NECON 26

I imagine there’ll be a rash of NECON posts on LJ today. Mine will probably be less clear than the others. I got home at 11:30 pm last night and only got six hours of sleep, which brings my four-day total to about…seven.

No, not really, but the cumulative lack of sleep (five hours was a good night) and more alcohol than usual has me feeling pretty ragged today. Good thing I had the presence of mind to write my Storytellers Unplugged essay last week, so all I had to do today was post it and add some italics here and there. If I’d had to compose something this morning it would have been the literary equivalent of static.

NECON was excellent, as always. In four years of going, there hasn’t been a clunker. Getting to see all the old familiar faces again—there’s nothing to compare. I won’t list names; y’all know who you are (and I’d probably forget someone). Meeting new folks is great, too, like PS Publishing’s Peter Crowther—silver medal in darts and all round good sport and pleasant gentleman, Edward Lee (who I’d met in passing at a WHC a couple of years ago, but this was the first time I got to talk with him), and Sarah Langan, who has a new book called The Keeper coming out this fall and her story of how she went from sending around query letters for five years to getting a publishing contract with a major publisher is inspiring.

And then there’s the in-between land, where you get to meet face-to-face people you’ve corresponded with online for months or years. That one’s a little stranger for me because I have a hard time often putting face to posting name. There were several times during the weekend when a little light bulb would go on (an alcohol-powered bulb, to be true) where I’d go, “Oh, that’s who you are!”

NECON had all the usual festivities: the mass dinner on Thursday, followed by the Saugie roast (glorified hotdogs) in the quad, panels, mass signings, film screenings, sports activities, talent show, artist reception, roast, etc. I hardly skipped a thing, and I ended up on one extra panel (writers with day jobs) when half the panelists didn’t get back from mini golf on time.

What happens at NECON stays at NECON, but I can spill a few moments: Nick Kaufmann chaired the Saturday morning early panel, which was jokingly named in his honor as a poke at his unfondness of getting up that early. Craig Shaw Gardner, Dan Booth and P.D. Cacek came up with the idea of arming the audience with “valuable prizes” in the form of superballs. Someone drew a bullseye target on the board behind Nick’s spot, and Nick “cooperated” by showing up a few minutes late, which meant the whole gag ended up very well coordinated. Moments after our eminent moderator seated himself, someone counted down 3, 2, 1 and the whole audience pelted him with these little rubber balls, which aren’t exactly soft and it seemed like a few members of the audience put a little English on their throws, too. The rest of us on the panel took cover to avoid collatoral damage.

Deep Throat Elmo will probably be making his presence known on the internet shortly. It was one of those 2 am gags that was far more hilarious than it had any right being. Just thinking about it now makes me giggle, which leads me to think that the hilarity comes more from sleep deprivation than intoxication. F. Paul Wilson’s turn as a NECON Whore was among the funniest sight gags of the weekend, but the four-day weekend had a lot to laugh at, including Tom Monteleone’s softball team, of which I was a member. My shining moment was the fact that I didn’t strike out to end the game. I left that up to whoever batted after me and took my walk to first with pride.

My voice is gravelly today because I talked more in those four days than I do in a good month otherwise. It’s such a glorious time. It may take me three more days to recover, but it was worth every moment.

Accent Literary Review is finally back after a prolonged hiatus. The reviews in the new issue are a little dated, but the next issue should have more current material. My contributions are: City of Falling Angels by John Berendt, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, Cell by Stephen King, Glass Soup by Jonathan Carroll, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, Fortunate Son by Walter Mosley.