Despite only selling one copy of Blood Curse at the convention (to my tablemate J.L. Mulvihill), I had a great time at Chattacon. I made some new friends and said hello to some old ones I hadn’t seen in person since last year. The weather was unnaturally balmy for January, but crowds were almost as small as they’d been two years previously when the temps were in the single digits (also unnatural weather for this area). I think this was largely due to the lack of available hotel rooms at the Choo Choo.
Slowly but surely, the facility is shifting away from being a hotel. Already one of the three hotel buildings has been converted to apartments, and a second is in the process of being converted. This left only one hotel building and the rail cars for hotel space. What this means for future conventions which use the Choo Choo is uncertain.
Another factor which hurt was the passing of one of the largest, and longest attending vendors Friday morning before the start of the convention.
Since I only had a signing and two panels, I spent most of the convention in the dealer room. I forgot to get over to the art show, something I usually manage to do; but I did attend Jen’s reading. She has a delightfully twisted imagination, I must say. I also attended the LibertyCon room party, the Molly Maguires concert, and most of the Vamp Valley Vixens burlesque show.
They did a silly game show, The Giant Wheel of Whatever!, during intermission and gave away prizes. Winners got nifty donated prizes ranging from anime toys to a pair of Hypericon tickets. Losers got their choice of white chocolate or milk chocolate dick pops with real nuts in the nuts. (Those were exactly what they sound like.)
The theme of the convention this year was The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, yet a very large portion of the cosplay was Steampunk. It varies year to year. One year saw several pirates at the convention.
I’d like to congratulate Brandon Garrison for winning the dubious honor of being red-shirted in Maelstrom of Fate. (The link is for the Youtube video of the drawing.) There are still two spots open and six current entrants in the running. If you’d like your name added to the hat, just comment here, Facebook, or Plurk.
I also picked up three new books from Stephanie Osborn: Division One: Alpha and Omega (her new SF series), Fear in the French Quarter: Displaced Detective #6 (I LOVE this Sherlock Holmes series), and Science Fiction by Scientists anthology.
I will be back in the dealer room at next year’s Chattacon.
In other news: I will be an author guest at Hallowcon this year the last weekend of October. This convention is under new management determined to revitalize the convention, and has been moved from Dalton, Georgia to East Ridge, Tennessee. Joe Dog plans to have at least 20 hours of programming. The theme will be The Late Night Double Feature Picture Show (you know the one). Last year’s theme was Vampirates. Really wish I could’ve made that one.
Anywho, I will be starting on my first round of revisions on Maelstrom of Fate very soon, so I can get it in to my publisher. I hope to get the book out IN October this year. I’d like to launch it at Hallowcon.