Scares That Care AuthorCon I Autopsy

 

Another quality post brought to you by Steve!

Hey, everybody!  Around this time last week I was sleeping off a long convention hangover (both in the literal and more metaphorical sense.)  And what a con it was!  

I've been supporting and attending Scares That Care events for quite some time now but this past week was something new: the very first AuthorCon, focusing (as the name would suggest) solely on authors.  STC Weekend in August is author-friendly, but there are always actors and vendors there to draw fans.  This time the organizers took a real gamble, insisting on only authors and only writing-related programming.  Would it be enough to draw fans and be a success?  Read on, dear friends, to find out.

Last summer I went to STC Weekend on Wednesday evening and left Monday morning.  I've always wanted to take a prolonged weekend to see how it goes, but it was far too much.  This time I decided to try Thursday to Sunday, and I'm still not sure that's the right length of time, but I digress.  In any case, I arrived Thursday evening, hauling a trunk full of copies of CLICKERS NEVER DIE.  I no sooner walked into the hotel lobby than my co-author and dear friend, Wile E. Young, swept me up in his arms and swung me around in slow motion, Little John-style.

Wile E. was rooming with Wes Southard and as usual, Wes Southard was screwing over all of his friends, this time by arriving late and making Wile E. sit in the lobby without access to his room.  Finally, Wes deigned to grace the rest of us with his presence, and the three of us made for the reading room.

Ah, the STC reading room!  A staple of so many glorious late-night discussions.  And the place was bopping on Thursday night!  I got to see Mary SanGiovanni, Matt Wildasin, Jay Wilburn, Brian Keene, Richard Wolley (who nobody has heard from since World Horror 2016), Paul Goblirsch of Thunderstorm Books, and many, many more.

Me, Bridgett Nelson, and Wile E. Young.  (Not pictured: Jesus H. Christ.)

When the party petered out a few of us headed back to my room to continue discussing Wittgenstein over a game of backgammon (read: drinking.)  Wile E. decided it was time for me to find Jesus and spent the rest of the night trying to baptize me in the hotel room ice bucket.  When I - finally! - managed to throw him out, I immediately heard a tap-tap-tap on my door.  It was Wile E., back, because apparently Wes, jerk that he is, had locked Wile E. out of their room.  So I, being a river to my people, let him spend the night, provided he admit that Satan is king and bow to the small shrine to Richard Dawkins which I bring with me everywhere I go.

In the morning we woke up to learn that Wes had spent the night laughing about locking Wile E. out and then went to go get cheesesteaks without us, presumably out of spite.  I mean, we didn't really get up until after noon, but even so.  So I went to go set up my table for the con.

And while I was bringing in my books, who should I run into but the Prince of Extreme Horror himself, Daniel J. Volpe!  I quickly tricked him into taking a picture so that I could appear important as well.  I also tried rubbing his bald head so that some of his success would rub off on me, but so far it does not appear to be working.

Me and Daniel J. Volpe

I also got to meet some of the other New Splatterpunks - Aron Beauregard, Candace Nola, Rowland Bercy, and Carver Pike.  I also spilled half a venti White Chocolate Mocha on Aron Beauregard within twenty minutes of meeting him, which is a super-not-awkward way to get to know someone.  And while I was desperately hoping that some or preferably all of them would turn out to be jerks so I could go on resenting their success and feel justified about it, they all turned out to be frustratingly nice and personable.

Around 4:00 pm Friday we had our vendor meeting.  The STC organizers outlined for us their hopes and rules for the weekend, reminded us that this was all for charity, and bade us bon chance.  At 5:00 the doors were thrown wide, and my God how the fans poured in!  Sales were not just good for a Friday night, they were good period.  And all of the Splatterpunks had to pull up stakes after only two and a half hours because we had a panel that night.  So, really, it was just half of a Friday evening, and by all accounts a massive success for everyone present.

Like I said, everyone at the convention who was a Splatterpunk Award nominee or winner had a panel on Friday evening on the future of the genre.  There were like 14 of us!  Luckily we had Jay Wilburn along to wrangle the stable, and brag about his two consecutive Grossout Contest wins, which, if we're being frank here (and I think we all are) are far less impressive than two non-consecutive Grossout Contest wins, say 2016 and 2018, for instance.  Apparently this was Candace Nola's first convention and first panel!  Don't worry, Candace, if you're reading this, they don't usually have 14 people on them.

That night I got to meet up with Wes, Wile E., Kristopher Triana, and the owners of Grindhouse (and publishers of THE PERFECTLY FINE HOUSE) C.V. Hunt and Andersen Prunty.  We had some more of that terrible pizza that Wile E. keeps insisting is good because he's from Oklahoma.  And then after dinner we headed back to the reading room, which was a bit more of an intimate affair that evening.  I guess everyone had either heard that I was going to be there and fucked right off or else they were all preparing themselves for Saturday, like Roger Daltrey pounding his chest in preparation for the big "Yeah!" at the end of "Won't Get Fooled Again."

I did, though, Friday night, get to talk about witchcraft with Mary SanGiovanni and a few others, which was seriously eye-opening.  I saw a side of Mary I've never seen before, a steely resolve which made me not want to fuck around with her ever and very nearly made me change the conclusion to my witch-related reading for Saturday night.  But, don't worry.  I didn't.  If the author is not bold, then he is nothing.

Saturday kicked off at 10:00 am, which doesn't even sound like a real time that should actually exist.  But, somehow, bleary-eyed, I stumbled into the vendor's room for day two.  And, if anything, day two was even better than day one!  I got to see many people, some of whom I haven't seen in years.  I even got to tell Lesley Conner she needs to bring THE WEIGHT OF CHAINS back into print, and I think she may be seriously considering it now.

Me and Lesley Conner

L - R: Me, Jeff Strand, Bridgett Nelson, Wesley Southard

Me and Erica W., a fan

That evening Kris Triana, Wes Southard, Wile E., Aron Beauregard, Daniel Volpe, and myself headed over to the Italian place across the street for dinner.  I suspect any horror fan worth their salt would have given their eyeteeth to be at a table with such luminaries (assuming I wasn't there, of course), but don't worry, we mostly just talked about "Death Wish" and the New Orleans episode of "King of the Hill."  Also, as usual, Triana's dog Bear was the star of the show.  By the end of dinner the restaurant crew had practically recreated the spaghetti scene from "Lady and the Tramp" for her.

Then at 10:15 pm came the big show: The Carnival of Chaos!  Trust me when I say that two weeks ago nobody, including the people involved, had any idea what a Carnival of Chaos was or would be.  But I suspect it will now be an indelible keystone of STC AuthorCon.

I was proud to step up as the ringmaster of this...SHIT!  I just realized ringmasters are of circuses, not carnival.  DAMN IT!!!  I fucked the whole thing up.  Ah, well.  Anyway, we had readings of a stupendous nature from six of the finest performers who...happened to be at the front of the room that night.  Then we had a heavy metal trivia contest (including a very special guest, one of the greatest horror writers in the world!), the musical stylings of John Wayne Communale, and one more round of readings including, yes, that thing with the witches I was talking about earlier.  I also wore a shark costume for some reason.  I think everyone present was in agreement that a fine time was had by all.

L - R: Me, Wesley Southard, Jeff Strand, Wile E. Young, Kristopher Triana, John Wayne Communale

The Carnival of Chaos segued into a final night of debauchery, where I got to hang out with Matt Blazi, Aron Beauregard, Paul Goblirsch, and just about everybody else at the con.

Sunday came and with it 11:00 am, which, somehow, sounds like an even more preposterous time to wake up than 10:00 am on a Saturday, if such a thing were possible.  We sold a few more books, had a few compliments on the previous night's Carnival, but Sunday is always a funereal time at a convention.  The sense of things ending had descended like a miasma on us.  And ahead of me lay a miserable four hour journey home which somehow ballooned into six hours of ass-clenching Richmond traffic.

But!  There's a final bit of good news.  As of Friday, the board of STC has announced that AuthorCon was a success, and they were able to cut a check to one of the charity's beneficiaries already.  Even better: there will be another AuthorCon next year.  And you, my friend, had better fucking be there!