SFContario 2 – Con report

So, back from SFContario2 held downtown Toronto. Thanks to the organizers and volunteers for the effort they put in. Saw some old friends and made some new friends--and managed to put my foot in my mouth with what I thought was a funny story, and it was, but not with the crowd I was with. Oh well, wouldn't be the first time for me, and won't be the last.

Sadly, our fellow SWG member, Suzanne Church did not get her deserved Aurora for short work English, which went to Hayden Trenholm, who deserved it too, I guess, but he’s not in my writing group.

But we learned that the voting was close. Damn close. You get get the full Aurora results on Rob Sawyer’s blog.  He also won for his novel Watch.

Among the new people I met were Rebecca Senese and Michael McPherson. Well, I already knew Mike from last year, Rebecca and I are in Tesseracts 15 and at the book launch. Both Rebecca and Mike are strong supporters of e-publishing and convinced me to give it a go. So, I spent today getting one of my short stories formatted and uploaded to Smashwords.com. Now, I'm waiting for approval which should take a week or so. When it's ready, I'll put up a link.

I had a reading this Con. My first ever. No one showed up except for the author who followed me. It was my fault. My reading was at the same time as the Aurora ceremony, and, of course, other panels. I could have changed the time, but I didn’t. Honestly, I can't say I’m too unhappy. Reading in front of people is a nerve wracking business but as Julie Czerneda, half of the Tesseracts editing team told me after the Tesseracts launch, you have to do it, and learn to do it well. She also told me to keep my hands away from my mouth when I talk. Life is an ongoing lesson.

Out Stopwatch Gang panel was moderately attended. Most people, it appeared, had left the con to look for food around the dinner hour and never returned. Weird, and frankly, a failing of this particular hotel.

Next stop Ad Astra.  I’ve decided to go, even though there is grumbling about the fact they’ve changed hotels.  Don’t matter to me much, but those who take public transit are plenty unhappy and for good reason.  But it is our job as writers to support these things as much as the fans.  Cons are already in danger of dying away altogether.

Okay, getting maudlin.

bye