Eclipse Phase

Back in 2007 my wife and I were on a walk around our neighborhood in North Park, San Diego, when we saw that a new coffee shop had opened a block from our house. It was the Free WiFi sign that first caught my attention. I remember peeking through the window and seeing the hand-made wood tables and flowing wall designs. Megan and I were both going back to school for new careers and I'd just made a decision to write my first novel. A cafe next to the house would be a perfect place to escape the distractions of our apartment (I own a lot of toys). What sealed the deal was that Eclipse wasn't just a cafe, it was a chocolate shop.

Long Winter's Nap

I started working on my first novel around 2007, about the same time I went back to school for my nursing degree. The accelerated bachelors program I chose was packed into a meer 14 months (not counting the prereqs I had to go through since my first degree was from 1993). Back then I had one writing day a week, and after 4-6 days of studying and clinicals, I couldn't wait for Friday. There were great writing days and terrible writing days, but one way or the other I needed to get my butt in that chair; of course, I was writing at Eclipse Chocolat, so being surrounded by the best caffeine and chocolate in town didn't hurt.

World Fantasy: Finale

The other night, my wife and I watched "Field of Dreams" for the first time in a decade. I'm not a sports fan so I'm always amazed at how much movies like "The Natural," "Field of Dreams" and "Remember the Titans" get to me. I have no personal memory of being on a baseball diamond, feeling a ball connect with a bat or smelling the dirt and grass after a dramatic base-stealing, so what was it about this movie that made me cry; no offense to Costner fans, but he's not that great an actor. What I realized was that the movie wasn't triggering memories of stolen bases and crowds and team sports, it was triggering memories of my life as a writer and, specifically, my experiences at World Fantasy.

"I am pitching to 'Shoeless' Joe Jackson."

Ray Kinsella, by all accounts a grounded, sane and responsible family man, follows a bizarre and illogical compulsion and is rewarded by meeting one of his childhood heroes. He sits in the stands that he built and watches a historical Dream Team play in a field that he created. Not only that, he becomes friends with these men, getting to know them in a way he never conceived possible.

For the last 6+ years I've been following a similarly illogical compulsion and have been rewarded by walking among a Who's Who of the creative community. Just like Ray's nostalgic recollection of his father's baseball stories, the names on the spines of my father's library have come to life--I've gotten to meet them, shake some of their hands, share my admiration and, most significantly, gotten to spend time with them. Unlike Ray, though, I've also gotten to spend time with my own heroes, both newly met and from my own childhood.

World Fantasy 2012: Day Three

I dragged myself out of bed Friday morning for two anticipated panels: Defining Urban Fantasy and YA Urban Fantasy. *Defining ______* panels are always  hit and miss. Sometimes you get a fascinating discussion about the origin of the genre, other times it's a panel of people disagreeing on what they're even there for. This year I discovered that the two aren't mutually exclusive.

Defining Urban Fantasy: L-R S.M. Sterling, Tim Powers, Linda Poitevin, Ginjer Buchanan,
David B. Coe, Adria Laycraft

Tim Powers insisted that Urban Fantasy had to involve cell phones*, while editor Ginjer Buchanan pushed for a change of the name to Contemporary Fantasy because many Urban Fantasies aren't actually Urban (a point echoed by the presence of Adria Laycraft, editor of the Urban Greenman Anthology). This led David B. Coe (D.B. Jackson) to bring up the question "What is contemporary?" His Thief Taker series is set in Revolution-era America, but is arguably Urban Fantasy--it's also arguably Historical Fantasy, Alternate History and even Steampunk (though that's a stretch). He said that at Dragon Con, defining Thief Taker had been discussed so much that it was eventually decided that he'd invented Tri-Corner Punk. (David's point was echoed in Sunday's "The Road to Urban Fantasy" where Farah Mendelsohn made the point that in England, "contemporary" is defined as anything 1750 and later.)

Epic AD&D

January 2012's ConFusion saw authors Peter V. Brett, Joe Abercrombie, Myke Cole, Scott Lynch, Elizabeth Bear, Saladin Ahmed, Brent Weeks, Jay Lake, Jim C. Hines and Patrick Rothfuss around the D&D table playing the classic Keep on the Borderlands.

Yeah. It's like that.

Myke Cole has a particularly nostalgic and touching article about the event.

Like Myke, D&D shaped my life in ways I couldn't have imagined at the time. This year I even got to pass on my love of gaming to a new generation and I couldn't have been happier. Hats off to Myke and Saladin for sitting behind-the-screen for a table full of proven storytellers. No pressure, guys. You did a brilliant job.

More World Fantasy 2012 highlights to come...

World Fantasy 2012: Day Two

Thursday started by recovering from Wednesday--that is, from the bar and the jetlag. I'm not sure exactly when Todd and I got out of the room but we checked into the Con, wandered the layout then decided to go for food. Though the convention is in the Sheraton, we're staying in the Best Western next door. Well, it's sort of next door. It's more like a bizarre duplex where you can't quite tell where one hotel ends and the other begins. Which is good, because it's cold and rainy and we have no desire to walk outside for any reason.

Charles Vess

In our quest for food we ran into Charles Vess, one of the only three artists I both adore and can actually name (the other two being my roommate, Todd, and Susan Seddon Boulet). Todd and Charles chatted while I reigned in my fanboy...I mean, controlled my desire to discuss my appreciation for his work, then we continued our quest. Charles mentioned that we could not only walk from the Best Western to the Sheraton without freezing, we could also walk underground to a food court in a mall next door. Unfortunately, we missed the turn and ended up outside anyway. That's when our hero, James Minz from Baen publishing, appeared in his magic (read: warm) chariot and a list of the best restaurants in the area. Our quest turned into a epic adventure to a liquor store, grocery store and excellent Thai food. Thank you, Jim.

James Minz

We got back to the con too late for the one panel I was interested in so we headed back to the room to relax. Mary hadn't arrived yet, and I was starting to get worried because she had a reading at 5, but she showed up around 4pm.

After Mary's reading, she and I headed up to the Con Suite (aka: Hospitality Suite), which is a wonderful and bizarre concept I discovered at last year's WFC. The Con Suite has food for con-goers from breakfast until 2am every day. Breakfast and lunch are standard cereals, coffee, oatmeal, cold cuts, veggies, etc. Dinner Thursday night was catered Chinese. Tonight (Friday) it's apparently Tex-Mex. Thursday night also featured local Canadian wines and beers, which is good because the hotel bar is outrageously expensive. It's one of the draws of a con like this for me--I pay for the admission, the hotel and the flight, but between the free books, food and alcohol, the admission is easily paid for.

Like with the bar, the Con Suite is a great place to meet new people. From dinner until 1am I spent time with new and established authors Wes Chu, Jessica Corra, Simon Larter, David Fortier, Garth Nix, Sarah Durst, Mary Robinette Kowal and too many others to name. Mary Kowal in particular killed us with a story about a marionette performance of Sleeping Beauty that went terrible, hilariously wrong.

To be continued...

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Additional photos of WFC 2012 can be found here.

World Fantasy 2012: Day One

Last year I attended my first professional writers' conference. I had noticed author Sean Williams post that he'd bought a ticket to San Diego for World Fantasy. I'd heard of both World Fantasy and World Con, but didn't know much about them. I couldn't pass up the chance to attend a major conference in my own backyard, so I picked up a ticket in January for the con in October. Good thing I did, too, because with Neil Gaiman as guest of honor, it sold out quickly. It was--hands down--one of the best weekends of my life. It was like the names on my father's bookshelf had come to life. I not only met dozens of fascinating people--including my now dear friends John Perkins and Todd Lockwood--the theme had been Sailing the Seas of Imagination. Panels involved developing underwater cultures, monsters and conflicts, which enthralled my marine biologist to no end.