Barbara Monajem's visit was scheduled for today but has been delayed until October 8 due to a scheduling conflict.
Those of you who're around here regularly probably remember Trish and I go to Dragon*Con every year. For five years, I volunteered in Nancy Knight's excellent Writer's Track, but I stopped when my guys started going to the con with me. This year, with the boy in college and the dh behind in class prep from the Great Move of Boy Property, I went to Atlanta by myself.I like to be involved in the con, so I volunteered for both the Writer's Track and the Daily Dragon, the con's newspaper (most of it is online). I interviewed writers, mostly, but I also had the chance to chat with Barbara Vey about her blog, Beyond Her Book, and Debra Dixon about Bell Bridge Books, which sponsored the Writer's Track.
I also got to cover panels for Battlestar Galactica and Sanctuary. Thanks to my DD credential, I had a backstage seat for BSG (very hard to hear back there, since the sound system is aimed away from you) and a spot in the front row for Sanctuary (much better audio, and I was a mere ten feet from one of my SF heroines, Amanda Tapping--photo courtesy of Trish Milburn).
I glanced around as a woman in the uniform of Merlotte's Diner (from HBO's True Blood) walked by, and I thought, Gee, she looks like Trish. She turned to go to her seat, and I discovered she was Trish.Not wanting to give up my precious front row seat, I phoned her from thirty feet away, and we connected after the panel for dinner. Thousands of people in the ballroom, and the only two banditas still connected!
We headed for the extremely overcrowded food court between the hotels, hunting for a spot along with Jedi, storm troopers, super-heroes, anime characters, barbarians, elves, gaming characters, Starfleet officers, and a host of others. To envision the food court, think Times Square on New Year's Eve but with a low ceiling and people constantly going back and forth to get food. The only commodity more valuable than a table is a chair.
I did email interviews before the con with S. M. Stirling, who writes alternate history, and frequent Lair guest Laura Anne Gilman. Thanks to a GRW buddy, I connected with C. L. Wilson to talk about the Tairen Soul series and what's next for her. She's doing a stand-alone, The Winter King, and then will return to the Fading Lands for Bel's and Gaelen's stories.
The interview with Barbara Vey happened purely by chance. I missed the parade because I needed to meet a friend at that time, and I made the mistake of walking into the Hyatt lobby five minutes after the parade ended and what appeared to be a large chunk of the planet's population seemed to have magically teleported in. Barbara was also struggling through the press but graciously agreed to seek out a quiet corner and chat.
Debra Dixon kindly took a few minutes from preparing her presentation to talk about Bell Bridge books and small-press publishing. She said one reason Bell Bridge decided to sponsor the Writer's Track is that the parent company, Belle Books, was born in a hotel room during DragonCon.
About halfway through the sleep-deprived weekend, I had the idea of blogging about being a Daily Dragon reporter. I'd spent the time surrounded by super-heroes, like Lois Lane, so the perfect finish for the blog, it seemed to me, would be a photo of me with Superman. Like Lois, y'know?
I saw Superman, with Zatanna the Magician, early in the con and took this photo. After I decided I needed a picture of myself with the Man of Steel, I did not see Superman again. At Dragon*Con! Hard to believe, I know. I did see Zombie Superman, but that wasn't really the look I wanted.I mentioned this to my roommate, Debbie, as we were going up to our room about 11:30 Sunday night. A guy in the elevator said, "Superman was in the bar. With a slave-girl Leia, like, five minutes ago. A good-looking Superman." So we got off at the next floor, rode, down, and hit the bar.
No Superman.
The cop in the bar allowed as how he hadn't seen Superman in a while. We checked around on the next level down (2 bars there), but we couldn't find him. The people hanging over the escalator railing to people-watch hadn't seen the Man of Steel either--though one of them said he'd seen a "pod" of Supermen, five or six, traveling together during the weekend. Naturally, I never saw them! The cops by the escalator also had not seen Superman. I asked one of the cops how long he'd been there. He sighed and said, "a looong time."
At least with Superman, you don't have to describe him. Everybody knows who you're looking for. At this point, I was ready to give up, but Debbie was on the scent. "The Marriott!" she said. "More people in costume there."
So across the sky bridge (still heavily traveled though midnight had now come and gone) we went. We spotted one Superman whose costume wasn't really all that great and decided to look farther. We did see a comic-book-perfect Captain America, minus his helmet, but Lois doesn't hang with CA. She hangs with Supes."Look!" Debbie grabbed my arm. "Superman's tights and boots!"
Sure enough, they were, as we discovered when we squeezed through the crowd. However, this Superman had dispensed with the shirt and cape and had painted the big red S on his bare chest. A very nice chest, to be sure, but again not the look I wanted.
At this point, nearing 1:30 a.m., we conceded defeat. I was so fixated on finding Superman, I didn't think to have Debbie take a photo of me wearing my DD credential. With everyone leaving the next morning and the costumes packed away, I never did find Superman. But that's okay. In the olden days of the DC Universe, Lois didn't snag Superman, either.
For more information about Dragon*Con, click here. If you'd like to read the stories I wrote for the Daily Dragon, click here.
Have you ever gone on an obsessive hunt for something? If so, did you find it? Is there an event you try to attend every year, just because you love it?
The winner of the August 26 blog about summer vacation will be posted just before midnight tonight. Apologies for the delay!
