World Fantasy Convention 2009 — San Jose, CA — Thursday, Oct 29th
At first we didn’t think we’d make it to this year’s World Fantasy Convention. Hyperion and I are near championship procrastinators, but we manage to buy memberships from two people who couldn’t make it at the last minute. Then plane reservations and a hotel room– we managed to get all our ducks in a row and get here (of course I had insomnia on Tuesday and we haven’t slept since Tuesday night and it’s now Thursday. We’re holding out until west coast evening to try to sleep to get adjusted to the time difference between here and the east coast). [Hyperion: That’s over 32 hours of up and at-em without a wink of sleep. Just in case you’re interested.]
World Fantasy celebrates the fantastic in literature. Each convention usually has a theme or idea around which the panels and program items play. This year celebrates the 200th birthday of Edgar Allan Poe. Poe did much to codify and promote the short story and to create an American Literature. Earlier we sat in on a panel called: Poe’s Influence (4:00 PM). Panelists were Jon DeCles (moderator), John Paul Langan, John Levitt, and Kat Richardson.
Poe essential discovered Hawthorne. He also was an influence on Dickens, Lovecraft, many of the authors that wrote in a similar vein, and the early writers of Weird Tales. He also did much to influence the noir mystery genre. The panelists brought up many examples and kept saying how until they started putting their thoughts out there in the open they hadn’t fully grasped just how influential Poe really was.
Known for his horror, poetry, and mysteries, Poe is still read today. His works are taught in schools or at least assigned in most high schools — somehow Poe is under the radar that seems to keep most genre writers off the curriculum.
There was also some discussion of alcoholism and the link there seems to be with writers and alcohol and musicians and other drugs. Much wondering was done about if he could write so much while smashed, what could have been done sober. Worth a ponder or more, I guess. Did the drinking keep him from being even more popular or not? Would he have been even better without his drinking — he’d for sure have been more popular during his lifetime.
Next was opening ceremonies where we were introduced to the Guests of Honor and each had a chance to speak. This year’s guests are: Garth Nix, Lisa Snellings, Michael Swanwick, Ann VanderMeer, Jeff VanderMeer, Zoran Živkovi?, Donald Sidney-Fryer, and Richard A. Lupoff. The Toastmaster is Jay Lake who did a masterful job of keeping things moving with no dull moments.
We’re pretty much in need of a good nights sleep in order to get our brains rebooted. As you can tell — I completely forgot and left my camera in our hotel room. Tomorrow I’ll try to do photos — really.