) who live in Toronto. We had not seen each other for over eight years, and it was good to catch up.
I think I want to visit Toronto properly in the near future.
Thursday night started with me at the bar alone. It did not stay this way. I have a method, you see. The method is to take Dafydd and put him on my head. And pretty soon I have people wanting to buy me drinks. You meet the funnest people this way; it is awesome. Also, Angela found us, and we were able to tempt her away from homework for a bit.
I forget how I met Jen. I think the Art Show was involved (help me out, Jen!) and then we found her friend Amber at the bar. They are a lovely pair of ladies, and it was great fun following Amber’s tweets of the convention for the rest of the weekend. Jen works for a Canadian SpecFic magazine called OnSpec, which seems like a real cool boat.
I should take a moment now and address an issue that became a highlight of this con: the unmitigated success of my Death and the Cat pictures. I had brought fifty or so cards with promo art for the pictures and story, which I left scattered around the book swap tables. To my surprise, every time I checked back they were all gone, and I kept having to refill them. Furthermore, as the con wore on, I soon began to be introduced as “Grace/Goldeen-the-one-who-did-those-Death and the Cat-drawings.” It was a little overwhelming. Everyone seemed to like them. Once, when I walked into the Art Show to check on how my art was doing, I had no sooner rounded the corner than I heard a woman shriek: “Oh my god look at this Harold! There are pictures of Death with a cat! It’s so adorable!” and I had to turn right around and hide behind the next panel to hyperventilate.
And how did my art do?
Well, let’s just say I took back significantly less than what I brought, and none were Death and the Cat pictures. And considering that at my first WFC art show I sold exactly 0 pictures, this is a big deal for me. Thank you SO much to everyone who purchased, bid, and showered me in kind compliments, particularly Colleen and Mattie. My heart it swelleth in the best possible way.
NOTICE FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO WANTED TO BUY A DEATH AND THE CAT ORIGINAL, BUT COULDN’T BECAUSE THEY SOLD OUT TOO FAST: Yes, I will be doing a run of signed prints, so you can still have a little piece of Deathly cuteness for your wall. I will have more info available later this week. And of course you can always buy one for yourself over at my deviantART shoppe.
Friday morning I discovered the wonder that was the Con Hospitality Suite. I remember something similar from last year, but this year was amazing. They had food. Fresh food. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Every day of the con. It didn’t matter that they were on the 10th floor, people braved the stairs or the scarily unreliable elevators on the trek to the halls of free food and booze. It was also a wonderful place to meet people, since just about everyone at the con went through there to refuel. I had such fun discussing the application of transgender characters in fantasy with Kater Cheek and Christina Vasilevski that I quite missed out on the Humor in Horror in Fantasy panel that I had wanted to catch. Fortunately my mom made it, and reported back that Tanya Huff was the best thing since sliced bread, and we much catch another one of her panels.
I also got to see Lawrence Santoro read in person, which was quite a treat. We got to chat (briefly) about his podcast, and the outcome is that it looks like I will be making my narrating debut on Tales to Terrify fairly soon.
We also attended a reading by Cat Rambo, who has the distinction of being the writer I would follow into the Zombie Apocalypse. I mean, with a name like that, wouldn’t you? Cat is adorable, and so I drew this for her during the reading:
Now I shall tell you about the Flash Fiction reading. Flash Fiction is a self-contained story of 1,500 words or less. In this reading, authors had five minutes maximum to read their piece, after which point they’d be kicked off. The programmers had given us the last hour and a half of Friday (10:30 to midnight), and as a result there was to be a drawing of which entrants would get to read. Happily, as there were only eighteen people who signed up, all of us got to read.
This was my first time reading flash fiction, indeed it was my first time reading before an audience that did not consist entirely of family members, so I was a bit hyped up for it. I read a ridiculously short story I wrote in the wee hours of Friday morning specifically for the event, timed at about three and a half minutes. My mother kindly video’d my performance, which I have yet to work up the nerve to watch. Listeners of Radio Grimbald are probably laughing by now.
The reading went remarkably well. Not just my own, by everyone’s. No one went overtime, in fact the majority were comfortably under it, and all the fiction was of very good quality. My own was not an embarrassment, either. For the rest of the weekend we Flash Ficcers made a strange little secret club; we were forever calling out to each other as we passed in halls: “I liked your story!” “Yours was good too!” “Thaaanks!”
The original moderator left after the eighth reader (which happened to be me), so I took over. I used my handy phone as a timer, and Dafydd as a prop. From my mom’s time in Toastmasters I learned that, when giving a timed speech, it was usual to give the speaker some sort of warning before they ran out of time. So, as I explained to the room, at minute four I would raise the little red dragon, and at minute five I would throw it at them.
I never did actually throw Dafydd at anyone, because of the few who went over four minutes, as soon as they saw him held aloft above my head they would double their reading speed, thus allowing them to make within time what they otherwise might not have.
All in all it was a great success and everyone had a good time. At least I did. Dafydd was not amused.
Also on Friday was the mass signing event, held in the biggest ballroom. Basically WFC prints the names of all the attending members on little tent cards, which you can pick up and put on a table so people can find you and have you sign their books. I picked up my card, but as all my books are currently in electronic form I spent the evening getting books written by other people signed. First stop was Tanya Huff’s table, because, as I learned at her spotlight panel that afternoon, she really is the best thing since sliced bread. She was also quite nice to Dafydd.
Then we spent about half an hour looking for Charles Vess. We found him, eventually, against the back wall not far from Tanya. He was also very kind about getting a picture with Dafydd, but then I ruined it by blinking. Fortunately he was game for another round of pictures. Unfortunately (for Dafydd), he was apparently hungry by this time.
Now I must tell you about the Apocalypse Banjo Crinoline Troubadours, who I met on Friday night dancing to Charles de Lint and his wife, MaryAnn Harris, playing folk songs. They were a wonderful group of young women with very colorful hair who snagged me and made me dance with them for about an hour. This is not, actually, a hard thing to do. They did a musical recital and reading on Saturday that was brilliant and funny, and I don’t think I have any good pictures of them. Sorry.
By Saturday my legs were starting to feel a bit weak. I mentioned the unreliable elevators: these would not come when you called, if they did, they were going the wrong direction, and sometimes would stop at the wrong floor. As a result the stairs became quite popular, but after three days of pounding up and down them (and an hour of barefoot Zumba in the gym that morning) my shins were having none of it. Well, we must all suffer for our craft at some point.
One of my favorite panels from Saturday was an Art Process panel presented by Charles Vess, John Picacio and Todd Lockwood. Charles walked us through the creation of the truly monstrous 4’x8’ (yes, that’s feet) painting he had in the art show. I drew this portrait of him while he talked:
If you ever get the chance to meet him in person, you must agree that that man is part fairy. Or something.
It was also fun to get a walk-through of John Picacio’s method, which is quite unique, and though projector troubles kept Todd Lockwood from giving us the best show, I liked was I saw.
While on the subject of art, Saturday night was the art show reception: traditionally time for artists to make a last-minute effort to convince people to bid on their stuff. This year, however, the Art Show managers closed bidding early so they could enter data for the live auction. I am uncertain as to the overall wisdom of this judgement call, but then I did not have to run the Art Show. As it was I spent most of that time sitting between my two panels, doodling in my notebook with my Art Show neighbor Amber Kimberly and chatting with the passers by. That was fun. I got to meet some of the buyers of my work in person (those I hadn’t already), and John Picacio came over and congratulated me. That was incredibly flattering. Picacio is working on a new project based out of his Lone-Boy website, including a rather awesome calendar which you can help fund on Kickstarter right now. The calendar is fully funded, but it’s such a cool project I think it’s worth backing just for the calendar. Also, the overflow will go towards funding his next project, a redesign of a Mexican card game called Loteria. So go there, support an awesome and generous artist, and get yourself some seriously cool wall jewelry.
The live auction was a little overwhelming. There were only two pieces that got enough bids to go to live auction, and one of them was mine. I believe I spent the whole process with my head in my hands, hearing the price go up and up. Eventually it went to a friend of mine, who I shall not name but to say hers rhymes with Clancy The Borrow. I cannot express my wonder and gratitude enough. Thank you. Better by far than an honorable mention award.
Sunday is the day of the banquet, which is fun for me because I get to wear The Coat. The Coat is a wool saddle-seat coat made by my Wonderful Mother. It is a particular kind of vibrant teal that defies all but the best cameras (in pictures it is either blue or green, but never true teal). Still, in real life it is stunning, so I only get it out for special occasions. Like the WFC awards banquet.
Like wearing Dafydd on my head, this coat gets attention. I was sitting at our table when I saw Tanya Huff come running in our direction. Confused I looked around, wondering if their was a friend of hers nearby. It was a surprise, therefore, when she skidded to a halt next to me just to say she liked my coat.
I was not so shocked that I did not take advantage of the situation, however, so here is The Coat posing with Tanya Huff.
The WFC awards banquet is fun. They set up the biggest room with a bunch of tables and a podium at one end. Publishers and groups can reserve whole tables for their writers and staff, but it is almost more fun to sit at a random table. This year, my mom and I ended up at a table with the head of MisCon, some editors from Clarkesworld, and Adria Laycraft, who is putting together an anthology of urban green man stories. She was a lot of fun to talk to, her project sounds cool, and I hope we will be able to collaborate in the future.
This con stands out in my mind as by far the most enjoyable time I’ve ever had at World Fantasy. I have a jumble of happy, magical moments bouncing around in my head; being stopped and complimented by Tanya Huff’s wife on the way out of the banquet; finding the elevator door being held for me by Mercedes Lackey; listening to Charles de Lint and MaryAnn Harris sing about their dog; turning around to find my mother helping Charles Vess pack his artwork…
Sunday night ended with dinner for twelve at a nearby Chinese restaurant called Dumpling Kitchen. We ate, we drank, and Amber and I merrily sang Still Alive to our table. It made perfect sense at the time.
It was a good con. I will miss all my new friends (Angela, Jen, Amber (both of you!) I will see you in 2014 in D.C., right?) and of course thank you Nancy—I mean Clancy The Borrow—for popping my art auction cherry. Thank you Mattie and Colleen and Mari and David and Travis and Howard and Shawn and Shawna and Patty and Janine and Rebecca and Clare and Katie and Kristi and Christina (and the many others I’m sure I’ll remember tomorrow) for your bright and insightful, friendly conversation. Thank you to Mattie’s husband, Darrell Schweitzer, for teaching me about ancient Chinese coinage. Thank you to Charles de Lint and Maryann Harris for brightening our evenings with your wonderful music. Thanks to David Federman and the staff of the Art Show, thanks to Joni at registration, huge thank you to Tammy and the staff of the con suite—and thanks to Peter Halasz, for holding it all together. Thanks to the Sheraton in Richmond Hill for putting up with us—but you really need to hire more help in your bar.
Now I must turn my attention back to projects at hand, both old and new. People say that WFC is a good place for networking, and though I did not go with the intention of making contacts and soliciting work, that seems to have happened anyway. So in addition to Year of the God-Fox, which swings back into production this weekend, I now have several other jobs looming in the wings. Dafydd is unsympathetic; he says I have more than enough energy. Me, I think he’s still angry that I threatened to throw him. Oh well.
And that is all. I will now let the lilting sound of GLaDOS’s sultry voice express my overall sentiments.
Goldeen Ogawa writes stories and draws pictures. She will sadly not be attending WFC 2013 in Brighton, U.K., but is planning on 2014, when it will be held in Arlington, VA. You can email her at goldeenogawa@gmail.com or peck at her on Twitter @GrimbyTweets.