conventions

So here’s a super-quick summary of the various awesome things about Norwescon 34, this past weekend:

• At least a couple people seem to have taken my Faerie Blood cards off the freebie rack, because two more people have added me on Goodreads. Thank you, Goodreads adders!
• I did actually sell one of my Faerie Blood CDs, on Sunday afternoon while I was waiting for solarbird! Thank you, nice lady in fairy dress who stopped to talk to me in the lobby, and I hope you enjoy the book.
• Dara got props from the Seattle Geekly podcast for the awesomeness of her music programming!
• I discovered that nerdcore is, in fact, pretty cool.
• My and Dara’s friend tereshkova2001 took Best in Show for her Na’vi costume at the Masquerade! Go Torrey!
• seanan_mcguire (Mira Grant) up for Best Novel Hugo for Feed! BOOYA!
• I volunteered officially for the first time ever. I got over 15 hours helping Dara by running water to various performers, and by helping man the merch table as well! This netted me several free books and a shirt. Go me!
• Stood in line for nearly two hours to get books signed by jimbutcher and his wife Shannon. Worth EVERY MINUTE. Also got to get a book signed by the awesome katatomic, and said hello to Mary Robinette Kowal as well. Told her I very much looked forward to reading my copy of her book.
• Bought several awesome shirts, including one of Jayne’s shirts from Serenity and a new Matt Smith Doctor Who shirt!
• Got a mass market copy of jpsorrow‘s (Benjamin Tate’s) Well of Sorrows, bought directly from him after a great panel on ebooks. He very kindly signed it for me right then, too! Thanks, Joshua!
• Had the pleasure of meeting Heather Dale and her husband Ben, and watching them do a joint double set with vixyish and tfabris and solcita and stealthcello. Bought a couple more of Heather’s CDs and a shirt, and she very kindly signed a CD for me as well. Her song about Sedna, the Inuit goddess of the sea, was GREAT. She is now clearly part of the ongoing conspiracy to make all my favorite music Canadian. 😀
• My and Dara’s favorite Barcon quote: VODKA OF THE RIGHTEOUS! APPLE TINIS OF THE JUST!

All in all this was a very, very enjoyable convention and I look forward to doing more Actual Volunteering next year! And maybe doing some actual readings or something. ‘Cause, like, I have a book and stuff.

Not doing anything in any sort of official “writer” capacity–but I’ll be showing up at various panels out of basic interest, and hope to see any of y’all who might be reading this there. 🙂 Look for me in particular at any panels where the redoubtable katatomic and jimbutcher are involved!

I’ll also have the last six Faerie Blood CDs with me, so if anybody who’ll be at the con wants one, bug me about that! And I’ll leave a lot of my business cards on the freebie table as well.

Please also do bug me if you want to meet up for a meal or a snack or something. Those of you who I know locally anyway probably already have my cell number for texting purposes. But if you don’t and you want it, shoot me an email with how I can reach you, and we’ll meet up! (Gmail is my preferred email address, annathepiper as always.) I’m busy early Thursday evening, when I’ll be having dinner with karenjunker. Then I’ll be playing backup guitar for my beloved solarbird later that same evening! But other than that my options are fairly open.

See you all there, I hope!

… and if you might happen to see me, please feel free to say hi. I won’t be doing anything formal-like related to the convention, I’m just attending like everybody else, but I’m in the mood to maybe see and talk to new faces. I’ll be seeing if I can show up at any e-pub related panels that might happen to be going on; failing that, I’ll probably be hanging out in suitable places to people-watch while I try to poke at words, either on my iPhone or my black MacBook. I’ll be the blonde chick in the dark blue-and-green velvet cap with a leaf pin on it. Chances that I’ll be wearing a Doctor Who shirt with David Tennant on it are extremely high!

So yeah. Hope to see some of you at the convention this weekend!