Balticon — Day 1 — May 28th
Managed to get the car packed and on the road at a decent time. Then drove back to pick up the box we forgot. Had to stop at the post office and then Kinkos to get copies made of the Capclave Registration Flyer. Finally, made it to the metro to pick up a friend also going to Balticon.
Everything went fine once we got here. Found the Capclave table and set up. We actually managed to get one person to sign up for the Capclave. Sold one of the books left from last year’s convention, and pre-sold a book we’re publishing this year. Yeah. Talked to quite a few people and had some really nice conversations about books.
4:00 p.m. Getting Published 1010: (R to L) Joshua Bilmes, Ally E. Peltier, Gayle Surrette (me as moderator), and Jonathan Maberry.
I think the panel went okay. I asked some question of the panel to get things going to cover some of the topics that I thought people who were aspiring writers would want to know. Then opened it to questions early and we got some interesting questions. The panelists were very good at fielding on such topics as whether you can send a manuscript to an agent and a publisher at the same time (yes), whether you need to do short stories before you do a novel (no), the importance of having a presence on the web (mixed), and the importance of understanding the need to not only know how to tell a good story but the importance of language, grammar, spelling, and following the submission guidelines, as well as treating your writing as a business (all extremely important).
After the panel, I returned to the Capclave table and later we went out to dinner with friends.
8:00 p.m. Opening Ceremony. This went very quickly. The Guests of Honor were introduced (Writer Guest of Honor: Tanya Huff, Artist Guest of Honor: Howard Tayler, Science Guest of Honor: Dr. Thomas Holtz Jr., Fan Ghost of Honor: Hal Haag. Then the 2009 Compton Crook Award Winner: Paul Melko announced the 2010 Compton Crook Award Winner — Paolo Bacigalupi for his novel Windup Girl.
I’ve heard a lot of good things about the book and it’s on my to be read pile. Windup Girl is also a nominee for the Hugo Award this year.
9:00 p.m. Hot fusion (Inertial Electrostatic); Tom Ligon. He did a presentation and showed us the model that he’d brought. The talk was very interesting and informative and it seems that this model’s a move in the right direction. He’ll have the talk on his website soon (tomligon.com) along with several links to more information and scientific papers on this and related subjects.
We then stopped in on a party and had some interesting conversations. Now it’s very late and we have an early day tomorrow.