Stokercon 2023 Autopsy

 

Another quality post brought to you by Steve! 

Hey, everybody!  

I was supposed to do an interview this month and there was somebody I was hoping to interview about this year's StokerCon, but I couldn't quite get it together in time.  So, instead, you just get me, which should be more than enough for anyone, like a cupboard full of lembas bread.  

So, StokerCon is sometimes described as the "Oscars of Horror," where the Bram Stoker Awards are given out.  The convention itself is more of a professional than a fan con.  I've never been to StokerCon before, but this year it was in Pittsburgh, only a few hours' drive from my home, so it would have been foolish not to go.  (Although, considering it was being hosted in the dirtiest, most godforsaken city in the country, it was still kind of a toss-up.)  I was excited to go to a con I've never attended, and see old friends I haven't seen in a while, and other authors that don't run in the same circles I normally do.

Wesley Southard and I departed at 6:00 am on Friday morning, with the intention of picking up Wile E. Young from the airport in Pittsburgh.  (Oh, a disclaimer: as always, I will not mention non-public figures out of respect for their privacy, and if I fail to mention you and we had a lovely time together, please forgive me as this blogpost could simply be a list of names if I had to mention everyone I saw.)

Unfortunately, Wile E.'s plane was delayed, apparently because his pilot was from Texas and was too busy yelling "Yee-haw" and firing his six-shooter at oil derricks to show up for work, so Wes and I headed directly for the venue.  It's a good thing we did, because as soon as we arrived I was pressganged into serving in Mary SanGiovanni's stead on two panels.  Mary, you see, was blessed by the bounty of a Marvel Comics contract a few days before StokerCon and so could not attend.

At 11:00 am I sat on the military fiction panel, a perennial favorite of mine, and one I often suggest.  I got to hang out with Michael Arnzen, Brian Keene, Dacia Arnold, and others to swap war stories, which is always a good time.  

The Cosmic Horror panel

At noon I got to sit on "Evolutions in Cosmic Horror," about which I know virtually nothing, but about which Mary San is, of course, the uncrowned queen.  But worry not, gentle reader, I will be getting her back for this "favor" later this week when I introduce her to scrapple, that most redoubtable of central Pennsylvania delicacies.  I did enjoy being sandwiched between Jim Chambers and Amanda Headlee, and my favorite moment of the panel was when Jim said, "Well, William Hope Hodgson predicted a lot of things.  For instance, with 'The Ghost Pirates'..." and all I could think of was that he was going to say, "Our current spate of ghost pirate attacks."  He was actually talking about virtual reality, though, for those who were willing to sit through the entirety of the sentence before getting confused.

Patrick Freivald and myself in the dealer's room 

Thankfully, Wile E. showed up shortly thereafter and we met in the dealer's room.  Then at 2:00 pm I had my actual scheduled panel on short and microfiction, where, again, I felt wildly out of my depth, as I've thrown together some microfiction pieces in my time on this planet, and my fellow panelists were luminaries in the field and editors of microfiction magazines and the like.  Ah, well.

The short fiction and microfiction panel

After that, I got to meet up with Aaron Dries, who flew all the way over from Australia and was nominated for a Stoker Award, so you know who I was rooting for hardest.  I also got to hear Aaron and Wile E. compare the finer points of crocodile/alligator hunting, which sounded rather complicated.

At 6:00 pm came the mass signing and I'll admit, I was worried about whether to even bother bringing books to a professional con.  However, the doors opened and a young lady came hurrying up to me and told me I was her first stop and the top of her list, thanks to the recommendation of the inimitable Becky Spratford.  That has never happened to me before, so for that alone, the entire con was worth it.

Me and Laura H., a Kozeniewski superfan and soon-to-be-household name

From the signing Wes, Wile E., Keene, Amanda, and myself headed out for a truly authentic Italian meal at a Pittsburgh institution: Bucca di Beppo.  Fucking Pittsburgh.  Still, the company was lovely.

We returned to the bar where I made a special effort to spread my wings, and I'm glad I did because I sat down next to a young lady and introduced myself, where, to my surprise, she said, "Yes, I know you.  I'm good friends with Kayleigh Marie Edwards."  That's right...our very own ATB's Kayleigh.

She turned out to be Alexa K. Moon from Haifa, which I learned from her is the only nice city in Israel, a point which Keene later agreed with.  I find that hard to believe, but unless StokerCon decides to do next year in Jerusalem (that's a little Passover joke for you) I'll just have to trust the folks who have been.

In any case, Alexa and I bonded deeply over our pitch session the next day.  She was pitching a genderbent version of "Sweeney Todd."  I was pitching my next major novel, CANCELLED WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE, which you may have seen me talk a bit about on Twitter.  How did our pitches do?  Well, you'll have to read on to find out, dear reader!

My pitch went great and so did Alexa's.  Ha, I just completely dismantled your expectations of reading a cliffhanger, didn't I?  That's just a small sample of the sort of convention breaking you'll find in CANCELLED WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE.

I don't want to completely jump over the rest of Friday night, so here's a picture of me with Wile E. Young and Todd Keisling.  We drank C.W. Briar's Scotch.  It was great.

I probably spent too long at my pitch session, which was noon on Saturday, because the organizers kept coming to wring their hands and ask me and the agent I was pitching to move on.  So, I did, and, fortunately, we got to catch up for a few hours that afternoon, along with Craig Brownlie, who you may remember from my STC post, and a few others.  I actually got to meet Craig's entire family that evening, so that was great as well.

L to...I dunno.  Wes, me, Bridgett Nelson, Jeff Strand, wow, this is really fucking hard the way the photo is framed, Wile E. Young, C.W. Briar, who I've now mentioned twice in captions, because he is awesome, but I feel bad about not mentioning him in the general narrative yet

 

Saturday evening was the Stoker Award banquet, so naturally my cheap, schlubby roommates all decided to stay in their rooms and eat pizza rather than get up off a buck for once in their lives.  So, we ended up hanging out with Keene, who was presenting, and Candace Nola, who I'm sorry to report is a native of Pittsburgh, and therefore couldn't simply leave this armpit of a city at the end of the weekend.

Still, I'd never been to a Stoker Award banquet, so I asked around and apparently the hoi poloi can sneak in after dinner time if they stand in the back quietly.  Aaron did not win (boo!) but a bunch of other people did, and, in true Oscars fashion, it ran about an hour and a half late.

Then the bacchanal began.

I think it started with Lesley Conner and Jason Sizemore in Keene's suite, and ended up with Eric LaRocca at about 5:00 am in the lobby.  I think I finally got to speak to Jessica McHugh for more than two seconds somewhere in between those, and I also seem to recall being put "in charge" of the party, although very few people respected my erstwhile authority.

And that, my friends, is more than you probably ever wanted to know about StokerCon 2023.  Oh, also, C.W. Briar was an RA in college.  Do with that information what you will.